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< Back Food Workers at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill ​ Photograph:Food Workers at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill protest their working conditions and employment terms under SAGA Food Services. Fifty years ago, food services workers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill went on strike for better wages and working conditions. The Black Student Movement supported the strike, which put a spotlight on labor and racial inequities at the university. On Sunday, Feb. 23, 1969, food workers at Lenoir Dining Hall set up their dining stations as usual. But when their supervisor, Ottis White, opened the cafeteria doors around 4 p.m. and students began shuffling in, the workers left their positions behind the food stations and sat down at the cafeteria tables. The employees refused to move, even as students surrounded them, banging their trays on the counter and demanding to be served. The following morning, nearly 100 Lenoir employees refused to report to work, marking the beginning of UNC’s first major labor strike. “The strike was a result of UNC cafeteria workers not receiving adequate responses from the University administration to grievances that they had submitted previously,” UNC archivist Nicholas Graham said. Among these grievances were inadequate pay, innacurate job classifications and poor treatment by supervisors, all of which were highlighted by workers months before the strike began. n October 1968, dining hall employees sent a list of 21 suggestions to improve their work conditions in a memorandum addressed to the “Employers of Lenoir Dining Hall.” Their suggestions were ignored, and later that month, food service director George Prillaman laid off 10 employees after a major drought halted dishwashing operations. Following Prillaman’s actions, workers turned to students — specifically the newly formed Black Student Movement — for help. “One of the things that the Black Student Movement did early in their tenure was issue a series of demands to the University administration for better treatment for Black students on campus, more resources on campus, a number of different things in the interest of Black student life on campus,” Graham said. “Their demands also included support for African-American workers on campus and also community members.” In fall 1968, nearly 100 percent of UNC’s non-academic staff members were Black, while less than 1.5 percent of enrolled students were Black, according to UNC Libraries. Although desegregation was the official stance of the University, some believed that the treatment of Black students, staff and community members by UNC suggested otherwise. “Early on, very early on in its tenure, the student leaders in the Black Student Movement were engaged in advocating for African-American workers on campus,” Graham said. A core group of food workers, led by employees Mary Smith and Elizabeth Brooks, joined forces with BSM leader Preston Dobbins and planned the Feb. 23 demonstration. In the days following the demonstration, students stood outside Lenoir distributing pamphlets about the strike. Because it was unoccupied at the time, Manning Hall was transformed into a temporary dining hall called the Soul Food Cafeteria where strikers served meals to students boycotting Lenoir. In early March, after UNC Chancellor Carlyle Sitterson refused to meet with workers because of student involvement in the strike, protesters took a different approach. Strike-supporting students entered Lenoir and took their places in the serving lines among their classmates. They proceeded to purposefully slow down the service provided by the few remaining workers and took up entire tables with nothing in hand but a glass of water. On March 4, 1969, the strike gained the attention of North Carolina’s Gov. Robert Scott. “A scuffle broke out (in Lenoir) and many of the student protesters overturned tables,” Graham said. “This was portrayed by some media as a kind of a riot, or a more violent outburst. The reaction around the state was pretty angry from a lot of people.” In an attempt to keep Lenoir from closing, Scott sent five units of riot-trained Highway Patrol officers to the campus and announced that the National Guard was standing by in Durham. But rather than quell the situation, the Governor’s intervention prompted more students and faculty members to become active in the protest. Following Scott’s actions, the food workers formed the UNC Non-Academic Employees Union. The union’s requests included a $1.80 per hour minimum wage (approximately $12.47 in 2018), the appointment of a Black supervisor and adequate pay for overtime work. Scott agreed to the demand of a wage increase and the strike ended on March 21, 1969. “(The strike was) something that did not happen just out of the blue here at UNC,” North Carolina Collection gallery keeper Linda Jacobson said. “It was something that was going on across the South and it was part of a bigger movement by African-American workers across the South who were striking for better wages, and it was happening right in the midst of all that.” Although Scott agreed to provide higher wages and better working conditions for UNC’s non-academic employees, the food workers struggle for fair treatment did not end there. In May 1969, UNC ceased University-operated dining services and entered into a contract with a company called SAGA Food Services. On Nov. 7, after SAGA issued layoffs and some of the Governor’s promises for better working conditions were still unfulfilled, 250 of UNC’s 275 food workers declared a second strike. The second strike showed similar patterns as the first. It was centered on justice for Black non-academic employees and included significant involvement from students and faculty. UNC’s BSM told SAGA they planned to hold a protest in the Pit on Dec. 8 if working conditions were not improved. The second strike ended on Dec. 9, 1969 after an agreement was signed between SAGA and union representatives. In January 1970, SAGA announced they would not renew their dining contract with the University. In honor of the 50th anniversary of the strikes, University Libraries has curated a special exhibit titled “Service, Not Servitude: The 1969 Food Workers’ Strikes at UNC-Chapel Hill.” Located in Wilson Library, the exhibit is free and will be open to the public until May 31. On March 20, the PlayMakers Repertory Company will perform “Voices from the Archives: The 1969 UNC Food Workers’ Strike.” The performance will take place in Wilson Library’s Pleasant Family Assembly Room and is free to the public. Graham said he thinks this is an important moment in the history of the University and it laid the groundwork for future protests and advocacy by campus workers. “We're especially excited to have this opportunity to talk about the work on campus that may often go unseen and unheralded,” he said. Source:https://www.dailytarheel.com/.../lenoir-workers-strike-0229 Previous Next

< Back Bennett Belles from Bennett College For Women-1937- ​ Photo: Bennett Belles from Bennett College For Women-1937-Students protesting Jim/Jane Crow laws enforced by the Carolina Movie Theater in Greensboro, NC-photographer unknown. ------ The Power of Black Women’s Political Labor Remembered Bennett College and the Civil Rights Movement By Jennifer Ash — March 9, 2018 Greensboro, North Carolina, is best known for the 1960 sit-ins that sparked a massive student movement to desegregate the South. Despite not being fully acknowledged as leaders in that movement, Black women students from Bennett College were vital to the political climate that made the sit-ins possible and sustained the local movement in the years after. Several Bennett Belles, as they are called, organized actions that have gone unnoticed and nearly lost to history as their contributions have been overshadowed by a male-centered narrative focused narrowly on what took place at the Woolworth’s lunch counter on February 1, 1960. One of these events is a 1957 boycott of the Carolina Theatre. In April 1957, clergymen were invited to a screening of the film The Ten Commandments at the segregated Theatre. Most ministers entered the building using the customary procedures of segregation. However, Reverend Melvin C. Swann, the well-known Black minister of Bethel AME Church, attempted to enter the Theatre “on a non-segregated basis,” through the entrance reserved for whites. Swann was denied entry and left the Theatre, refusing to sit in the segregated balcony. His story traveled down the street to nearby Bennett College, one of two historically Black colleges for women, very quickly. The educational model the institution embraced, which called for Black women to engage in civic matters, made it a well-positioned space for political organizing. Bennett Belles sprang into action and seized the opportunity to galvanize their community around Reverend Swann’s experience. According to archival records, the students consulted with Edward Edmunds, a trusted professor and political organizer. For his part, Edmunds told them to talk to President Willa B. Player. In their first meeting with Player, students expressed concern about the timing of events. Spring break was approaching and soon students would leave town. Player told them that they would have to disregard time and make a decision. After much discussion, they decided to move forward despite the risks. She advised the group to poll their sister Belles, as well as male students from nearby North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College (now N.C. A&T State University) and local clergymen, to determine how many would support an organized effort to refrain from attending the Theatre. Before they knew it, Grace Dungee, Paula Edmunds, Ann Stewart, Delores Tonkins, Sonja Weldon, Yvonne Griffin, Wilhemina Bundy, Janice Robinson, Joan Jenkins, and Sonja Louden were planning a boycott. As student organizer Delores Tonkins described it, “this is not a movement of revenge. We are not rushing to the side of noble Reverend Swann. This is a passive Christian movement.” When Bennett women visited church congregations to gain support for the boycott, they explained, “It is our purpose to develop within ourselves a greater sense of moral worth and human dignity by refusing to pay for humiliation and by refusing to accept second-class citizenship through attending segregated theaters. We believe that segregation in any form is a direct violation of Christian principles and diminishes our stature as women.” Because their college placed a special emphasis on respectable behavior, a perfectly coiffed feminine aesthetic, and an educational model that was deeply connected to the communal expectations of Black women as “uplifters” of their race, students also experienced segregation as a slap in the face to their accomplishments and their status within their community as women. While the 1957 boycott did not result in the desegregation of the Carolina Theatre, it was these sorts of campaigns and actions that laid a solid foundation for what was to come in the early 1960s. Additionally, 1957 was not the first or last shining moment of Bennett Belle leadership. Twenty years prior, in 1937, they organized pickets at the Carolina Theatre to protest the theatre’s practice of removing film scenes that portrayed African American actors in less subservient positions. In the late 1950s, Bennett students like Rosalyn Cheagle were sent to Highlander Folk School to train in the techniques of non-violence. They formed a chapter of the NAACP and worked with church congregations to organize actions and campaigns for racial justice. Two students, Shirley Hawkins and Jean Neff, participated in the 1960 conference at Shaw University where SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) was founded. Many Bennett alumnae have repeatedly testified about their involvement in the planning phase of the sit-ins in late 1959. Alumnae like Linda Brown, valedictorian of the class of 1961 and the College’s Willa B. Player Distinguished Professor of Humanities, have told their stories in oral history interviews, newspaper articles, and books, and yet their legacy has yet to be fully realized. In ironic similarity to decisions they faced about the timing of the boycott in 1957, Bennett Belles were forced to decide if they should wait until winter break was over to carry out their plans for a sit-in. According to their testimony, Dr. Player advised them to wait until they returned in January of 1960 to continue their plans. Heeding her advice they postponed any action. Gender influenced how the sit-in movement and other campaigns played out in Greensboro, and how they are remembered. Many organizers regarded Bennett women, and women in general, as liabilities to the movement. As Dr. Esther Terry, class of 1961 and former President of Bennett explained in an oral history interview: “And Dr. [Hobart] Jarrett had said to them, “Well, you girls shouldn’t get engaged in doing that alone,” because, you know, this is the “girls must be protected,” right? So, they were encouraged to invite the A&T boys to sit with them and to plan this sit-in and what it would be, because, you see, we’re talking about something that could be very dangerous.” The cautionary advice of Jarrett, and the more conservative opinion that women should not be on the front lines at all, was prevalent throughout the movement. A few days after four young men from North Carolina A&T sat down at the Woolworth’s lunch-counter, Bennett women joined them. Their actions quickly attracted large numbers of college-age demonstrators. Many were women from Greensboro’s surrounding colleges and universities. The Intercollegiate Council for Racial Equality formed and Bennett women served in leadership positions. Bennett Student Government President Gloria Brown co-chaired the planning committee for mass demonstrations with A&T student Edward Pitt. In addition to participating in the sit-ins, Bennett women organized and executed a voter registration campaign called Operation Doorknock, in the spring of 1960. Operation Doorknock was a community wide effort that sent Bennett students into surrounding working-class Black neighborhoods to register eligible voters. Voting was not unheard of in Greensboro’s Black community, and the danger African Americans faced for registering to vote in places like Mississippi, was not typical in Greensboro. However, this campaign was significant because it challenged notions of class divide. Bennett women, who were seen as the epitome of middle-class respectability, entered the homes of their working-class neighbors and accompanied them to registration sites at nearby community centers. As Dr. Player stated, these efforts challenged, “the separation of town and gown.” In the spring of 1960, as the sit-ins were in full-swing, Bennett women picketed businesses by day and registered voters by night. Their activism continued and between 1963 and 1964 hundreds of Bennett women were arrested and jailed for participating in demonstrations. Every year on February 1, ceremonies of remembrance take place to honor the sit-in movement. Each year Greensboro pays tribute to the four North Carolina A&T State University students—all young Black men—who sat down at that lunch-counter on February 1, 1960. And rightfully so. Their actions were incredibly brave, honorable, and influential. As time has progressed, more Bennett women have shared their stories as well. Currently there are at least five academic historians who are researching and writing about activism at Bennett College. These new narratives that analyze Bennett Belles’ contributions are important for several reasons. Many historians have made it their mission to locate Black women’s stories in the archives and ensure their contributions are incorporated into the mainstream narrative. It is necessary to acknowledge the contributions of Bennett women in order to develop a more accurate narrative of the past; one that shows how notions of gender influenced organizing strategies and memories of what happened. When we acknowledge their labor, we gain a fuller picture of how the movement unfolded and the foundations that were laid early on. We see how the racialized and gendered experiences of Black women under white supremacy were often galvanizing points for whole communities to defy segregation and racial violence. How Black women’s political labor has been remembered in Greensboro is indicative of a larger narrative problem of the civil rights movement and of history in general. We often look to single leader narratives, or four leaders in this case, and too often those leaders are men. But as Ella Baker said, “the movement made Martin, and not Martin the movement.” And quite often, it was Black women who generated and sustained the local movements that made the men. Jennifer Ash is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of History and a Graduate Concentrator in Gender and Women’s Studies, at the University of Illinois, Chicago. *Posted with permission from the author* Source: http://www.publicseminar.org/.../the-power-of-black.../ Previous Next

Activism Back to Social Justice & Activism 1. FREEDOM RIDERS Stopped Through Greensboro ​ Read More 1. Wilmington Ten ​ Read More 2. FREEDOM RIDERS Stopped Through Greensboro ​ Read More 2. Wilmington Ten ​ Read More 3. Wilmington Ten ​ Read More A Safe Place to Fill Up ​ Read More Andrea Harris ​ Read More Andrea Harris ​ Read More Ann Atwater ​ Read More Anna Julia Cooper ​ Read More Anna Julia Cooper, activist and teacher at M Street High School in Washington, D.C., is well known for articulating a black feminist stance in her book, A Voice from the South (1892). ​ Read More Bennett Belles from Bennett College For Women-1937- ​ Read More Bennett College Students ​ Read More Bree Newsome ​ Read More Cameron Village Sit-In ​ Read More Cameron Village Sit-In. ​ Read More Carolina Theatre round robin protest, 1962 ​ Read More Devon Henry ​ Read More Dr. Willa Johnson Cofield ​ Read More Fannie Lou Hamer ​ Read More Fannie Lou Hamer ​ Read More Fannie Lou Hamer ​ Read More Food Workers at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill ​ Read More Food Workers at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill ​ Read More Freedom Riders ‘surrendered’ in Hillsborough N.C. Arrested & Placed in Bl/Wh Chain Gangs. 2 Year Protest v Seg. Buses. ​ Read More Greensboro Six ​ Read More Journey of Reconciliation members in 1947 ​ Read More Journey of Reconciliation members in 1947 ​ Read More Journey of Reconciliation members in 1947. The Journey of Reconciliation is also referred to as the first Freedom Ride. ​ Read More Mary McLeod Bethune ( left). One of the African American unions formed in the U.S. (right) ​ Read More Moranda Smith ​ Read More Percy High (L) & City Recreation Director Jimmy Chambers (R) ​ Read More Piedmont Leaf Tobacco Plant Strike, 1946 ​ Read More R. Kelly Bryant, Jr. ​ Read More Royal Ice Cream Company shop protesters in 1957 ​ Read More Sanitation Workers Strike in Rocky Mount, NC. ​ Read More William C. Chance ​ Read More William J. Barber II ​ Read More Willie Gertrude Brown ​ Read More

