Snow Hill Normal and Industrial Institute

W.J. Edwards founded Snow Hill Institute in Alabama in 1893 for the descendants of African slaves. He established a trade and agricultural school with grades one to twelve based on a model of Tuskegee Institute. Consuela Lee, a jazz pianist, composer and granddaughter of W. J. Edwards, returned home to Snow Hill in 1980 to reopen the school after the state of Alabama used a desegregation edict to close it in 1973. Snow Hill Institute for the Performing Arts was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.

The Snow Hill Institute of Cultural Arts and Heritage is a 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is education, research and the preservation of the history of William J. Edwards and the Snow Hill Institute.