Rooks Turner was born free on October 24, 1844, in Pasquotank County, North Carolina. He was the ninth of the twelve children of Daniel and Peggy (Margaret) Turner. Rooks' father was an African American preacher and farmer who already owned $400 of real estate in 1850. Because of his race, Rooks could not attend school and had to go and work on the farm.
In 1869, he was admitted to a grammar school opened by the Freedmen's Bureau and sponsored by the New York Freedmen's Commission. He excelled in his studies and was indicated by Thomas W. Cardozo, principal of the school, to attend Howard University's Preparatory Department.
The Howard University Preparatory School functioned similarly to a high school and prepared students for college admission. Rooks Turner successfully finished the preparatory course and was admitted to the university. He completed his college degree in 1877 and returned to North Carolina, where he went into teaching.
On May 10, 1880, he married Elizabeth Sessoms Freeman from Camden County, North Carolina. They would have four boys: Shelby, Rooks Jr., Arthur, and Lorenzo Dow. Shelby died early in 1883, and Rooks Jr. died of tuberculosis in 1912. Arthur and Lorenzo Dow would graduate from Howard University.
Rooks Turner was a very successful teacher, so much so that two elderly women in the mid-20th century remembered his efforts to make education available to African Americans. Nevertheless, in 1896, after a fight with a white man, Rooks Turner had to leave Elizabeth City overnight to save his life.
He came to Washington, DC, where he went on to get a Master's Degree from Howard University and to teach in the segregated schools of Montgomery County. The family was reunited for a short time in 1901, but the marriage had been irreconcilably broken. Although Rooks and Elizabeth Turner never divorced, they lived apart after that.
Rooks Turner died on July 22, 1926. He drowned in Rock Creek in an incident that the family believed was a suicide. He had been very despondent with the loss of his leg to diabetes and of the manuscript of his autobiography in a fire.
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