< Back 1. Wilmington Ten ​ Photo: The Wilmington Ten Do you know who the Wilmington Ten are and what they stood for? Part One “THE STORY OF THE WILMINGTON TEN” TIMELINE September, 1968— Williston Senior High school, a prominent all-Black high school was suddenly closed in order to integrate its 1100 students into the two white high schools. The sudden closing angered many in the Black community who felt that while it was inevitable and desegregation was necessary, it did not have to and should not have occurred in the sudden and traumatic manner in which it did. December 18, 1970—Black students upset over treatment at New Hanover High School, which was one of the newly integrated schools, gather at the nearby Wildcat Café . Seventeen students, all of whom were Black, were arrested after reportedly refusing to disperse. Of the seventeen arrested, 11 were expelled following an investigation by principal John Scott. Scott had previously been labeled a racist by most of the black students. January 15, 1971—After numerous appeals to school administrators to allow a memorial service for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were all rejected, seventy Black students stage a sit-in at Hoggard High Schools cafeteria. This peaceful protest led the expulsion of 15 students who were identified as leaders of the protest. January 26, 1971—Eight students form a boycott committee which drew up a list of grievances to present directly to Heyward Bellamy, superintendent of schools. January 29, 1971— A white minister, Rev. Eugene Templeton invites about 100 Black students to gather in Gregory Congregational Church (United Church of Christ) to begin a school boycott. February 1,1971 - Heyward Bellamy meets with students at Gregory to discuss grievances. Rev. Templeton calls Rev. Leon White of the United Church of Christ-Commission for Racial Justice to ask for assistance for the students in presenting their grievances. White dispatches his field organizer Rev. Benjamin F Chavis, to Wilmington. February 2,1971- Ben Chavis along with student leaders hold a press conference at Gregory to present their grievances, demanding that the expelled students be reinstated immediately. February 3,1971- Frustrated by the seeming lack of concern of the part of the Board of Education to provide an acceptable response to the students grievances, the students marched some 500 strong to the Board of Education demanding to speak to Bellamy. Bellamy agrees to meet with Chavis and two of the students. Chavis refuses, saying all the student leaders should be present. That night Chavis holds a rally at Gregory encouraging the students to continue their struggle for equality in the schools. Students scramble for cover as shots are fired at the church. Later that night several buildings are burned to the ground including L. Swartz Furniture with damages estimated at over $130 thousand dollars. February 4,1971 Certain that there would be bloodshed accompanying the widespread violence, Rev. Templeton calls for a curfew. City Manager E.C. Brandon, speaking on behalf of Mayor Luther Cromartie and Chief Williamson, said afterward, “There was no evidence of any impending racial clashes or violence against the church. That Rev. Templeton has nothing to worry about,” later adding, “the police appear to be on top of the situation.” Mayor Cromrtie refused to grant a curfew saying that it would be “ not only inconvenient but expensive.” Responding to that comment, Chavis, along with several hundred students, march on City Hall to plead with the mayor to call a curfew. The mayor refused. February 5, 1971— —About 400 Blacks march on City Hall demanding better protection for Blacks in Black neighborhoods. On the steps of City Hall, with hundreds of students chanting “We want action!” Chavis demanded that the mayor and chief of police call a curfew. When the city again refused to declare a curfew, Chavis, after a phone conversation with a major from the state Highway Patrol, said “ I want to publicly charge the mayor and the city council with conspiracy, in setting up the Black community for annilhilation.” A Black minister, Rev. Vaughn, is shot outside of Gregory Church by white vigilantes as he tries to persuade men who were protecting the church to leave the church and go home. Lum’s Restaurant burns to the ground, and police and firemen responding to another fire at Mike's Grocery Store say they are fired upon by snipers. February 6 , 1971— Mike’s Grocery burns to the ground after being torched for a second night. A 17-year-old Black youth, Steven Corbett, is killed by police who say they were returning sniper fire from the vicinity of Mike's Grocery Store. Feb, 7 1971 HARVEY CUMBER GUNNED DOWN! When Harvey Cumber, a 57 year-old white male, drove through the barricade and began shooting, his life came to an abrupt end as someone behind the barricade returned fire. It was then that city officials decided that was time to call a curfew. When Steve Corbetts had died less than twenty-four hours earlier, Mayor Cromartie said Corbetts "will serve as a deterrent". A decision to bring in the National Guard was announced at 3:00 P.M. The curfew was announced shortly after 7:00 P.M. It was in effect from 7:30 P. M. Saturday till 6:00 A. M. Monday. May 1971- Allen Hall charged with burning Mike’s Grocery. Says he and Ben Chavis burn store. March 6, 1972—North Carolina officials arrested Rev. Chavis on "conspiracy to murder" charges stemming from racial incidents in Wilmington in February 1971 in which Harvey E. Cumber, a 57-year-old white man was killed. Other charges against Rev. Chavis were: assault on emergency personnel, conspiracy to assault emergency personnel, burning property with an incendiary device, conspiracy to burn property with an incendiary device. Bail for Rev. Chavis was set at $ 75, 000. The same charges were brought against Marvin Patrick, an associate of Rev. Chavis and Tommy Atwood. Others were arrested. The five others were: Connie Tyndall, James McKoy, James Bunting Michael Peterson Cornell Flowers, Jerry Jacobs, Willie E. Vereen and Anne Shepard, a white woman. All except Ms. Shepard were charged with arson and conspiracy to assault emergency personnel (firemen and policemen). She was charged with conspiracy to burn property and conspiracy to assault emergency personnel. April 24, 1972—Joe Wright, George Kirby and Reginald Epps arrested on charges of conspiracy to assault emergency personnel and conspiracy to burn property. May 1, 1972— Wayne Moore the last to be arrested. Trial for Rev. Chavis and the others charged with conspiracy to assault emergency personnel and arson postponed until a federal judge rules on a petition to remove the trial to federal court. Attorneys for the defendants had asked for a delay to prepare their case but had been refused by the State of North Carolina. The petition to federal court provided the defense attorneys some additional time to prepare the defense. June 12, 1972—Mistrial declared for Rev. Chavis and the other defendants charged with conspiracy to assault emergency personnel and arson when the prosecutor becomes "ill. " Ten Blacks and 2 Whites had been seated in the jury box and accepted by the defense, but the prosecutor had not agreed to accept them. June 16, 1972—Chavis and 12 other persons charged with offenses in the Wilmington violence released on bail. October 17, 1972—Chavis and the "Wilmington 9" convicted on charges of conspiracy to assault emergency personnel and burning with an incendiary device. Anne Shepard convicted on charges of "accessory before the fact" of firebombing. Her original charges had been reduced sometime after the mistrial was declared. Chavis was sentenced to 25-29 years for arson, and 4-5 years for ..." End of Part One--Part Two Continued with Next Photo of The Wilmington Ten Previous Next

< Back 2. Wilmington Ten ​ Photo: SEATED (L to R) – Margaret Jacobs, mother of deceased Wilmington Ten member Jerry Jacobs; Marvin Patrick of the Wilmington Ten; Mary Alice Jervay, NNPA Board member and publisher of The Wilmington Journal; Fran Farrar, publisher of the County4You News; James McKoy, Wilmington Ten member; Willie Earl Vereen, Wilmington Ten member; Connie Tindall, Wilmington Ten member. STANDING (L to R) – Pastor John Thatch and his daughter Shawn Thatch from the Wilmington Journal; Dorothy Leavell, NNPA Board member and publisher of the Chicago Crusader; Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., Wilmington Ten member; unknown female; Rev. Kojo Nantambu, president of the Charlotte NAACP; Cloves Campbell, Jr., chairman of the NNPA, and publisher of the Arizona Informant; John B. Smith, NNPA member and publisher of Atlanta Inquirer; Jan Perry and Judy Mack, daughters of deceased Wilmington Ten member Anne Shepard; LAST ROW STANDING (L to R) – Unknown male; attorneys Irving Joyner and James Ferguson; Peter Grear, publisher of Greater Diversity News; and Willie Moore, brother of Wilmington Ten member Wayne Moore, who could not attend. Photo by: John Davis/Wilmington Journal ---------- Part Two-The Wilimington Ten Continued October 17, 1972—Chavis and the "Wilmington 9" convicted on charges of conspiracy to assault emergency personnel and burning with an incendiary device. Anne Shepard convicted on charges of "accessory before the fact" of firebombing. Her original charges had been reduced sometime after the mistrial was declared. Chavis was sentenced to 25-29 years for arson, and 4-5 years for conspiracy to assault emergency personnel. The sentences are to run concurrently and therefore total 29 years. Other sentences were: Marvin Patrick and Connie Tyndall, 22- 26 years for fire bombing and 4-5 years for conspiracy to assault emergency personnel; Jerry Jacobs, 22-26 years for arson and 3-5 for conspiracy to assault emergency personnel; Willie E. Vereen, Reginald Epps, James McCoy, Joe Wright and Wayne Moore 20- 24 years for arson and 3-5 for conspiracy to assault emergency personnel; Anne Shepard, 7-10 years. Bonds for the defendants were: Ms. Shepard, $20,000; all others except Rev. Chavis, $40,000-$45,000; Rev. Chavis, $50,000. Dec. 1972-UCC Executive Council, complying with promise to support staff arrested in the line of duty, post $50,000 bond for Chavis. June 17, 1973, Angela Davis holds rally at Antioch Church Of God In Christ in support of the Wilmington 10 June 1973- UCC General Synod votes to borrow $350,000 bail to free the nine defendants still in prison December 1974. North Carolina Court of Appeals affirms the convictions. May 1975. North Carolina Supreme Court refuses to hear the case. November 17, !975- The Hon. Charles B. Rangel enters the Wilmington 10 case into the Congressional Record January 1976 - U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear the case. Wilmington 10 are jailed, without bail. August 1976. Witness Hall admits he lied in implicating the 10. January 1977. A second prosecution witness admits he lied, accusing the 10 in exchange for a mini-bike and job from the prosecutor. February 1977. The third and only other prosecution witness with knowledge of the crimes indicates serious irregularities in his testimony. May 9,1977 Civil Rights Activist Angela Davis and U.S Rep. Don Edwards, express support for the Wilmington 10 standing on the Pender County Courthouse steps at Post Conviction hearing. May 20, 1977- Activist trial lawyer William Kunster says he sees the 10 case as part of a federal conspiracy launched by the Nixon administration. May 1977. Despite the recantation of all three key prosecution witnesses, new defense testimony, and the contention of more than 2,000 legal irregularities in the original trial, Superior Court Judge George Fountain finds “no denial” of the constitutional rights of the Ten and denies them a new trial and bail. January 1978- After a year-long personal review of the case, North Carolina Governor James B. Hunt refuses to pardon or free the 10 and reduces sentences of 20-25 years to 13-17 years. Anne Sheppard had been paroled by that time. The other nine remained in prison. February 1978 - 55 congressmen sign a petition urging U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell to direct the Justice Department to intervene in Federal Court on behalf of the Wilmington 10 May 3,1978 - Congressional delegation including John Conyers, Ron Dellums and Don Edwards, visit members of the Wilmington Ten in prison. July 15, 1978- Speaking in Paris, France, U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young says there are “hundreds, perhaps thousands” of political prisoners in the United States. July 17, 1978- Gary Indiana Mayor Richard Hatcher supports Young’s position, saying Young was “telling the truth” and that the presence of political prisoners in U.S. is a “known fact”, citing the Wilmington 10 case and the case of Reuben “Hurricane” Carter as examples. July 31, 1978 - The Wilmington Ten are the first group of prison inmates in the United States of America to be officially declared “political prisoners” by Amnesty International in 1978. This conclusion by Amnesty International was published and distributed worldwide November 15, 1978 - U.S Justice Department files a petition in Federal Court stating that it had uncovered evidence that indicates the Wilmington 10 were denied a fair trial in 1972. It petitioned the court to either throw out the state convictions or hold a hearing on the government’s findings. December 4, 1980 - U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the convictions of the Wilmington Ten, citing gross misconduct on the part of the prosecution in obtaining convictions. Source: http://ftpcontent4.worldnow.com/.../W-10%20TIMELINE.pdf Previous Next

< Back 3. Wilmington Ten ​ The Wilmington Ten In May 2012, Benjamin Chavis and six surviving members of the group petitioned North Carolina governor Beverly Perdue for a pardon. The NAACP was supporting the pardon, as well as compensation to be paid to the men and their survivors for their years in jail. On December 22, 2012 The New York Times published an editorial titled, "Pardons for the Wilmington Ten" that urged Governor Perdue to "finally pardon" the group of civil rights activists. Perdue granted a pardon of innocence on December 31, 2012 which qualified each of the ten to state compensation of $50,000 per year of incarceration. The claims were approved by the NC Industrial Commission and signed off on by the Attorney General, Roy Cooper's office in May 2013. Total compensation was $1,113,605: Ben Chavis received $244,470.00,Marvin Patrick received $187,984.00 with most of the remaining rewards being $175,000.00 each. Four of the Wilmington Ten are now deceased and their families received no compensation. A case is currently pending before the NC Industrial Commission seeking that compensation be awarded to the families of the four deceased; Jerry Jacobs, Ann Shepard, Connie Tindall, and Joe Wright. (Information obtained from an article in the Charlotte Observer Newspaper Friday, February 14, 2014) -------- Forty years after they were convicted by a jury of firebombing a grocery store in Wilmington, North Carolina, civil rights activists who became known as the "Wilmington 10" were pardoned Monday by the state's outgoing governor Beverly Purdue. "These convictions were tainted by naked racism and represent an ugly stain on North Carolina's criminal justice system that cannot be allowed to stand any longer," said Gov. Beverly Perdue. "Justice demands that this stain finally be removed." In 1972, nine black men and one white woman were convicted in the store firebombing in the coastal city despite their claims of innocence and their supporters' vehement argument that the defendants were victims of racially biased prosecutors. Their sentences were reduced in 1978 by the state's governor then, Jim Hunt, and two years later their convictions were overturned in federal court for reasons of misconduct by the prosecutors. But until Monday there were no pardons, and the sting of the guilty verdicts still followed the six surviving members of the group that was known nationwide as the Wilmington 10. Perdue said that among the key evidence that led her to grant pardons of innocence were recently discovered notes from the prosecutor who picked the jury. The notes showed the prosecutor preferred white jurors who might be members of the Ku Klux Klan and one black juror was described as an "Uncle Tom type." Perdue also pointed to the federal court's ruling that the prosecutor knew his star witness lied on the witness stand. That witness and other witnesses recanted a few years after the trial. Timothy Tyson, a North Carolina historian and a visiting professor at Duke University, said he was given the notes two years ago and started to go through them recently when the NAACP called again for pardons for the Wilmington 10. "It was pretty shocking stuff," he told CNN on Monday. There were at least six potential jurors with "KKK Good!!" written next to them, he said. Next to a woman's name it said, "NO, she associates with Negroes." On the back of the legal pad, the prosecutor, Jay Stroud, had apparently written the advantages and disadvantages of a mistrial, Tyson said. One of the advantages was a fresh start with a new jury. Stroud told the Wilmington StarNews in October that the handwriting on the legal pad was his, but people were misinterpreting his notes. "I could have had an all-white jury, but I didn't want to do that. Why would I leave a KKK on the jury?" Stroud said. He told the newspaper that he wanted "blacks who could be fair" on the jury. It was actually the second jury that ruled on the case. The first jury was dismissed after a mistrial was declared when Stroud said he was ill. That jury had two whites. Tyson said the early 1970s were "really hard and really bad" and a "bubbling cauldron" of racially heated struggles in the state. North Carolina had the largest number of Ku Klux Klan members in the country, he said, but there was also a strong African-American freedom movement. "(The time) was seething with anger and resentment and fear and rage," he said. And one of the Wilmington 10 was the Rev. Benjamin Chavis, whom Tyson described as a handsome, fearless civil rights leader who came from a brilliant family. He was a threat to the "old guard" of North Carolina leaders. Chavis was a target for police even before the firebombing occurred, Tyson said. Chavis, who would become the head of the NAACP in 1993, was paroled in 1979. Most of the others involved in the case struggled after they were set free. "Things went badly for them," Tyson said. "Many of them had their health broken in prison." Source: https://www.cnn.com/.../north-carolina.../index.html Previous Next

< Back Fannie Lou Hamer ​ "On this day (June 9th) in 1963, Fannie Lou Hamer and other activists were arrested in Winona, Mississippi, as they returned from a voter registration workshop. They had been traveling in the "white" section of a Greyhound bus. The police took the activists to a jail, where they ordered male inmates to take turns beating the women. Hamer needed more than a month to recover from her extensive injuries. The march continues." Previous Next

< Back Fannie Lou Hamer ​ Courage Speaks Backed By Truth! "...It seem like to tell the truth today is to run the risk of being killed. But if i fall, I'll fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for Freedom, I'm not backing off!" -- FLH Previous Next

< Back Anna Julia Cooper ​ "On August 10, 1858, Dr. Anna Julia Cooper was born enslaved in Raleigh, NC. Dr. Cooper received a scholarship to Saint Augustine's Normal School at the age of 9 years old, she was one of the first students to matriculate from there. She is the 4th African American Women to receive her Ph.D., when she earned it from the Sorbonne in Paris France. Dr. Cooper has been honored as the 32nd recipient in the USPS Black Heritage Stamp Series, and she is the only woman with a quote on the US Passport." --- Anna "Annie" Julia Cooper was born into enslavement in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1858 to Hannah Stanley Haywood, an enslaved woman in the home of prominent Wake County landowner George Washington Haywood. Either George or his brother Fabius J. Haywood are thought to be Cooper's father. Cooper worked as a domestic servant in the Haywood home and had two older brothers, Andrew J. Haywood and Rufus Haywood.. Andrew was a slave of Dr. Fabius J. Haywood, and he later served in the Spanish–American War. Rufus was also born a slave and was the leader of the music group Stanley's Band. In 1868, when Cooper was nine years old, she received a scholarship and began her education at the newly opened Saint Augustine's Normal School and Collegiate Institute in Raleigh, founded by the local Episcopal diocese for the purpose of training teachers to educate former slaves and their families. The Reverend J. Brinton offered Cooper a scholarship to help pay for her expenses According to Mark S. Giles, a Cooper biographer, "the educational levels offered at St. Augustine ranged from primary to high school, including trade-skill training." During her 14 years at St. Augustine's, she distinguished herself as a bright and ambitious student who showed equal promise in both liberal arts and analytical disciplines such as math and science; her subjects included languages (Latin, French, Greek), English literature, math, and science. Although the school had a special track reserved for women – dubbed the "Ladies' Course" – and the administration actively discouraged women from pursuing higher-level courses, Cooper fought for her right to take a course reserved for men, by demonstrating her scholastic ability. During this period, St. Augustine's pedagogical emphasis was on training young men for the ministry and preparing them for additional training at four-year universities. One of these men, George A. C. Cooper, would later become her husband. He died after only two years of marriage. Cooper's academic excellence enabled her to work as a tutor for younger children, which also helped her pay for her educational expenses. After completing her studies, she remained at the institution as an instructor. Cooper is a graduate of St. Augustine College , Class of 1882. In the 1883–84 school year she taught classics, modern history, higher English, and vocal and instrumental music; she is not listed as faculty in the 1884–85 year, but in the 1885–86 year she is listed as "Instructor in Classic, Rhetoric, Etc.] Her husband's early death may have contributed to her ability to continue teaching; had she stayed married, she might have been encouraged or required to withdraw from the university to become a housewife. After her husband's death, Cooper entered Oberlin College in Ohio, where she continued to follow the course of study designated for men. Her classmates were Ida Gibbs (later Hunt) and Mary Church Terrell. After teaching briefly at Wilberforce College, Cooper returned to St. Augustine's in 1885. She then went back to Oberlin and earned an M.A. in Mathematics in 1887. She later moved to Washington, DC – where she would develop a close friendship with Charlotte Forten Grimké – Cooper began teaching at M Street High School, becoming principal in 1901. Cooper made contributions to social science fields, particularly in sociology. She is sometimes called "the mother of Black Feminism." A Voice from the South During her years as a teacher and principal at M Street High School in Washington, D.C., Cooper completed her first book, A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South, published in 1892, and also delivered many speeches calling for civil rights and women's rights. Perhaps her most well-known volume of writing, A Voice from the South is widely viewed as one of the first articulations of Black feminism. The book advanced a vision of self-determination through education and social uplift for African-American women. Its central thesis was that the educational, moral, and spiritual progress of black women would improve the general standing of the entire African American community. She says that the violent natures of men often run counter to the goals of higher education, so it is important to foster more female intellectuals because they will bring more elegance to education. This view was criticized by some as submissive to the 19th-century cult of true womanhood, but others label it as one of the most important arguments for black feminism in the 19th century. Cooper advanced the view that it was the duty of educated and successful black women to support their underprivileged peers in achieving their goals. The essays in A Voice from the South also touched on a variety of topics, such as race and racism, gender, the socioeconomic realities of black families, and the administration of the Episcopal Church. Source: Hutchinson, Louise Daniel (1981). Anna J. Cooper, A Voice From the South. Washington: Anacostia Neighborhood Museum of the Smithsonian Institution. OCLC 07462546. "George Washington Cooper". Geni. 2015. Retrieved December 27, 2018. ""This Scholarly and Colored Alumna": Transcriptions of Anna Julia Cooper's Correspondence with Oberlin College". www2.oberlin.edu. Retrieved April 18, 2019. Robbins, Hollis; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., eds. (2017). The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers. New York: Penguin. p. 414. ISBN 9780143105992. OCLC 951070652. "Foundations of African-American Sociology". Hampton University Department of Sociology. Hampton University. Archived from the original on March 6, 2017. Retrieved March 5, 2017. From Melvin Barber; Leslie Innis; Emmit Hunt, African American Contributions to Sociology "Anna Julia Cooper, 1858-1964". The Church Awakens: African Americans and the Struggle for Justice. The Archives of the Episcopal Church DFMS/PECUSA. 2008. Retrieved August 26, 2016. North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources. "Anna J. Cooper 1858-1964". Retrieved December 26, 2018. Giles, Mark S. (Fall 2006). "Special Focus: Dr. Anna Julia Cooper, 1858–1964: Teacher, Scholar, and Timeless Womanist". The Journal of Negro Education. 75 (4): 621–634. JSTOR 40034662. Hutchison (1981). A Voice from the South. pp. 26–27. Martin-Felton, Zora (2000). A Woman of Courage: The Story of Anna J. Cooper. Washington: Education Department, Anacostia Neighborhood Museum of the Smithsonian Institution. p. 14. OCLC 53457649. Catalogue of St. Augustine's Normal School, 1882–99. Internet Archive. Raleigh (N.C.): St. Augustine's Normal School and Collegiate Institute. 1899. Retrieved March 23, 2016. Dyson, Zita E. (2017) [c. 1931]. "Mrs. Anna J. Cooper". Gabel, Leona (1982). From Slavery to the Sorbonne and Beyond: The Life and Writings of Anna J. Cooper. Northampton, Massachusetts: Smith College. p. 19. ISBN 0-87391-028-1. Evans, Stephanie Y. (2008). Black Women in the Ivory Tower, 1850–1954: An Intellectual History. University Press of Florida. ISBN 978-0-8130-4520-7. Smith, Jessie Carney (1992). "Josephine Beall Bruce". Notable Black American women (v1 ed.). Gale Research Inc. p. 123. OCLC 34106990. Busby, Margaret, "Anna J. Cooper", Daughters of Africa, London: Jonathan Cape, 1992, p. 136. . Previous Next

< Back Andrea Harris ​ DURHAM, N.C. (WTVD) -- Andrea Harris' legacy of economic development and minority enterprise commands attention. For more than three decades, Harris has been a giant in building North Carolina's black wealth. In 1986, she co-founded The Institute -- a nonprofit minority-economic-development office in the heart of Durham's historic Black Wall Street. A building they own. Her passion and drive to close the minority wealth gap has garnered her multiple business and leadership awards -- including multiple Orders of the Long Leaf Pine -- the state's highest honor. "I didn't do anything by myself. I got to enjoy all of the fruits of a whole lot of people's labor," Harris said, with her typical humility. Her team's mission at The Institute: bring lawmakers, banks and business leaders to the table -- challenging them to do better. Many of those discussions happen in The Institute's boardroom. "When you are the only voice in the room, you need to make sure you are clear where you stand and that they understand on the front end. I'm just not in this space to be here. So if I'm going to be in the room let's be clear. That I am clear about why I'm here," Harris said. Harris is humble but intense. "I've been in meetings where I had to say 'Whoa ... go girl,'" co-founder Lew Myers said about Harris' fierceness. Myers said Harris' honesty, directness and compassion always brokered the deal. "I mean, she is the epitome of what we would like leaders to be," Myers said. Part of Harris' leadership strategy at The Institute is generating financial support for minority businesses and HBCUs, all while building relationships. "I consider Andrea to be the mother of minority enterprise," said former Durham Mayor Bill Bell. Bell said that in 2003, his community development firm, UDI, called Harris when the company struggled to secure a major grocery chain on its property near North Carolina Central University. "She opened doors for us. We got a Food Lion. They came," Bell said. Christopher Rivers met Harris nearly a decade after he had just gotten out of prison. Harris gave him a job at The Institute. "I've seen her make countless decisions. None of which start with herself," Rivers said. He said the experience at The Institute led to him starting his own licensed construction firm, The Christopher Building Co., which now employs up to 20 people. "It's an emotional thing because I don't know how I would have become the person that I am but from my connection to her. Literally," Rivers said. Today, Harris is retired from The Institute, but she hasn't left completely - she still uses her voice for her community. "I still sit on an economic board where I am the only female and the only minority in the room and this is 2019," Harris said. Her advice to women and people of color is, "That we've still got some work to do." Harris says back in the 1980s, the State of North Carolina was doing less than 1 percent of its business with minorities and women. Today, Harris says that number is up to 15 percent. *NOTE Click Source Link To View Video * Source:https://abc11.com/5158338/... Previous Next

< Back Moranda Smith ​ -Moranda Smith was a black labor organizer and unionist who served as the first regional director of Winston-Salem, North Carolina's local 22 of the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural and Allied Workers of America (FTA) in the 1930 and 1940s. -Born of a sharecropping family in South Carolina, Smith led thousands of Winston-Salem workers to win $1,250,000 in back pay in the leaf houses and stemmeries. In 1943, after a Black worker fell dead at a Reynolds Tobacco Company plant, Smith, along with thousands of other Black women, participated in a spontaneous sit-down leading to a massive walkout forcing Reynolds to temporarily shut down. Her leadership at the local 22 saw a 50% rise of minimum wages. The union also increased voter registration in the area, leading to the election of the first Black alderman in the South. Throughout her career as a unionist, Smith worked extensively, "openly defying" the Ku Klux Klan. ------ Moranda Smith was a union organizer and leader of tobacco workers in North Carolina, who throughout the 1940s initiated a challenge to the racial discrimination, disfranchisement, and economic exploitation of workers in the South By Dawn Ziegenbalg Feb 5, 2017 (Editor’s note: This story originally ran in the Winston-Salem Journal on April 30, 2000. “Civil Rights Unionism: Tobacco Workers and the Struggle for Democracy in the Mid-Twentieth-Century South,” by Robert Korstad, was published in May 2003.) Ku Klux Klan leaders in Apopka, Fla., didn’t want Moranda S. Smith to visit their town in the late 1940s. Smith was a black woman who had become a regional leader in the labor movement after helping her fellow tobacco-workers unionize at R.J. Reynolds in Winston-Salem. When Klan members heard of her visit to Florida, they tried to force a black worker into divulging her whereabouts. They beat him and threatened him, but he stayed silent. Smith heard of the attack and was furious. Her friends said she walked down the middle of the town’s main street to show that union members wouldn’t be intimidated. It was that same spirit that led Smith to help organize tobacco workers at Reynolds. The union movement began here in 1943, when an elderly worker died after a plant foreman refused to let the worker go home, according to a union newsletter. Thousands of women staged a spontaneous sit-down, which grew into a walkout of 10,000 workers. Reynolds’ plants shut down for several days until the company agreed to meet with a workers’ committee that was negotiating for better wages and working conditions. In 1944, thousands of workers — led by Smith and others — formed Local 22 of the Tobacco Workers International Union. The union won a three-year contract. In May 1947, after nearly nine weeks of haggling with Reynolds over a new contract, the workers struck. The walkout lasted for 38 days. But the walkout influenced more than a contract. Smith and others helped organize voter-registration drives. Soon, black voters had put the first black official on the board of aldermen, and later, on the school board. Smith was successful because she was persuasive, said her sister-in-law, Lucille Gwynn. “She had a gift of gab, and she did not mind facing tough issues,” she said. Smith was also literate and skilled, said Robert Korstad, an assistant professor at Duke University who is working on a book about Local 22. “She became one of the teachers who worked to educate some of the other workers,” he said. Korstad’s father, Karl Korstad, had been the southeast regional director of the international union, and Smith had served as his assistant. When he stepped down, Smith became the first woman to serve as regional director. On April 13, 1950, Smith died of a stroke at 34. Her funeral drew 3,500 people, both black and white. Singer Paul Robeson, who was a leader in the Progressive Party, flew in from New York to offer a eulogy. “It’s hard to believe that this person who has given so much to the Negro worker is gone, “ he said. “Yet there are thousands of us to carry on her labor. Her name will remain deep in the hearts, not of the Negro people, but all people. Source: https://www.journalnow.com/.../article_6f564830-e5e8-5e7c... Source: http://www.blackpast.org/aah/smith-moranda-1915-1950 Previous Next

< Back Ann Atwater ​ Photograph of Ann Atwater registering voters in Durham, N.C., December 1967. From the Billy E. Barnes Photographic Collection (P0034), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ann Atwater (July 1, 1935 – June 20, 2016) was an African American civil rights activist in Durham, North Carolina. Throughout her career she helped improve the quality of life for African Americans in Durham through programs like Operation Breakthrough (Durham, North Carolina), a community organization dedicated to fight the War on Poverty. Her bold, courageous, demanding, and assertive personality enabled her to be an effective activist and leader when advocating for black rights, such as better private housing. Atwater promoted unity of the working-class African Americans through grassroots organizations. She is best known for co-leading a charrette in 1971 to reduce school violence and ensure peaceful school desegregation, which met for ten sessions. She showed that it was possible for whites and blacks, even with contradictory views, to negotiate and collaborate by establishing some common ground. Operation Breakthrough When approached by Howard Fuller to join Operation Breakthrough, a program to help people escape poverty, Atwater found her life purpose. Operation Breakthrough helped people define and accomplish a series of tasks to build a pattern of achievement. It helped participants gain confidence that they could escape poverty and achieve change. People worked at job-training, took after-school tutoring, or became educated as to their rights. It was funded by the North Carolina Fund, a statewide program to improve education. Fuller met with each resident enrolled in Operation Breakthrough, getting to know them personally and helping identify issues to be fixed. One day when Atwater went to the welfare office to see if she could get $100 to pay her overdue rent and avoid eviction, she happened to meet Fuller. She showed him her house and he invited her to his program. The next day Atwater and Fuller went to Atwater’s landlord to demand repairs for her house and to Atwater’s surprise, her landlord agreed to fix some of her housing issues. To her knowledge, making demands from a landlord was unheard of and she had no idea that she had the right to do so.[7]Afterward she attended the Operation Breakthrough meeting and discussed how the poor had to work together to get the government’s attention to help solve poverty and what kind of concerns she had. That first Operation Breakthrough meeting marked the start of her involvement in helping the poor black community fight poverty. Gradually Atwater became a leader among the participants in Operation Breakthrough meetings. She represented poor people with housing problems and would go door-to-door telling others of her previous housing problems and how she was able to resolve them. She became an expert on housing policies, and copied and handed out welfare regulation manuals so people could learn their rights, such as being able to address their landlord about the conditions of their houses. Atwater mobilized poor blacks in Durham to help them stand up for themselves. Her goal was to teach the people the necessary skills to survive. Atwater fought against was the lack of respect that many whites showed blacks. She knew that welfare workers were guilty of this. For example, when addressing a white person, the welfare worker could politely call them over to the desk to privately ask “Your name? Your address?” When addressing black people the workers would holler at them across the room, “What you here for?” embarrassing the black client who was forced to explain their private issues in front of a room full of strangers. One tactic Atwater used to tackle this problem was power in numbers. In order to change how the welfare workers operated, she organized groups of women who visited the offices frequently and pushed for change. With her persistence, the office set up private booths for meetings with clients; these are still in use today. Involvement in Durham charrette In July 1971, Durham schools suffered from increasing racial tensions. Despite the 1954 US Supreme Court ruling that segregated schools were unconstitutional, and 1960s federal civil rights legislation, the schools were still segregated. The Durham district court had just ordered desegregation of schools, an action opposed by many residents. Students were getting into fights at schools over the issue. To manage the transition to racial integration, councilman Bill Riddick called a charrette. Those collaborative process involved ten days of town meetings to resolve issues related to implementation of the court order. Riddick recruited participants from all sectors of Durham, and invited Atwater to co-lead the charrette with C. P. Ellis, the Exalted Grand Cyclops of the Durham Ku Klux Klan at the time. Ellis regularly attended city council meetings, school board meetings, and county meetings to oppose civil rights and its activists. When Atwater had first met C. P. Ellis at a previous Durham city council meeting, she felt great resentment toward him. Ellis was known for making provocative and inaccurate remarks expressing his fears and resentments of blacks, such as: “Blacks are taking over the city. They got all the good jobs and you’re all sittin’ here letting ‘em do it” and said that black people should stay on the other side of the railroad because they had no business in town. Atwater initially declined to serve as co-chair, but reluctantly agreed to work with Ellis. He had similar feelings, saying, "It was impossible. How could I work with her? Atwater and Ellis came to realize some commonalities, among them that their children were ostracized because of the parents' working together. They wanted their children to attend schools free of violence. Ellis later said, “Here we are, two people from the far end of the fence, having identical problems, except her being black and me being white…The amazing thing about it, her and I, up to that point, [had] cussed each other, bawled each other, we hated each other. Up to that point, we didn’t know each other. We didn’t know we had things in common.” They talked about the hardships of raising children in poverty, and their efforts to emphasize their potential being equal to that of middle-class children. The two antagonists eventually learned to work together and, to everyone’s astonishment, became good friends. Moving past race, they began to focus on the other issues, such as the academic quality of Durham’s schools. Ellis came to realize that blacks were not suppressing poor whites, and that the two groups shared problems. Atwater had made Ellis begin to question his way of thinking towards blacks. By the end of the charrette, Ellis gave up his leadership in the KKK. By the end of the charrette, Atwater and Ellis presented the School Board with a list of recommendations, including giving students a larger say on education issues by expanding the board to include two students each of the major racial groups. They also proposed major changes in the school curriculum such as more instruction on dealing with racial violence, creation of a group to discuss and resolve problems before they escalated, and expansion in choices of textbooks to include African-American authors. Personality in connection with political career According to C.P. Ellis, Ann Atwater had a bold and strong personality. Her voice was deep and powerful and had the ability to energize her audience. These personality traits allowed her to be the effective leader she was. She was not afraid to voice her opinions loudly and proudly. She was also not afraid to tell anyone to “go to hell if she felt like it. She realized that the most effective method at getting people to listen to her was to “holler at them” When she called a meeting she meant business. In one meeting with a councilman, Atwater recalls that when he was not taking her seriously as she was trying to make her points, she would hit him on the head, surprising him so much that he would listen to her afterwards. In other situations like city council meetings, Atwater would express her opinions but the councilmen would not want to listen to a black women talk, so they would turn their chairs away from her. In response she would turn those chairs back around herself so they would face her. Her bold actions surprised many of the councilmen to the point that they had to listen to her. Some people may not have liked how demanding and outspoken she was, but those qualities enabled her to be the successful activist she was. Later life After Atwater co-led the charrette, she continued to work with the poor and middle-class black community in Durham. She married Willie Pettiford in 1975, and became a deacon at the Mount Calvary United Church of Christ. Atwater started working for the Durham Housing Authority in 1981. Due to an injury on the job, she was forced to retire, receiving medical disability from the Housing Authority in 1991. Over the years, Atwater received hundreds of awards and official accolades. The Carolina Times newspaper of Durham named her Woman of the Year in 1967. In July 1968, McCall’s published “The Ann Atwater Story.” In 1982, Rosa Parks herself bestowed Atwater the national Women in Community Service (WICS) Rosa Parks Award. Martha Villalobos, WICS national president, said of her nomination, "Ann Atwater was selected from many nominations submitted from across the country because of her extensive voluntary contributions to the poor and the disadvantaged which resulted in a positive influence on the lives of so many people.” In 1997, at the 62nd anniversary of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, of which Atwater was a member, she was recognized for being a lifelong peacemaker in the Durham community. In 2004, the Durham NAACP awarded her for years of work. Ann Atwater died June 20, 2016 at age eighty. After spending her life fighting for equal housing and anti-poverty initiatives, news stories about her towards the end of her life show that she was still struggling to pay her bills and relied on donations for some of her own food. When asked by Chris Gioia in a 1995 interview for the Southern Oral History Program why she was so successful, she responded, “Because I won't take no for an answer, that's why.” Howard Fuller told The News and Observer in 2016, “Ann Atwater is someone who really helped change the history of Durham.” The Durham Civil Rights History mural features Ann Atwater and C.P. Ellis in the upper left corner, in a scene working together at the School Charrette Headquarters. Source: Ann Atwater, interview by Jennifer Fiumara and Mary Cleary, The Southern Oral History Program at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, December 7, 1995. Ann Atwater, An Unlikely Friendship, Documentary, produced by Diane Bloom, 2002, New York: Film Makers Library, Film. Christina Green, Our Separate Ways: Women and the Black Freedom Movement in Durham, North Carolina (The University of North Carolina Press, 2005). Ann Atwater, interview by Jennifer Fiumara and Mary Cleary, The Southern Oral History Program at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, December 7, 1995. Robert R. Korstad and James L. Leloudis, To Right These Wrongs: The North Carolina Fund and the Battle to End Poverty and Inequality in 1960s America (The University of North Carolina Press, 2010) Ann Atwater, interview by Sean Aery, Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, February 1, 2006. Robert R. Korstad and James L. Leloudis, To Right These Wrongs: The North Carolina Fund and the Battle to End Poverty and Inequality in 1960s America (The University of North Carolina Press, 2010). Osha Gray Davidson, The Best of Enemies: Race and Redemption in the New South (UNC Press Books, 1996), accessed November 9, 2014. ISBN 978-1-4696-4662-6. Quotes1, Quotes2 Maegan Lobo-Berg, "The Reality of Self-Help in Durham’s Operation Breakthrough", December 2002, at To Right These Wrongs website; accessed 6 April 2019 Robert R. Korstad and James L. Leloudis, To Right These Wrongs: The North Carolina Fund and the Battle to End Poverty and Inequality in 1960s America (The University of North Carolina Press, 2010). Kevin Washington, “C. P. Ellis Says Klan Days Have Been Over for Awhile,” Black Ink, 7 December 1984, accessed November 10, 2014. Jean Bradley Anderson, Durham County: A History of Durham County, North Carolina (Duke University Press, 1990), accessed November 9, 2014. Robert R. Korstad and James L. Leloudis, To Right These Wrongs: The North Carolina Fund and the Battle to End Poverty and Inequality in 1960s America (The University of North Carolina Press, 2010). Cliff Bellarny, “Bold Measure for Difficult Times,” The Herald Sun, 12 December 2012, accessed November 10, 2014. "Durham civil rights leader Ann Atwater honored with Freedom Library". newsobserver. Retrieved December 19, 2018. Liddy, Chuck (June 20, 2016). "Durham civil rights activist Ann Atwater dies at 80". The News & Observer. Durham 150 (November 2, 2019). Durham 150 Closing Ceremony Program. Previous Next

< Back Royal Ice Cream Company shop protesters in 1957 ​ Photograph: Durham pastor and civil rights leader Rev. Douglas E. Moore gives communion to five of the seven local youths who sat-in at the Royal Ice Cream Company shop in 1957. Virginia Williams is wearing glasses Photo :Courtesy Virginia Williams and the Civil Rights Heritage Project, Durham County Library. --- BACKGROUND INFORMATION Durham, NC Segregation protest at an ice cream parlor located at Roxboro and Dowd Streets in Durham, N.C., June 23, 1957, led to court case testing dual racial facilities. The 1960 Greensboro sit-ins sparked a national movement but were not the first such action. Individual and group protest actions prior to 1960, generally isolated and often without wider impact, took place across the state and region. A protest in 1957 in Durham had wider consequence, as it led to a court case testing the legality of segregated facilities. The Royal Ice Cream Company had a doorway on the Dowd Street side with a “White Only” sign and, on Roxboro Street, a sign marked “Colored Only.” A partition separated the two sections inside the building. On June 23, 1957, Rev. Douglas Moore, pastor of Asbury Temple Methodist Church, and six others assembled at the church to plan the protest. The young African Americans moved over to Royal Ice Cream and took up booths. When they refused to budge, the manager called the police who charged them with trespassing. Newspaper coverage in the Durham-Raleigh area was mixed. The Durham papers printed the story on the front-page the next day but it was buried inside the Raleigh News and Observer; The Carolinian, an African American newspaper, placed it on the front page. The boycott and pickett protest campaign against Royal Ice Cream in Durham continued into the early 1960s. In 1962, as the Durham School Board began a plan for school desegregation, African American School Board member E. Eric Moore also protested a city contract that purchased ice cream for schools from the Royal Ice Cream Company. On June 24 the protesters were found guilty of trespassing and each fined $10 plus court costs. On appeal the case went to Superior Court and a jury trial. An all-white jury rendered a guilty verdict of trespass on each defendant. The case was appealed to the North Carolina Supreme Court that upheld the law regarding segregated facilities. On July 15, 1958, the seven protesters paid fines totaling $433.25. Attorneys appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court but the High Court refused to hear the case. --- *Article With Photograph* 'Before Greensboro’s Famous Lunch Counter Protest, Durham’s Royal Ice Cream Sit-In Quietly Sparked a Movement' IndyWeek By Victoris Bouloubasis JUN. 28, 2017 Virginia Williams celebrated her eightieth birthday this year. She also quietly celebrated another milestone. June 23 was the sixtieth anniversary of the Royal Ice Cream sit-in, where Williams and six other African Americans demanded to be served inside the segregated Royal Ice Cream Parlor in north Durham and were arrested for it. A historical marker at the corner of Roxboro and Dowd streets, where Union Independent School now sits, commemorates the 1957 sit-in, which is often overlooked in the narrative about civil rights demonstrations in North Carolina. The Woolworth's sit-in in Greensboro, which took place almost three years later, casts a long shadow. But the Royal sit-in, the first civil rights demonstration in Durham to result in arrests, was equally important for what it set in motion. In the fifties, when the Royal enjoyed packed lines after Sunday church services, two doors delineated who would be served where. On Roxboro, a "whites only" door opened into a parlor with a long counter and cozy booths. Around the corner, on Dowd, black customers ordered to-go from the back. Williams recalls that white customers would drive in from other parts of Durham to visit the shop, while the black children ran over from their homes across the street. "It sat in the heart of the colored community," Williams says. "They were in our area, taking our money. The dollars were green, just like theirs. But we couldn't sit in there." In May 1957, Williams, who had moved to Durham from rural Northampton County a year prior to take a food service job at Duke Medical Center, attended a meeting for young black people at the Southeastern Business College on Venable Street. The meeting's frank political discussion was a revelation to someone for whom activism had always been a more furtive affair. "We lived on farms owned by white people," she says. "On Sundays, grown men dressed up and quietly left the house. My mother knew, but she didn't tell us. I realized then that everybody's father was slipping off to these NAACP meetings." Williams had never heard of a sit-in but felt compelled to participate. The group met again on June 23 and settled on a nonviolent demonstration at Royal. The details were loosely planned. "We could have gone anywhere in Durham, but that is where we flocked on Sunday afternoons," Williams says. At about six forty-five p.m., the participants spread out across the shop while the waiter asked them, one by one, to leave. And one by one, Williams and her groupMary Clyburn, Vivian Jones, Claude Glenn, Jesse Gray, and Melvin Willisrefused. "By that time, the children of north Durham were at the windows peeping in," Williams says. "This was the 'hood, so the black children were walking over and looking." Eventually, the manager called the police. The cops arrested the seven for trespassing. The next day, they were charged. There was an all-white-jury trial, and each defendant was found guilty and fined. Their lawyers appealed. The N.C. Supreme Court upheld the law regarding segregated facilities. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case. The sit-in didn't garner much publicity. Williams recalls that it was a quiet summer and most students from the nearby colleges were out of town. Historians and community members attribute it to timing; sit-ins in the South weren't rampant at that moment. In her book Our Separate Ways: Women and the Black Freedom Movement in Durham, North Carolina, Christina Greene explores another reason: the tensions the Royal sit-in unleashed in the black community. She documents a schism in sentiments about radical tactics. "Mary Clyburn, who hid her involvement in the sit-in for many years, remembered the 'ugly faces' of blacks looking 'madder than the white folks,'" Green writes. Even though the sit-in failed to make headlines, it nonetheless generated urgency among some black activists. According to Greene, "it did point black Durham toward the community-based black boycotts and direct action protests of the sixties." These included regular picket lines outside the ice cream parlor, where participants were largely high school age and nearly half were women. Among the leading organizers was Floyd McKissick, whose legacy includes being the first African American admitted to UNC's law school. His son, state senator and local lawyer Floyd McKissick Jr., was four years old at the time of the Royal sit-in. The McKissick family lived off Corporation Street, just two blocks from the parlor. They were one of the first African-American families to own a home in a white neighborhood in Durham, McKissick says. "After school desegregation began in 1959, things were heightened in terms of awareness and sensitivity, and it's when we received the highest amounts of threats," he says. "Phone calls threatening to bomb the house. We actually would have people sitting on our front porch from dusk to dawn with shotguns to provide protection." McKissick points out that the progress made over the last sixty years won't necessarily continue. Vigilance is required. "The thing we cannot do today is become complacent," he says. "There's a strategic effort being made today by those who would like to see the Supreme Court reverse the progress we've made, to suppress votes. We have demographics on our side, due to the browning of America, but we need to be careful." Williams echoes the sentiment. "Don't come in and expect to be sitting at the head of the table," she says. "Put in the work. We still have a lot of work to do." Source: https://indyweek.com/.../greensboro-s-famous-lunch.../ Previous Next

< Back Bennett College Students ​ We all know about the four men students from A & T and the lunchcounter sit-ins. That story and photograph are rolled out every #bhm and on the anniversary of that sit-in happening. What many people do not know is that a portion of that story is always left out about the Bennett Belles from Bennett College For Women right down the street from A & T and how they were the ones who began protesting long before planning themeetings and gathering up the strudents to boycott and protest that lunchcounter. They invited the students from A & T, to participate with them. ---- Bennett College Students Played Key Role In Greensboro Sit-Ins. By: Rodney Overton Feb 25, 2017 GREENSBORO, N.C. (WNCN) -- On February 1, 1960, four African-American students from North Carolina A & T University sat down at the whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro, were denied service, but refused to leave until closing. Today, we know them as the Greensboro Four. But, what you might not know is that the next day, students from Bennett College, a historically black college for women, joined them. Those students are known as Bennett Belles. The sit-ins grabbed national headlines and eventually led to the desegregation of lunch counters at Woolworth stores. Two former Bennett College students who were part of the Greensboro sit-ins explained how it all happened during a meeting at the old Woolworth's lunch counter, now part of the International Civil Rights Center and Museum. "When you had to go inside and pull the shades until the Ku Klux Klan finished going through. Living under the laws of Jim Crow you didn't have a voice," said Emma Washington, an alumnus of Bennett College. Bennett College students Emma Washington and Dr. Linda Brown were going to be heard. They, along with other Bennett Belles and N.C. A&T students collaborated to put a stop to segregation. "People were very much socially aware that things were moving in the country," Brown said. Students from A&T, including the Greensboro Four, attended NAACP student chapter meetings at Bennett College and it was there in the fall of 1959 that they formulated their plan. "We were not stupid about what we were doing. Young, yes, and probably not as scared as we should have been," Brown said. But they knew the sit-ins had to be done. "I had ridden the back of the bus. I had gone downtown for the white and colored fountains," Washington said. Talk of their planned sit-in spread throughout the campuses. And on February 1st, 1960 the four African-American students from A&T sat down at the whites-only lunch counter. Bennett Belles were spotters, watching from the store. The next day, Bennett students also sat-in. Brown went the third day. "It was a knee-jerk decision," Brown said. "Someone said to me, 'We're going downtown, are you going with us?' I didn't think about it. I didn't hesitate. I just said, 'oh yeah'," Brown added. When the Bennett students sat down, the workers at the lunch counter said: "We don't serve you all. You know we don't serve you all," Brown recalled. "Sometimes there were people sitting at the counter. They'd just mumble stuff and they would get up and leave," Washington added. At times the situation became tense. "Sometimes the police would just stand behind you with their sticks and hit their hand like that. One time I thought, what am I going to do if he hits me with it," Washington said. "We were supposed to be reading. We were not reading," Brown said. "There was a waitress with a tray of knives who walked by us" and Brown said the knives were shaking. The waitress was more nervous than they were. "They were scared of us and we were nervous of them," Brown said. The Bennett students, in groups of five, went in shifts but never missed class. When their shift was over, others filled in. "There were five people behind us waiting to sit down and take our place," Brown said. Bennett College President Dr. Willa Beatrice Player, known for her activism in the civil rights moment, encouraged and supported her students. She resisted pressure from other local leaders to stop the demonstrations. She explained in an interview with the Greensboro News & Record years after desegregation. "They were being denied their equal rights both under the law and under their constitutional beliefs, and freedom of expression and that I defended them. What they were doing was not inconsistent with this and that I supported it," Player told the newspaper. Player made sure the sit-ins were structured and there were rules. One rule was that participants had to buy something at the store before sitting at the counter. After a few days, their safety became a concern as more and more white people showed up. The Bennett Belles were then required to take training sessions for non-violent participation. "How do you think you will react if someone spat on you or someone came and stepped on your shoes," Washington said. Not only did they sit at the diner, but they also picketed outside. They were trained to deal with taunting. "You held your sign, you walked the picket line and you looked straight ahead," Washington said. "I had the experience of hecklers. Young white guys in cars riding down Elm Street, and they were spitting and yelling obscenities," Brown said. Over the next few months about 250 Bennett Belles were arrested. Parents received Western Union telegrams like one in which Player wrote: "Your daughter is among student demonstrators who refused bond and accepted arrest." While incarcerated, Player made sure the Bennett Belles didn't fall behind in their studies. "She collected your assignments, and she brought it and when you finished she came to pick it up," Washington said. "My parents were afraid," she added. "What my mother said to me was, 'OK, if you're going to do this then be sure to say your prayers before you go, because we'll be praying for you'. " These trailblazers, the Bennett Belles and other students, were heard. Woolworth lunch counters integrated on July 25, 1960. "It was like my living has not been in vain. It was all worth it," Washington said. The last time Washington was inside a Woolworth store diner was shortly after it was integrated the fall of 1960. "Today, for me it was like wow! This is strange. This is weird," Washington said in the museum where the lunch counter is now kept. "That moment I knew I was going to participate, was a moment of my spiritual growth. I knew that from that moment on, I was going to move on," Washington said. Similar protests followed in towns across the south. #BennetteBelles #greensboroSitIns #BlackWomenLead #TellTheWholeTruth #BlackHertory #bhm #BlackHistoryMonth #DrLindaBrown #civilrights # Source:https://www.cbs17.com/.../bennett-college.../1016934489... Previous Next

< Back Willie Gertrude Brown ​ On Friday, 04.20.1888, W. Gertrude Brown was born. Willie Gertrude Brown was an African American activist for racial justice and the rights of children and women. Although little is known of her formative childhood years, it is certain that Brown’s Charlotte, North Carolina education was impacting on her values and career. From 1906 to 1911, then known as Willie G. Brown, she was enrolled at Scotia Seminary in Concord, NC. This was a school founded by the Presbyterian Church to educate newly freed African American girls; Mary McLeod (Bethune) was a former graduate. The curriculum there was designed for Black women in the south to learn and to serve their people by educating them. After graduation in 1911, Brown became a teacher in the Charlotte public school system where she spent six years. She entered social work as a friendly visitor for the Associated Charities for two summers then worked at the Traveler’s Aid desk for another year, all in her hometown. Brown founded the first hospital for African Americans in Charlotte and that city’s Sabbath School Association. While working in these capacities, she continued her education. Brown took courses at the Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro in 1913, at Cheyney Institute for Teachers in Pennsylvania in 1915, and at Hampton Institute in 1918. In 1919, she moved to Dayton, Ohio. There she worked at the Linden Community Center, first as Director of Girls and Women’s work for three years, then as executive secretary for two more years until 1924. She was also executive secretary of Federation of Social Services for Negro Women in Dayton. Continuing her education, Brown studied at the Playground and Community Center in Atlanta, GA., in 1919, and in Chicago in 1920. In 1923, she received a B.S. from Columbia University. In the fall of 1924, W. Gertrude Brown moved to Minneapolis to head the Phyllis Wheatley Settlement House. While directing the programs there, she took summer courses at Oxford University and traveled in circles of those who were interested in combating racism in America. The Paris conference of settlements was held in June of 1926 and attended by 250 delegates from twenty countries. Brown was one of about 30 American representatives who came away excited about the show of peace and cooperation from delegates from around the world. Unfortunately, back in the United States, even among her white colleagues, she would remain a second-class citizen and viewed as having questionable ideas. She resigned as director of the Phyllis Wheatley House in 1937 and moved to Washington, D.C. W. Gertrude Brown died in an automobile accident in 1939. Reference: Black Women in America An Historical Encyclopedia Volumes 1 and 2, edited by Darlene Clark Hine Copyright 1993, Carlson Publishing Inc., Brooklyn, New York ISBN 0-926019-61-9 ------ The Phyllis Wheatley Settlement House in Minneapolis was established in 1924 by a coalition of Black and white women to serve primarily African Americans. Under the leadership of Head Resident W. Gertrude Brown, a Black social worker originally from North Carolina, the house rapidly expanded its programs and facilities, serving both as a settlement house for its immediate neighborhood and as a social and agitational center for the city's entire Black population . For many Blacks, Phyllis Wheatley Community Center was a safe port in the midst of a racially segregated city. In fact, it was the only place where visiting Blacks could stay in Minneapolis because hotels were segregated. A. Phillip Randolph, while organizing the Pullman Porters, often met at the house. Other influential individuals who stayed at the settlement house’s transient bedrooms included W.E.B. Dubois, Marian Anderson, Langston Hughes, Roland Hayes, Ethel Waters, the Mills Brothers, the Ink Spots, Paul Robeson, Richard Harrison and others. In its early years, Phyllis Wheatley was a safe place for young African American women to seek shelter, receive guidance and marketable skill development. Gradually, the agency became the center of the African American social scene and it evolved into a home-away-from-home for numerous African-American civic leaders, educators, entertainers and students. The Wheatley, as it was affectionately called, was the only place in Minneapolis where non-whites were permitted to lodge during those days. Today Phyllis Wheatley programs address the needs of children, youth, families and elders by providing tailored education and skill building opportunities to help individuals and families discover their strengths, develop their personal networks of support and take control of their futures. The second home of Phyllis Wheatley Community Center on Aldrich Avenue North housed its Mary T. Wellcome Child Development Center, a gym, auditorium, and apartments. Built in 1929, the building was later demolished to make way for Interstate 94. Phyllis Wheatley Community Center was recognized by the Minnesota Historical Society in conjunction with Minnesota’s sesquicentennial celebration and highlighted in the MN150 exhibit from 2008 -2011 as one of “the 150 people, places and things that shaped our state”. The year was 1924. W. Gertrude Brown, a Black from Dayton, Ohio who graduated from Columbia University and studied at the University of Chicago, was the first head resident. She was a personal friend of Jane Addams and she had a wide range of experience in settlement work before coming to Phyllis Wheatley. In his autobiography, Overcoming, Mr. W. Harry Davis recalled that Miss. Brown built a Center that would train young black people for leadership in the community, for college and professional positions. He wrote, “Miss Brown helped shape our attitudes about white people in a way that kept us from becoming racist.” Needing a larger facility in 1928, Mary T. Wellcome, whose sister, Laura Taylor was President of the Wheatley Board, donated $10,000 to the Phyllis Wheatley Settlement House. A capital campaign followed with a goal of $95,000. Blacks gave $3,972.41 and that sum was matched by Mrs. H.G. Harrison, who had promised to match each dollar given by Blacks with one of her own. The Wellcome sisters each gave $5,000 and their brothers $500, bringing the Wellcome family total to $25,000 in donations. Phyllis Wheatley Settlement House was quite literally the center of the north Minneapolis African American community prior to World War II. The House provided education, recreation, day care, temporary housing and public meeting space. W. Harry Davis wrote: “During the 40’s young African American men were encouraged to jump at the chance at good-paying jobs. Some of the new black hires in defense plants felt as much discomfort as did the white people working alongside them. They too had racially insular lives. But that had not been the case with me. From the time I started Michael Dowling School as a kindergartner, I frequently had been in situations in which my skin color was different than those around me. Every school I attended had been integrated. Meanwhile at Phyllis Wheatley, I had experienced the comfort and confidence building that comes from associating with people of my own race. Through Wheatley athletics, I met white kids from other settlement houses around the city. I learned what it meant to show respect to all people. I began my career with determination and considerable optimism… ” Although Phyllis Wheatley’s original buildings were demolished in 1970 when I-94 was built, a range of quality programs in education, early childhood development and family programs continue to strengthen and empower families in the greater Minneapolis area. Each program reflects the treasured history of the Phyllis Wheatley Settlement House. Phyllis Wheatley Trailblazers Trailblazers is a special identification that can be attributed to a person who historically and or/now is the first. Like Phillis Wheatley, the first African American to have her poetry published, the Wheatley Trailblazers are the ones who start the imprint on the fabric. The fabric is our culture, metaphorically speaking, and this imprint continues and it is woven and carried on by others. Trailblazers are people who contribute to the human community, to humanity and in many, many areas. They bring hope and inspiration to others; they are many. Marian Anderson Marian Anderson, the internationally known contralto, stayed at Phyllis Wheatley just weeks before she became the central figure in a notorious bit of discrimination in Washington D.C. where she was denied use of the Daughter’s of the American Revolution (DAR)’s performance hall because she was black. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the DAR in protest and arranged for Anderson to sing at the Lincoln Memorial instead. W. Harry Davis wrote, “Her Easter Sunday open-air concert in 1939 became a triumphant celebration of liberty and justice for all and sealed her place in the nation’s civil-rights history". The events in Minneapolis in February foreshadowed that episode. Marian Anderson had been in Minneapolis and had stayed at Phyllis Wheatley. But this time she tried to reserve a room at the Dyckman Hotel, one of the city’s finest, on Sixth Street between Nicollet and Hennepin. Her request was denied. The Women’s Christian Association (WCA), to its credit, was the first to register public protest. It was also most likely the first protest involving Phyllis Wheatley youth. Davis continued, “some of us had come to know her when she stayed at the Phyllis Wheatley during earlier visits to the city, and we sat in on her rehearsals". Staff members at Phyllis Wheatley, Leo Bohannon and John Thomas, said, "you guys are teenagers now. You’ve come through the NAACP's Leadership Program. We’ve taught you about civil rights". The next day they were carrying signs in front of the Dyckman Hotel. It was the first time I had done such a thing, and it felt good. We walked alongside members of the senior NAACP, as well as white people who supported our cause. I met the legendary Rabbi Roland Minda and recognized members of the WCA whom I had seen at Phyllis Wheatley. A few days later we got word that the WCA had negotiated with the Dyckman Hotel and that Marian Anderson would be able to stay. We were pleased and proud that we had played a role in making that change.” – W. Harry Davis. Clyde Bellecourt Clyde Bellecourt, who worked for Northern States Power, and his brothers were in the Golden Gloves Boxing Program. Davis wrote: “they had a dream to extend the benefits of the civil rights movement to Native Americans". They wanted to organize AIM, the American Indian Movement. They needed time away from their jobs to do it. Together we approached Steve Keating at Honeywell and Don McCarthy at NSP and persuaded them to make Clyde and Dennis loaned executives at the Urban Coalition. They had a variety of jobs, but their main assignment was to create an organization that would advocate for full civil rights for Native Americans. Mr. W. Harry Davis Mr. W. Harry Davis, who passed away in July of 2006, was a Trailblazer. He was the first African American to chair the Minneapolis Public School Board and he served 21 years on the school board. Mr. Davis was the first African American to run for the office of Mayor with major party backing in 1971. “He overcame poverty and segregation and campaigned for racial progress and reconciliation”, former Vice President Walter Mondale said about W Harry Davis. “He’s been one of the voices for civil rights, sanity and decency in the community.” Harry Davis mentored Richard Green who went on to become the first Black superintendent in Minneapolis schools and later headed the New York City Schools. Davis’ autobiography, "Overcoming", devotes a chapter to his growing up at the Phyllis Wheatley Center and includes many, many references about the Phyllis Wheatley Community Center and its impact in his life and others. At the Phyllis Wheatley Community Center’s current location, Mr. Davis Chaired the Phyllis Wheatley Board and served as a Board Member of the Minneapolis Public Schools, Theartrice (T) Williams was the Executive Director of the Center at that time. He left in 1972 to become Minnesota and the nation’s first Ombudsman for Corrections. Other Trailblazers Trailblazer women who are with us today include Mrs. Marion McElroy, first African American woman to be employed by Northwestern Bell and Ms. Bertha Smith, who walked from north Lyndale Avenue to the University of Minnesota, was the first African American hired as a teacher in the Minneapolis Public Schools. Other Trailblazers include the first African American couple to receive a loan to open their successful hair business, the first woman hired by the Minneapolis Public Library, and Mr. Earl Miller who was the first African American President of the Postal Workers Union. Golden Gloves Boxers were made famous at Phyllis Wheatley. Mr. Larry Brown was a Golden Gloves Boxer at Phyllis Wheatley who went on to work in East Africa helping emerging governments with tax policies. This is a sampling of the noted individuals who were a part of the Phyllis Wheatley Community Center and Mary T. Wellcome's Child Development Center. Many were or are the first African Americans in their professional fields of endeavor. Their lives touched and impacted the social, economic, business, and education institutions that benefited our entire community. Their influence is well documented. The Minnesota Historical Society has a significant collection of artifacts from what is now known as the Phyllis Wheatley Community Center. South Hill Films has produced a video documentary on this historically important agency entitled "The Heart of Bassett Place: W. Gertrude Brown and the Wheatley House". The video is in DVD format and is available for purchase from the Minnesota Historical Society. Source:http://phylliswheatley.org/history ------ The Heart of Bassett Place: W. Gertrude Brown and the Wheatley House Documentary In the early 20th century, community centers called settlement houses were established across America. This documentary relates the history of one such facility—the Phyllis Wheatley Settlement House, known in its time as “the greatest settlement house in the U.S. for Negroes.” The program profiles its first director, W. Gertrude Brown, who touched the lives of generations of African-Americans, and describes life at the Minneapolis center. The history of 20th-century African American culture is paralleled, since many social and artistic leaders—including Paul Robeson, Langston Hughes, Marian Anderson, and W. E. B. Dubois—called the Wheatley House their second home. Previous Next

< Back Sanitation Workers Strike in Rocky Mount, NC. ​ "Labor activism was brewing in the South in the 1970s, and North Carolina was the scene of several strikes. The continuation of that civil rights movement was felt in Rocky Mount with a sanitation workers’ strike that started in July 1978. Their efforts to win dignity and to build leaders was recognized today September 7, 2019, with a N.C. Highway Historical Marker at the BTW Community Center, 727 Pennsylvania Ave., Rocky Mount. Accusations against a deeply religious worker named Alexander Evans, called Preacher, was the catalyst for the workers actions. Sanitation workers had long salvaged discarded goods, and Evans distributed them to the needy in his community. That summer a supervisor asked of any of the staff had picked up a suit in a wealthy neighborhood. Evans said he had collected the suit and would bring it back the next day. Evans was arrested and suspended from work instead. Vietnam veteran and coworker Leonard Giles recalled telling Sam Gray in human resources that if he was accused of stealing something, he wouldn’t be given the chance to say anything and that he could not work like that. “We stand. We’re going to stand with Mr. Evans until he gets his stuff straight,” Giles said. The Concerned Citizens Association (CCA) and the Black Coalition, including local Southern Christian Leadership Conference chapters (SCLC), and the NAACP intervened, on Evans’ behalf. He was reassigned to the parks department and assured all charges would be dropped. The strike was ended but a few days later the sanitation workers learned that charges were not dropped. The strike was reinstated with four goals: to clear Evans of charges and restore him to his job, to return to their jobs free from retaliation, to secure promotion of blacks into supervisory positions, and to end abusive treatment by supervisors. The workers were not affiliated with a labor group nor trained in organizing. Local representatives of national organizations, including Naomi Green and Golden Frinks with SCLC, assisted the sanitation workers with successful marches and rallies The N.C. Trade Union Education League and the African Liberation Support Committee also lent support to the workers strike. Evans was convicted of misdemeanor larceny but the verdict later was overturned thanks to two young lawyers, Quentin Sumner and Antonio Lawrence, and their effective defense. Evans was promoted to sanitation driver and worked for the city until retirement. Naomi Green and CCA leader Rev. Thomas Walker remained active in local politics. Quentin Sumner eventually was elected N.C. Superior Court judge. The strike was critical to development of local leaders and reshaped the labor movement in North Carolina and also impacted the movement for African American voting rights. The Phoenix Historical Society organized the program for the marker dedication, which included remarks from strike leader Leonard Giles, and others. A documentary about the strike produced by the city of Rocky Mount followed the marker dedication." Source: NC Dept Of Highway Historical Markers Previous Next

< Back R. Kelly Bryant, Jr. ​ N.C. Mutual executive R. Kelly Bryant, Jr., tosses lollipops, and Santa Claus (William McBroom) receives onlookers’ cheers during a “Black Christmas” parade, November 29, 1968. Sponsored by the Black Solidarity Committee for Community Improvement as part of its boycott of certain White-owned businesses that would not hire Black people, and still held to Jim Crow laws. The parade was held on Fayetteville Street at the same time as the Durham Merchants Association’s traditional parade downtown. The motto was “don’t spend where you can’t work “. Photographer: Harold Moore, Durham Herald Sun. Source: Durham Civil Rights Heritage Project Collection (NCC.0040), North Carolina Collection, Durham County Library, NC . Photo ID: mss_0040_059 Previous Next

< Back Dr. Willa Johnson Cofield ​ Dr. Willa Johnson Cofield, during the years of segregation, she was a very courageous teacher activist of Halifax County, NC. After her major teacher rights victory in the high Federal courts, Willa Johnson eventually moved to New Jersey and got her PhD in Urban Planning at Rutgers. In her younger years she was a teacher, activist and grassroots community leader. With the support of her family, who were long time civil rights activist she was committed to providing equitable educational opportunities to her students that allowed them to understand their current situations caused by white supremacy, as well as the ways to help them stand up and take their freedoms as citizens of the United States. . Dr. Cofield, felt that her call to activism was intertwined with her belief in equal education opportunities and social justice rights for all. She instructed her students in literature and grammar by day, and was leading voter-registration campaigns and petitioning to end segregation in her small NC town by night. In April 1963, a group of her students, fired up by their classroom discussions, went to the Whites-only library in town knowing they’d be turned away. They were inspired to start a series of demonstrations to dismantle the status quo and even attended the March on Washington in August of that year. ------ Dr. Willa Johnson Cofield: Still Undaunted, Still Active, Still Inspiring Students And Young Educators -January 20, 2016 by David Sheridan and Sabrina Holcomb As a young teacher in an all-Black segregated school in Enfield, North Carolina, Willa Johnson taught her students how to register to vote, and those students went home and taught their parents. Then, Willa Johnson was summoned to the principal’s office and summarily fired. She petitioned and picketed to end segregation in her town, and the Klan burned a 17-foot-cross in her yard. To this day, she remembers standing on her porch, with her five-year-old daughter in arms, watching that flaming symbol of hatred and intimidation. With NEA’s help, Willa Johnson won a groundbreaking unfair teacher dismissal case. But no school district would hire her because she was “too controversial,” which at that time – the 1960s – and in that place – eastern North Carolina’s Black Belt – meant she had the courage to stand up for what is right. Willa Johnson eventually became Willa Johnson Cofield, moved to New Jersey, and earned a Ph.D. in urban planning from Rutgers University. She also became a documentary film maker while continuing to be a social justice activist. Every year she marches in Newark’s annual Dr. Martin Luther King Day March for Racial Equality, Economic Justice and Peace, sponsored by the People’s Organization For Progress. Now 87, Willa Johnson Cofield loves to talk with students and young educators. “Yes, we’ve made progress but the fight for racial equality is far from over. We must get involved in the political process and make sure minority people register and vote. In addition, we must engage in direct action to protest police brutality and the terrible conditions in which too many Black people still live. Black lives matter.” Among the many young educators inspired by Willa Johnson Cofield’s story and message is Jaalil Hart. He is a young kindergarten teacher back in her home state of North Carolina, which has passed one of the most restrictive voter suppression laws in the nation, making it more difficult for minorities, the elderly and students to vote. “Teachers like Willa Johnson Cofield paved the way for young teachers like me who are passionate about the same issues,” says Jaalil Hart. When he was president of the NEA Student Chapter at North Carolina A & T University, Hart was actively engaged in the fight for student voting rights. And today, when not in his Wake County classroom, Jaalil Hart helps people register to vote. “After talking with grandparents and great grans about what they had to do” says Jaalil Hart, “I find it personally important to do what my great grans couldn’t do. And like Willa Johnson Cofield, we need to do everything we can to make sure everyone has the opportunity to vote.” Source link: https://neaedjustice.org/.../willa-johnson-cofield-still.../ Previous Next

< Back Journey of Reconciliation members in 1947 ​ Charlotte, North Carolina, May 8–9, 1961 In the first significant confrontation of the CORE Freedom Ride, Joseph Perkins is arrested for trespassing as he attempts to have his shoes shined at a whites-only shoeshine chair. Perkins refuses to post bail and spends two nights (May 8 and 9) in jail. On May 10, Judge Howard B. Arbuckle finds Perkins innocent of the trespassing charge based on the precedent set in Boyton v. Virginia. ----------- On Sunday, 04.13.1947 The Journey of Reconciliation is celebrated. This was the first civil rights freedom ride through the American South. George Houser and Bayard Rustin were its primary organizers. It was sponsored by CORE and the Fellowship For Reconciliation. Black and white members ventured on a "Journey of Reconciliation," trying to force the federal government to uphold the 1946 Supreme Court ruling that segregated seating of interstate passengers was unconstitutional. The original riders were arrested in North Carolina and forced to serve on a chain gang for six months. Reference: Contemporary Black Biography, various volumes Edited by Shirelle Phelps Copyright 1999 by Gale Research, Detroit, London ISBN 0-7876-1275-8 Source:https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/freedom-rides Previous Next

< Back Bree Newsome ​ “You come against me with hatred, oppression, and violence,” Newsome shouted with the flag in her hand. “I come against you in the name of God. This flag comes down today.” #BreeNewsome - June 27, 2015 - She removed the Confederate flag from the South Carolina state house grounds in the aftermath of the Charleston Shooting, The Charleston church shooting was a mass shooting carried out by an American white supremacist terrorist on June 17, 2015, in Charleston, South Carolina, in which nine African Americans were killed during a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Three victims survived . The resulting publicity of Bree Newsome and the other social activists put pressure on SC state officials to remove the flag, and it was taken down permanently on July 10, 2015. Brittany Ann Byuarm "Bree" Newsome Bass is an American filmmaker, musician, speaker, and activist from Charlotte, North Carolina. ------- Short Bio Bree Newsome is an artist who drew national attention in 2015 when she climbed the flagpole in front of the South Carolina Capitol building and lowered the confederate battle flag. The flag was originally raised in 1961 as a statement of opposition to the Civil Rights Movement and lunch counter sit-ins occurring at the time. The massacre of nine black parishioners by a white supremacist at Emanuel AME Zion Church in Charleston reignited controversy over South Carolina’s flag. Bree’s act of defiance against a symbol of hate has been memorialized in photographs and artwork and has become a symbol of resistance and the empowerment of women. Activism is one of a trio of pursuits that have driven her since a young age, when she showed talent as both a musician and a writer, particularly a writer of plays and films. Her roots as an artist and activist were planted early. Her father – who has served as the Dean of the Howard University School of Divinity, and the President of both Shaw University and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center – is a nationally recognized scholar of African-American religious history and how it has impacted social justice movements. Her mother spent her career as an educator addressing the achievement gap and disparities of education. Her interest in the arts was fostered early in her life, and she showed promise even then. At the age of seven, she learned to play the piano, and wrote her first piece of music. Two years later, she wrote her first play. At the age of 18, Bree won a $40,000 scholarship from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences as part of a short film competition. She studied film at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her senior year short film, “Wake” won numerous accolades and was a finalist for the prestigious Wasserman Award, whose past recipients include Spike Lee. In 2011, while an artist in residence at Saatchi and Saatchi in New York, she marched with Occupy Wall Street. Much of her activism has focused upon incidents of young black people being unjustly killed and issues related to structural racism. She travelled with a group of youth activists from North Carolina to Florida during the Dream Defenders’ occupation of the statehouse as a protest against the killing of Trayvon Martin. She also participated in an 11-mile march from the Beavercreek, OH, Wal-Mart where John Crawford was killed by police to the courthouse in Xenia, OH, demanding release of the footage showing the killing. From 2013-2015, she served as the Western Field Organizer for Ignite NC, and she is one of the founders of The Tribe, a grassroots organizing collective. The Tribe was created in the aftermath of the 2014 uprising in Ferguson to address similar issues of structural racism and police violence confronting the community of Charlotte, NC. During the 2016 Charlotte uprising, Bree helped organize protests and community meetings. She continues to organize at the grassroots level in Charlotte, focusing on developing models for sustainable community organization. Her dedication to her community work has not lessened her interest in either film or music. She often interweaves the two. In 2016 she wrote, produced and directed a performance piece “Rise Up and Go” as part of The Monticello Summit, a four-day public summit on the legacy of slavery and freedom in America held at the site of Thomas Jefferson’s former plantation. The celebration was a collaboration between the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the University of Virginia. Her awards are numerous and include the Maryland Distinguished Scholars for Voice, the National Board of Review Student Film Award, and a 2016 NAACP Image Award. She has been named to the Root 100 and the Ebony 100 in recognition of her work on behalf of civil rights. Bree currently lives in Charlotte, NC, where she continues her work as an artist and grassroots community organizer. Image description: Bree Newsome an African American woman is holding a confederate flag in her right hand, and with her left hand she is holding on to a flag pole that she climbed. Source for Bio: https://www.biography.com/author/bree-newsome Previous Next

< Back Percy High (L) & City Recreation Director Jimmy Chambers (R) ​ 6 August 1962, Percy High is seen exiting the Pullen Park Pool as City Recreation Director Jimmy Chambers looks on. This photo is part of an exhibit at the Raleigh City Museum, Raleigh, North Carolina. On that hot afternoon a group of six young men, four black men and two white men, decided to take a swim at Pullen Park Pool. For 40 minutes the youths swam and while 45 persons got out in response to their presence, 65 (mainly children) remained in the pool. The protestors were told repeatedly to get out and when they refused, Pullen Park employees closed the pool early for the day. The protestors then exited the pool quietly, returned to their lockers and left. The protest happened only a few hours before City Council was to meet for their scheduled session. During the session, Council voted 5-2 to close both Pullen and Chavis Pools. Pullen for a limited, but undetermined, amount of time, and Chavis permanently (citing low attendance). The leader of the group, Percy High (pictured), was a Shaw University ministerial student and member of the NAACP. High explained to a reporter, "We didn't come here to integrate the pool. We came here to swim. We were riding around, it was hot and we decided we wanted to go swimming. We had the money in our pockets, so we got the tickets." Both pools eventually re-opened and were not filled in with concrete as some attest. More research is needed on how long they were closed. High went on to graduate from Shaw and served for more than 34 years as the pastor for Mt. Vernon Baptist Church in Durham and is now known as Reverend Dr. Percy High. #NCBlackHistory #NCSegregation #RaleighNC #JimCrow #bhm #Protesting _____________________ 1962_PullenSwimIn_Fr010 From the N&O negative collection, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC. Photo copyrighted by the News and Observer. Previous Next

< Back Greensboro Six ​ The Round That Changed A Town One afternoon in 1955, six Black men played golf on a whites-only course. What happened next pushed Greensboro toward integration and turned a local dentist into a civil rights icon. written by Jeremy Markovich/Our State Magazine--This story was published on July 31, 2018 Photo: The Greensboro Six-the men are standing in a group looking at the camera- (from left: Phillip Cooke, Samuel Murray, Elijah Herring, Joseph Sturdivant, Dr. George Simkins, Leonidas Wolfe) defiant round of golf sparked lasting change. Photograph By Greensboro News & Record Doc Simkins has been gone going on 17 years now. But at Gillespie Golf Course, he’s still very much alive. “Doc Simkins was the man,” Ralph Miller says over the clacking of dominoes. When the weather’s fine, Miller and a few other guys set up their tiles on the shaded, beat-up picnic tables overlooking the ninth hole. They call themselves the Tree Boyz. “Everybody went to him,” Miller says, keeping an eye on the game. “My play?” “You want to talk, you need to move to another damn table,” grouses another player. Miller waves him off. “Tennis, golf, Doc did it all,” he says. Politics, too. They called him Doc because he was a dentist, but he would become better known for something else. Something that started after the police came to this course to arrest him. “Sent him to jail,” Miller says with a slight, knowing smirk. “Heh.” Out in the parking lot, Jimmy Moore rolls up on his golf cart when he hears someone mention Simkins. “I knew Doc,” he says. “Caddied for him.” Caddies are long gone at Gillespie, but Moore’s still around, doing odd jobs for the course in retirement. He recalls how Simkins always had something funny to say: “Might rub you on the head and say, ‘How you doin’ today? You got a bag today?’ You’d say no, and he’d say, ‘I’m gettin’ ready to play, grab mine.’” Moore’s brother-in-law Fred Pritchett is playing Gillespie on this day, too. Growing up, he caddied the course, and he was here when Simkins was arrested on December 7, 1955. He remembers watching from the caddie shack as Simkins and five other black men walked to the sixth green. “The sheriff came up in front of them and said, ‘Don’t hit that ball,’” Pritchett recalls. “Doc told them, ‘Get out of the way.’ They hit that ball.” Dr. George C. Simkins Jr. was not the kind of person who just let people win. Not even his own son. Over the course of his life, Chris Simkins says, he only beat his father twice. At any sport. “Lots, lots of trash talk,” Chris says. Tennis was his father’s best game, but golf was often his focus. Chris remembers his father at the golf course, hitting practice shot after practice shot. Then he’d go to the putting green, then the driving range. At home, he’d chip in the backyard. He swung clubs in the living room, and he studied the pros on TV. As a result, the Simkins house was full of trophies; shiny tributes to Doc’s prowess filled a half-dozen cases and lined the stairway. “We ran out of room,” Chris says. But first and foremost, Simkins was a dentist, following his father into the profession. After graduating from Dudley High School in 1940, he left town for college and dental school, and returned nine years later. For five years, he worked for the Guilford County Health Department, and then opened his own dental office in 1954. Most of his customers were black, or white people who didn’t have much money. Sometimes they couldn’t pay. That was OK. “He would work on anybody,” Chris says. “Other dentists would not accept those patients. He would.” Every Wednesday at noon, without fail, Simkins closed his office, came home for lunch, changed into a polo shirt and slacks, and, by 2 o’clock, he was on the golf course. But not Gillespie. In the 1950s, Gillespie was for whites only. Designed by one of the men responsible for creating Augusta National and built by the Civilian Conservation Corps, the course allowed black boys and men to caddie, but never to play. Even after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that, in essence, separate accommodations for blacks were inherently unequal, municipal spaces like golf courses and tennis courts remained segregated across the South for a decade or more. For that matter, so did many public schools. “It took a long time to do what the Supreme Court said in 1954,” says Henry Frye, an acquaintance of Simkins, and a lawyer who would become the first (and so far the only) black chief justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina. Efforts to integrate Gillespie had started even before Brown. In 1949, a group of black golfers demanded the right, as taxpayers, to play the newly opened Gillespie Golf Course. In response, the city leased the property to a private company for a fee. The company made the course for members and their guests only. Those members were exclusively white. Over the years, more black golfers tested the waters at Gillespie, trying to sign up as members or asking to play, only to be turned away. And then came Doc Simkins. December 7, 1955, was chilly, 42 degrees with a light breeze, but Simkins and five friends were determined to play some golf. They could play Nocho Park Golf Course, the black course only a few blocks away. But Nocho was shabby. Long grass, rough greens. The stench from a nearby sewage plant was strong. So the six men walked into the Gillespie clubhouse ready to pay the fee. The man working the counter snatched the sign-in book before they could touch it. “You can’t play here,” he told them. Calmly, the men put their greens fees on the counter — 75 cents each — and walked outside to tee off. The irate pro caught up with them a few holes later. Simkins told him: “We’re out here for a cause.” “What damn cause?” the man asked. “The cause of democracy.” The pro, then the police, followed the men hole to hole. Instead of putting his club back in his bag between shots, Simkins kept it in his hand, ready to defend himself. He was rattled — pulling shots to the right — but he knew he had to continue. The group played through the ninth hole and then left. Hours later, a black policeman tracked down all six men and arrested them for trespassing. The real crime, it seemed, was golfing while black. To many people, including Pritchett, the young caddie who was watching, that moment of courage felt small at first. Bigger things were happening elsewhere: Rosa Parks had been arrested just a week before, and Emmett Till had been murdered in Mississippi four months before that. In context, a half-dozen arrests over a round of golf seemed to be a lot of fuss over a game. A month later, a city court judge told Simkins and the other men to plead guilty, pay a $15 fine, and forget about it. Instead, the group took their case to Superior Court, where they faced an all-white jury. During the trial, Simkins’s lawyer discovered that two jurors had played Gillespie, and called them as witnesses. The men said that they weren’t members or guests, but had played at the course without a problem. The attorney for Gillespie had argued that the club was members-only, and this new admission seemed to shoot a hole right through his argument. Even so, the six men were found guilty of trespassing and sentenced to 15 days in jail. Simkins’s lawyer kept appealing and eventually filed a federal complaint. A U.S. district court judge sided with the Greensboro Six, a moniker that had started to stick, and ordered that the course be integrated. Then, two weeks before the order was to take effect, the clubhouse at Gillespie mysteriously burned down. Rather than rebuild it, the City of Greensboro condemned the entire course. It also closed the course at Nocho Park. Moreover, the city removed the sod from the front nine at Gillespie and began to store parks and recreation equipment on the land. Greensboro’s best municipal golf course had been turned into a junkyard. “That’s how I got started in civil rights,” Simkins would later say. He joined the NAACP and became president of the local chapter in 1959. Soon after, a local businessman, Ralph Johns, suggested that Simkins take a seat at the local Woolworth’s in an effort to get served at the whites-only lunch counter. Simkins said no. “There’s no way in hell I’m going to get in any more stuff than I am right now,” he recalled to the Greensboro News & Record. “I’m catching hell with the lawyers, I’m catching hell with the whites, and I’m catching hell with the blacks, who think I’m going too fast,” he said. Johns found four freshmen at NC A&T who would do it. The sit-in movement born at that lunch counter on February 1, 1960, quickly spread across the South. Simkins gave the students the support of his NAACP chapter. “If I had gone up there and sat down,” he said later, “it wouldn’t have materialized like it did.” Meanwhile, the golf case had worked its way to the highest level of the legal system. In 1959, four years after the arrests, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear it. Simkins asked Thurgood Marshall, the lawyer who’d argued Brown and would later go on to be a Supreme Court justice, to take his case. Marshall declined. The case, Wolfe v. North Carolina, would be a losing effort, Marshall said, since Simkins’s previous lawyers had forgotten to include information about their federal court judgment in their legal briefs. It was a glaring mistake, and Marshall didn’t want to sully his record with a case that he predicted, correctly, would lose in a 5-4 decision. But in a scathing dissenting opinion, Chief Justice Earl Warren wondered why North Carolina would want its citizens arrested and thrown in jail for enjoying its recreational facilities. That opinion was enough to shame Gov. Luther Hodges into commuting the sentences of the Greensboro Six in 1960, so they could avoid jail time. With that, the Gillespie golf case was over. Simkins had lost. And yet, because of that loss, Simkins turned his attention to a different way to win: voting. At the time, Greensboro only had about 5,500 registered black voters. So Simkins went to NC A&T, Bennett College, and Dudley High School, and registered teachers and students. Then he and others went house to house, registering black men and women, one at a time. Steadily, the number of registered black voters in the area more than doubled, to 12,000. Next, Simkins launched a letter writing campaign to tell those new voters whom they should elect. The councilmen who had voted to close down the city’s recreational facilities needed to go, he said. “Do you intend to open up Gillespie Park so that everybody can play there?” read one flyer. “Otherwise, we’re not going to vote for you.” The campaign worked. A new crop of politicians replaced members who had voted to close the golf courses, swimming pools, and other facilities. And, on December 7, 1962, seven years to the day after Simkins and his friends had played nine holes at Gillespie, the course finally reopened. To everyone. Simkins was the first one to tee off. Ralph Miller insists that while the golf story is important, the tennis story is even bigger. Everybody forgets about that, he says, but Simkins integrated the city pools and tennis facilities, too. Through court action, he desegregated Greensboro’s hospitals and schools as well. With his newfound political clout, Simkins also changed the makeup of the city council, guaranteeing that black neighborhoods had local representation. It helped that Simkins was a dentist, says former Chief Justice Frye, and didn’t have to answer to any boss but himself. Simkins’s competitive spirit, which Frye experienced regularly on the golf course, kept him pushing for more. “Once he made up his mind, I don’t care what anybody else said, he was right,” Frye says. “George wasn’t one of these people who believed in waiting for things to change.” Jim Melvin, who grew up across the street from Gillespie and would later become Greensboro’s mayor, says Simkins never ran for office himself because he believed it would have diminished his influence. “A lot of politicians are self-serving — he was not personally self-serving. He was trying to positively change the system,” Melvin says. “He was our Martin Luther King.” Through it all, Simkins continued to see patients, although he’d stop to talk politics from time to time. (“He’d get up to come talk to me and some poor soul would be sitting there for 20 minutes with his mouth open,” Melvin says.) And always, on Wednesday afternoons, the dentist would close up shop to play golf. He continued to play tennis tournaments, too, and was ranked fourth in the state in the men’s 65 division when he died in 2001. Persistence and dedication were hallmarks of his character. “Over and over, when the Greensboro Community sought to tackle its Jim Crow specters, the community’s cry was ‘Let George do it,’” one obituary began. “Over and over, George did it.” Gillespie Golf Course is only nine holes now, but it’s still cheap to play, and challenging. “That’s number seven, the hole that I hate,” Moore says, pointing from his golf cart. “But it’s a good hole.” He has a nickname for the top of the green, where dreams of birdies go to die: Hell. “If that’s where you are,” he says, “that’s what you’re in.” Many of the golfers puttering along the paths here are older black men who once caddied at courses around Greensboro. In some ways, it was a good job, Moore says. “You got to talk to doctors, lawyers, and they gave you some good advice about how to make it in the world,” he says. Now, these men pass along what they know to the kids who come here to learn. Back at the picnic tables, the Tree Boyz are wrapping up. Ralph Miller, it turns out, was talking too much. He lost the game of dominoes. But he can’t stop talking about Doc. Somebody asks: What if he’d never come along? What if he’d never golfed here? Never gotten involved? Miller thinks for a moment. “He would have come in time,” he says with certainty. “It was his time.” Note: In 2016, the City of Greensboro dedicated a statue of George Simkins on the grounds of the Old Courthouse. Source Link: https://www.ourstate.com/the-round-that-changed-a-town/ Previous Next

< Back Piedmont Leaf Tobacco Plant Strike, 1946 ​ The Piedmont Leaf Tobacco Plant Strike, 1946 - Winston Salem, NC Image description: Top photo-Black women workers Protesting at Piedmont Leaf Tobacco Company, 1946. Bottom photo- Margaret DeGraffenreid being forced into a police car during the protests.- Forsyth County Public Library. By Digital Forsyth, Forsyth County, N.C. In the 1940s, the CIO launched a wide-ranging attempt to unionize workers in the South. This movement was known as Operation Dixie, and some of its key battles were fought in Forsyth County. In 1946 the local United Tobacco Workers (CIO) union was involved in contract negotiations with R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. Philip Koritz, head of the UTW Local 22, had won key concessions from RJR, including a 60-cent minimum hiring wage for workers, three paid holidays per year, and a graded system for wage increases (which had previously been determined by the whims of the foremen). However, most of these benefits did not extend to seasonal workers at the “leaf houses”, where the tobacco leaves were prepared for processing. Jobs in the tobacco industry at the time were segregated by race and gender. Managers, foremen, and supervisors were invariably white men. African-American workers were largely relegated to the jobs that were the most unpleasant, dangerous, or physically demanding. The lowest-paid workers were the “stemmers” who worked in the leaf houses removing tobacco leaves from their stems by hand. 80% of the stemmers at RJR affiliated plants were African-American women, whose starting wage was 54 cents per hour. Philip Koritz and Local 22 had met with resistance in their demand for a raise to a 65 cent minimum wage for stemmers and other workers at the Piedmont Leaf plant in Winston-Salem. When contracts expired on July 22, 1946, the Piedmont Leaf management was still only willing to offer a 2-cent per hour raise. So about 35 union workers began walking a picket line on Fourth Street in downtown Winston-Salem. As the strike dragged on, the union tried to provide for the striking workers. The local African-American community was largely supportive, although a few business owners complained that Local 22 had threatened them with a boycott if they did not lend financial support to the strike relief fund. Some workers in other Reynolds plants were sympathetic to the Piedmont Leaf strikers and joined in the picket line during their lunch hours. The demonstrations were mostly peaceful, but tensions grew as the summer progressed and the strike entered its second month without any resolution in sight. Late in the afternoon of August 23, Winston-Salem Police Chief John Gold and about fifteen officers arrived at the main entrance to Piedmont Leaf to escort construction equipment onto the grounds (even though there was another, unpicketed entrance available for this purpose). With them was photographer Frank Jones from the Winston-Salem Journal and Sentinel. A truck from L.A. Reynolds Landscaping arrived at 4:30 p.m., and the captain of the picket line asked the driver to wait until the strikers dispersed at 5:00. The driver appeared willing to do this, but police ordered the crowd to move. When two women remained in front of the gates, police began making arrests, and the situation deteriorated rapidly. The first arrest, a young woman named Margaret DeGraffenreid, became very upset and was pushed into a police car. The crowd grew as hundreds of workers in other Reynolds plants finished their shifts and came to investigate the disturbance. One Reynolds worker, Cal Roberson Jones, was arrested as he approached the picketers. Union leader Philip Koritz , who had just arrived on the scene, argued with police that Jones was not a striker and should not be arrested. Koritz too was apprehended and forced into a police car. Koritz and the others were charged with resisting arrest and refusing to obey a police officer. They were released on their own recognizance after a phone call to Governor Gregg Cherry, and Koritz returned to the picket line and urged the crowd to disperse peacefully. Picketing at Piedmont Leaf continued into September. Koritz, Jones, and DeGraffenreid made their first court appearance on September 4, to face charges of resisting arrest. After being found guilty by Judge Leroy Sams, the three defendants appealed their sentences in Forsyth County Superior Court. The defense argued that the police had provoked the picketers and had used excessive force. Photographer Frank Jones was called as a witness, and his photographs of the event were entered as evidence. Prosecutors countered with accusations that picketers had defied police orders and had become violent when officers attempted to subdue them. Several police officers testified against the defendants. Koritz was portrayed as an outside agitator and a suspected communist. In the end, the jury of seven white and five black members found the defendants guilty. Judge Julius Rousseau sentenced Koritz and Jones to twelve and ten months respectively on a road crew, and DeGraffenreid received eight months at the county work farm. Meanwhile, Local 22 and Piedmont Leaf had finally entered into productive negotiation, and by September 18 an agreement had been reached. The union compromised on some of its demands but achieved, among other things, a 60-cent minimum wage and three paid holidays for seasonal workers. In the long run, however, the CIO’s attempts to unionize Southern workers were not as successful as the union had hoped. Many of the issues which surrounded the Piedmont Leaf strike — racial tensions, mechanization of industrial processes, and fears of communist infiltration — contributed to the downfall of the CIO in the South. Infighting among union factions hastened the demise, and in a pivotal election in 1950, Local 22 was voted out of existence in Winston-Salem. Source: https://www.ncpedia.org/united-tobacco-workers-local-22 ------ Source Video on this site: http://jonathanmichels.com/?p=952 ------- On Labor Day, we honor the historic efforts of American workers during the labor movements. In response to African American exclusion from white organizations, black workers created all-black unions that championed their members’ class and racial interests. In 1869, Isaac Myers, a Baltimore ship caulker, founded the Colored National Labor Union which brought together representatives from other black unions. After Reconstruction, many smaller associations in southern urban centers like Richmond, Virginia and Galveston, New Orleans began to emerge. The American Federation of Labor, founded in 1881, would not recognize an African American labor union until 1925—the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the largest all-black labor union in the U.S. led by A. Philip Randolph. #APeoplesJourney #ANationsStory Source: Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture fb page Previous Next

< Back Anna Julia Cooper, activist and teacher at M Street High School in Washington, D.C., is well known for articulating a black feminist stance in her book, A Voice from the South (1892). ​ Portrait of Dr. Anna .Julia Cooper taken circa 1902 - C.M. Bell, photographer. [between February and December 1903] Source: Library of Congress, Notes - Caption label from exhibit of digital copy in Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote More to the Movement: Anna Julia Cooper, activist and teacher at M Street High School in Washington, D.C., is well known for articulating a black feminist stance in her book, A Voice from the South (1892). Cooper argued for the importance of black women's rights central to education, self-determination, and racial uplift. - Title is from handwritten label on negative sleeve or negative. - Date from photographer's logbook. - Gift; American Genetic Association, 1975. ------ The 19th Amendment turns 100 years old this summer 2020. As American women ready for the celebrations of this 100 year anniversary, we are lifting up Dr. Anna Julia Cooper, Teacher, Scholar, and Timeless Womanist. Black women fought for the right to vote, along with White women. The suffrage groups were also filled with racist White American women which divided Black and Native American women into their own groups. Though the 19 Amendment was ratified, and gave American women the right to vote, the Jim/Jane Crow laws, white supremacy and systemic racism restrictions prevented Black women in North Carolina from voting until the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, which opened the way for Black Americans to be able to vote in America. While we do present some of her "life story" background, we also want to present and understanding that she was not just born in slavery. Her life was more than being an ex-slave, she went on to write scholarship, theories about being a Black woman and her commitments as an educator and activist Cooper asserts that the white man cannot speak to Black men's experiences and furthermore, that Black men cannot speak to Black women's experiences. She elaborates on this position in “Womanhood, A Vital Element in the Regeneration and Progress of a Race.” ---- Dr. Anna Julia Haywood Cooper, was born enslaved in 1858 in Raleigh, NC. She died February 27, 1964 at the age of 105.in Washington, D.C. She and her mother, Hannah Stanley Haywood, were held in bondage by George Washington Haywood (1802–1890) who was one of the sons of North Carolina's longest serving state treasurer John Haywood, who helped found the University of North Carolina, but whose estate was later forced to repay missing funds. Either George, in whose household her mother worked in bondage, or his brother, Dr. Fabius Haywood, in whose household her older brother Andrew was enslaved, were probably Anna's father; Anna's mother refused to clarify paternity. George became state attorney for Wake County and with a brother owned a plantation in Greene County, Alabama. Cooper worked as a domestic servant in the Haywood home and had two older brothers, Andrew J. Haywood and Rufus Haywood. Andrew, enslaved by Fabius J. Haywood, later served in the Spanish–American War. Rufus was also born enslaved and became the leader of the musical group Stanley's Band Dr. Cooper was one of North Carolina's early, outspoken Black woman suffragists. She attended Saint Augustine's College before going on to study at Oberlin College , Columbia University, and the Sorbonne, in Paris .where she earned her PhD in history from the Sorbonne in 1924, which she wrote in French. . Dr. Cooper was the fourth Black American woman to earn a doctoral degree in the country. She advocated for civil rights for African Americans, and her 1892 book, "A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South," is considered the first Black feminist publication. Dr. Cooper made contributions to social science fields, particularly in sociology. She is sometimes called "The Mother Of Black Feminism READ More About Dr. Anna Julia Cooper Here: https://www.facebook.com/.../a.171506.../268112033913386/... Previous Next

< Back 1. FREEDOM RIDERS Stopped Through Greensboro ​ The FREEDOM RIDERS Stopped Through Greensboro By Jim Sshlosser- Staff Writer/News & Record May 3, 1991 Updated Jan 24, 2015 They stopped in Greensboro 30 years ago to rest and invite people to join them. ``We gave them our blessings, but that was about it,' says Dr. George Simkins, former Greensboro NAACP chapter president. To have gone, he adds, ``would have been like going into a mine field down there.' ``Down there' was the Deep South, destination of 13 bus travelers known as the ``freedom riders.' They were seven whites and six blacks who left Washington May 4, 1961 - exactly 30 years ago today - determined to challenge segregated facilities in bus stations in the South. All the way through Dixie, the freedom riders sat together, ate together, drank from the same fountains and waited in the same waiting rooms. Rider John Lewis, now a U.S. House member from Georgia, and two others were attacked in a whites-only waiting room in Rock Hill, S.C. The Ku Klux Klan burned a bus in Alabama. The riders were jailed in Birmingham. Lewis was knocked unconscious on the Alabama-Tennessee border. The riders encountered little trouble in Greensboro, a city slowly starting to integrate, thanks to challenges by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and events such as the 1960 Woolworth sit-ins. But national civil-rights leader James Farmer worried during a stopover meeting at Shiloh Baptist Church that ``a little steam' had gone out of the civil-rights movement since the Woolworth ``coffee party.' ``We're fighting for future generations who can travel anywhere, by bus, train, plane or car, stop at any place and use any restaurant, hotel, theater that they please and feel free and secure,' said Farmer, whose Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) sponsored the rides. Shiloh's pastor, the Rev. Otis Hairston, remembers three bomb threats phoned in during the meeting. No one budged. ``I knew what was happening,' he recalls. ``It had happened in other cities. It was a pattern to try and stop the rallies.' The riders included one Piedmont resident, the Rev. B. Elton Cox, then of High Point, who boarded in Washington. He no longer lives in the area. As a result of the freedom riders, the Interstate Commerce Commission ordered all ``Whites' and ``Colored' signs removed from buses and terminals - replaced by warnings that it was unlawful to discriminate. -END Article ---- Image 1- BELOW are short biographies of each person in the collage above and their involvement in the FREEDOM RIDERS MOVEMENT--PLEASE Click to Next Photo to continue reading the Short Biographies of the Freedom Riders. Thank You. NOTE: These are but a few of the anti-segregation Freedom Riders-End Note. ---- 1. Ralph Abernathy, Montgomery, AL - Rev. Ralph Abernathy was a key figure in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and beyond. As the young pastor of First Baptist Church in Montgomery, Al, he and Martin Luther King, Jr. were among the leaders of the 1955-56 Montgomery Bus Boycott organized in response to the arrest of Rosa Parks. In 1961, Abernathy's First Baptist Church was the site of the May 21 "siege" where an angry mob of white segregationists surrounded 1,500 people inside the sanctuary. At one point, the situation seemed so dire that Abernathy and King considered giving themselves up to the mob to save the men, women, and children in the sanctuary. When reporters asked Abernathy to respond to Robert Kennedy's complaint that the Freedom Riders were embarrassing the United States in front of the world, Abernathy responded, "Well, doesn't the Attorney General know we've been embarrassed all our lives?" On May 25, Abernathy was arrested on breach of peace charges after escorting William Sloane Coffin's Connecticut Freedom Ride to the Montgomery Greyhound Bus Terminal, neither the first nor the last instance of civil disobedience in a lifetime of activism. After Dr. King's assassination on April 4, 1968, Abernathy took up the leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) Poor People's Campaign and led the 1968 March on Washington. Ralph Abernathy died in 1990. 2. James Farmer, New York, NY -Co-founder and National Director of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), James "Jim" Farmer was the architect of the original CORE Freedom Ride of 1961. He saw the significance of desegregating interstate travel and the potential of repeating CORE's 1947 Journey of Reconciliation as a movement tactic. He endorsed a new name, "Freedom Ride," to win media attention and better communicate the mission and goals of the trip. A child prodigy who earned early fame as a debater, Farmer grew up in Marshall, Texas, where his father, James L. Farmer, Sr. was a professor at the historically black Wiley College. Farmer devoted his career to civil rights and social justice causes, working for the NAACP and the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), CORE's parent organization, prior to his February 1961 election as director of CORE. Farmer's signature initiative was the Freedom Rides, initiated just three months after he took office. At that time, CORE was less well known than the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Dr. Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Coalition (SCLC) or the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Farmer envisioned the ride as a way to vault CORE and its philosophy of nonviolent direct action to prominence on the national stage, with attendant opportunities for policy-making and fundraising. Farmer took part in the ride, but returned to Washington, D.C. from Atlanta, GA on the morning of May 14 for his father's funeral. He was haunted by guilt as a result, especially since he was spared from some of the Rides' worst violence - the May 14 Anniston, AL Greyhound bus burning and the Birmingham, AL Trailways Bus Station Riot. Farmer later recalled his emotions upon learning of his father's death in Atlanta. "There was, of course, the incomparable sorrow and pain," he said. "But frankly, there was also a sense of reprieve, for which I hated myself. Like everyone else, I was afraid of what lay in store for us in Alabama, and now that I was to be spared participation in it, I was relieved, which embarrassed me to tears." On May 21, Farmer flew to rejoin the riders in Montgomery, AL. Upon arriving in Jackson, MS, three days later, Farmer was jailed for "breach of peace" and other charges and later was transferred to Mississippi's notorious Parchman State Prison Farm. Historians acknowledge Farmer's central visionary role in bringing the Freedom Rides to fruition. In 1966, Farmer eventually left CORE and the Civil Rights Movement, citing its growing acceptance of racial separation as his reason. He served in the Nixon Administration as Assistant Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and co-founded the Fund for an Open Society in 1975. President Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998. James Farmer died from complications of diabetes in 1999. 3. Benjamin Elton Cox, High Point, NC - Part of the original May 4 CORE Freedom Ride, the Rev. Benjamin Elton Cox was an outspoken black minister based in High Point, NC who had traveled through the region spreading the gospel of nonviolence during the spring and summer of 1960. Cox also participated in the July 8-15, 1961 Missouri to Louisiana CORE Freedom Ride. Defending the actions of the Freedom Riders, Cox argues in Freedom Riders, "If men like Governor Patterson [of Alabama] and Governor Barnett of Mississippi... would carry out the good oath of their office, then people would be able to travel in this country. Then people in Tel Aviv and Moscow and London would not pick up their newspaper for breakfast and realize that America is not living up to the dream of liberty and justice for all." The preacher and longtime civil rights activist was arrested 17 times over the course of several decades. Prior to retirement, he served as minister at Pilgrim Congregational Church in High Point, NC, as chaplain at the VA Hospital in Urbana, IL, and as a middle school counselor in Jackson, TN. 4. Rabbi Israel "Si" Dresner, Springfield, NJ - Later dubbed "the most arrested rabbi in America," the outspoken Rabbi Israel "Si" Dresner participated in the June 13-16 Interfaith Freedom Ride from Washington, DC to Tallahassee, FL. The son of a Brooklyn delicatessen owner, he graduated from the University of Chicago (1950) and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Theology. After successfully completing the Freedom Ride to Tallahassee, the Interfaith Riders had planned to fly home. First, however, they decided to test whether or not the group would be served in the segregated airport restaurant. As a result 10 Freedom Riders, later known as the Tallahassee Ten, were arrested for unlawful assembly and taken to the city jail. They were convicted and sentenced later that same month; legal appeal of the airport arrests continued for years. Dresner returned along with 9 of the original riders to serve brief jail terms in August 1964 - and ate triumphantly in the same airport restaurant that had earlier refused them service. Dresner continued his civil rights activism and advocacy throughout his career as a reform Jewish rabbi in northern New Jersey, participating in the 1962 Albany campaign to desegregate municipal facilities and in the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march. He retired in 1996. 5. Glenda Gaither Davis, Great Falls, SC - A student at Claflin College in Orangeburg, SC, 18-year-old Glenda Gaither —sister of CORE field secretary Tom Gaither— was already a veteran of the state's sit-in movement to end lunch counter segregation. On May 30, 1961, she arrived in ackson, MS as part of the first group of eight Freedom Riders from New Orleans, LA to conduct tests at a railway terminal. When they attempted to use the white restrooms, they were arrested for disorderly conduct and sentenced within the hour to a $200 fine and a 60-day jail term. In 1965 Gaither married her boyfriend Jim Davis, a participant in the same ride, and later worked as a job placement director at Spelman College. She recalls in Freedom Riders, "Even though we came from many different places and we had many different cultures and many different home environments, in some ways we were very much unified because we had a common cause... we knew that we had taken a stand and that there was something better out there for us." 6. William Harbour, Piedmont, AL- A native of Piedmont, AL, William Harbour was the oldest of eight children and the first member of his family to go to college. At age 19, while a student at Tennessee State University, he had already participated in civil disobedience, traveling to Rock Hill, SC to serve jail time in solidarity with the "Rock Hill Nine" — nine students imprisoned after a lunch counter sit-in. One of the first to exit the bus when the Nashville Movement Freedom Ride arrived at the Montgomery Greyhound Bus Station, Harbour encountered a mob of 200 people wielding lead pipes and baseball bats. Harbour survived the riot but after the end of the Freedom Rides, still faced hostility in his native Alabama. He was also one of 14 Freedom Riders expelled from Tennessee State University. "Be best for you not to come [home]," his mother warned him in 1961. With the exception of one brief visit, he stayed away from Piedmont for the next five years. After the Freedom Rides, Harbour taught school for several years, and eventually became a civilian federal employee specializing in U.S. Army base closings. Today, Harbour acts as the unofficial archivist of the Freedom Rider Movement. He moved to Atlanta, GA in 1969. 7. Catherine Burks-Brooks, Birmingham, AL - Birmingham, AL native, 21-year-old Catherine Burks was a student at Tennessee State University when she volunteered for the Nashville Movement Freedom Ride. On May 18, she bantered with the ultra-segregationist Birmingham Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor as he drove the Nashville riders from jail back to the Tennessee state line. In Freedom Riders, Burks says she borrowed a line from the Westerns of the day, telling Connor, "We'll see you back in Birmingham by high noon." Two days later, she found herself in a riot at the Montgonery Greyhound Bus Station. In Freedom Riders, she vividly recalls the assault on fellow Freedom Rider Jim Zwerg. "Some men held him while white women clawed his face with their nails. And they held up their little children --children who couldn't have been more than a couple years old -- to claw his face. I had to turn my head back because I just couldn't watch it." She described the beginning of the siege of the First Baptist Church in Montgomery by an angry segregationist mob on the following day. "I heard a rock hit the window. Some of us got up to look out the window and we got hit by more rocks. That's when a little fear came." In August 1961, she married fellow Freedom Rider Paul Brooks. They were later active in the Mississippi voter registration movement, co-editing the Mississippi Free Press from 1962-1963. In the decades following the Freedom Rides, Burks owned a successful jewelry boutique and worked as a social worker, teacher, and Avon cosmetics sales manager. 8. Stokely Carmichael, Bronx, NY - At the time of the Freedom Rides, Stokely Carmichael was a 19-year-old student at Howard University, the son of West Indian immigrants to New York City. Carmichael made the journey to Jackson, MS from New Orleans, LA on June 4, 1961 by train, along with eight other riders, including JOan Trumpauer. The group was ushered by Jackson police to a waiting paddy wagon; all Riders refused bail. Carmichael was transferred to Parchman State Prison Farm, which proved to be a crucible and testing ground for future Movement leaders. Other Freedom Riders recalled his quick wit and hard-nosed political realism from their shared time at Parchman. The acerbic Carmichael would go on to become one of the leading voices of the Black Power Movement. In 1966 Carmichael became Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) chairman and, in 1967, honorary prime minister of the Black Panther Party. He moved to West Africa in 1969, and changed his name to Kwame Ture in honor of African leaders Kwame Nkruma and Sekou Toure, later traveling the world as a proponent of the All African Peoples Revolutionary Party. He died in Conakry, Guinea in 1998 of prostate cancer at the age of 57. In his posthumously published autobiography, Carmichael spoke about the significance of the Freedom Rides: "CORE would be sending an integrated team-black and white together-from the nation's capital to New Orleans on public transportation. That's all. Except, of course, that they would sit randomly on the buses in integrated pairs and in the stations they would use waiting room facilities casually, ignoring the white/colored signs. What could be more harmless... in any even marginally healthy society?" --- Please Click to Next Photo to Continue Reading About These Freedom Riders Involvement. The Source for these Biographies is from PBSdotOrg - American Experience-Meet The Players of The Freedom Riders Movement Previous Next

< Back William J. Barber II ​ The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II at Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh, N.C., on Jan. 27, before a backdrop showing the North Carolina house of representatives chamber where he was arrested in 2011. "The Equalizers," Time Magazine - March 2 issue. “When you see this portrait of Rev. Barber, you can’t help but get a sense of his determination and his perseverance,” Beal said. Photograph taken by Winston-Salem photographer Endia Beal for TIME Mag. ------------- 'There Is Not Some Separation Between Jesus and Justice.' How Rev. William J. Barber II Uses His Faith to Fight for the Poor BY MARY C. CURTIS UPDATED: FEBRUARY 21, 2020 1:27 PM EST | ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: FEBRUARY 20, 2020 7:32 AM EST For 27 years, the Rev. William J. Barber II has been the pastor at a church in the small city of Goldsboro, N.C. But on a recent afternoon, he could be found at a hotel in Raleigh, about an hour away from home. His work as an activist takes him to the state capital often enough that he’s well known there. Not long after, he’d move on to an event in Charleston, S.C., and then to Iowa, where he’d lead a march demanding a presidential debate on poverty. Barber is ever in motion, and he’s still picking up momentum. He’s hardly stopped since he attracted national attention as the leader of the Moral Mondays protests held at the North Carolina capitol in Raleigh beginning in 2013. His newsmaking actions were founded on the idea that being a person of faith means fighting for justice—whether by working beside a conservative mayor to protest the closing of rural hospitals or by calling for an NAACP boycott of the state in response to the legislature’s actions, like its infamous “bathroom bill.” In 2018, the 56-year-old minister—a MacArthur “genius” grantee who founded the community-organizing group Repairers of the Breach—put a new spin on that work. He and the Rev. Liz Theoharis of the Kairos Center at Union Theological Seminary launched the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. Under the principle Barber calls “moral fusion,” they take a holistic view of the relationship among injustices, from ecological devastation to systemic racism, and he believes solutions must come from listening to those most affected. “We believe they have agency,” Barber says of the 140 million poor or low-income Americans, “and their stories need to be heard, their faces need to be seen. They have the answers.” The campaign now has a presence in a majority of states and is planning an assembly in Washington, which it hopes will draw thousands, for June 20. Any resemblance to the work of Martin Luther King Jr. is intentional: King launched his own Poor People’s Campaign less than a year before he was assassinated in April 1968. It was also in 1968 that Barber—who was born just days after the 1963 March on Washington—moved with his family from Indiana to North Carolina. His father, a teacher and preacher, had gotten a call from a black principal asking him to return to his home state to help with the cause of integration. The young boy found himself on the front lines of that fight. In the process Barber learned an early lesson: “There is not some separation between Jesus and justice; to be Christian is to be concerned with what’s going on in the world.” And so, at his church in Goldsboro, politicians are welcome to worship and stay for a conversation, and many do. But they’re not allowed to preach. Neither Barber nor his organizations endorse candidates, though they do endorse issues. “Republicans have racialized poverty, and Democrats have run from poverty,” he says. “And we’re forcing them to deal with the reality. We are very political, but we’re not partisan.” Barber, who received a diagnosis in the 1990s of ankylosing spondylitis, a form of arthritis that fused his vertebrae in place, says he has seen enough pain in the world that he’s not going to let his own pain stop him. He’s got work to do. “All the victories we enjoy today—voting rights, Social Security, minimum wage—100 years ago were seen as virtually impossible,” he says. “Everything we won, people had to start winning in the midst of opposition that looked like it was overwhelming. I believe that’s the moment we’re in right now.” Curtis is a North Carolina–based journalist and speaker This article is part of a special project about equality in America today. Read more about The March, TIME’s virtual reality re-creation of the 1963 March on Washington and sign up for TIME’s history newsletter for updates. Correction, Feb. 21 The original version of this story misstated a quotation from Rev. William Barber. He said that “Republicans have racialized poverty,” not “property.” Click Article Source LINK To View Video : https://time.com/.../william-barber-ii-faith-injustice/... Previous Next

< Back A Safe Place to Fill Up ​ A Safe Place to Fill Up To be able to stop at almost any Southern gas station and have a good, inexpensive meal is an American tradition rooted in Black survival and entrepreneurship by Amethyst Ganaway / Eater Dot Com- May 26, 2021, 8:55am EDT Photo Collage Description: Left Image: A Montgomery, Alabama bus station in 1956 remains segregated despite a Supreme Court ruling banning segregation on city buses. Bettmann / Contributor / Getty Images Middle Image: In Charlotte, North Carolina, May 8–9, 1961, In the first significant confrontation to desegregate public transportation by members of the CORE Freedom Ride, movement. Right Image: A Black man stands in the Durham, NC Bus Station., under a segregation sign, .'Colored Waiting Room' at the bus station in Durham, North Carolina, USA. Photo by Jack Delano, 1940. --- ScanningScanning the aisles of small, locally owned gas stations in the South is like taking a step back in time. Few other places stock old-school Necco Wafers, Mary Janes, Bit-O-Honeys, and Chick-O-Sticks alongside foods like pickled eggs, pickled sausages, gizzards, barbeque, and pound cake. At Dodge’s Southern Style, a gas station between Ravenel and Johns Island, South Carolina, you’ll find fried chicken, biscuits, fried hand pies, and country ham on the menu next to a variety of nabs (crackers with peanut butter or cheese) and all the chips you can imagine. At Spinx, a gas station chain with locations across the South, there’s rice and beans, mac and cheese conveniently contained in an easy to carry bowl, or loaded biscuit sandwiches with all the fixins to pick up and take on the road. In the South, you can have a full-on Sunday meal while you fill up your tank. But as much as the gas station seems unchanging, this convenience — specifically, the accessibility of this kind of convenience — has evolved. What seems so conventional to us now, to be able to stop at almost any gas station and have a good, inexpensive meal, is rooted in Black survival and entrepreneurship. And, of course, the standout foods you’ll find at Southern gas stations have their roots in African American culture. In the first few pages of her book, Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs, Psyche A. Williams-Forson writes that in the decades after emancipation, and before most people could afford an automobile, Black women would bring food from their homes, including biscuits, hot coffee, fried chicken, and boiled eggs, to sell to weary travelers at train stops. These entrepreneurs would walk on the train platforms outside of each train car, and travelers of all backgrounds would open their windows to grab a bite of homecooked food; they came to be known as “waiter carriers,” for the long distance many had to travel between their kitchens and the stations where their customers waited. In the South, these travelers weren’t free to patronize just anywhere for food and lodging. In Traveling Black, author Mia Bay notes that a Black traveler by the name of Joseph K. Bowler told a reporter that he never traveled to the South without a “Jim Crow traveling kit” that included food and a small stovetop to cook. Making use of the dining car on the train was out of the question; Bowler noted, “the dining car is a closed corporation as far as our people are concerned.” The traveling kit would become commonplace for Black travelers on trains and outside of them, especially in the South. In that same interview, Bowler told the Chicago Defender, “White people below the Mason Dixon line maintain that we are animals, virtually camels, and can go without food or water for several days.” As industrialization took over in the early 20th century, train cars became more modernized, and with the addition of air conditioning and dining cars, the need for waiter carriers came to an end. But they were an early example of how Black women achieved economic security through the New Era, and they provided a literal lifeline for both the food sellers and the Black men who traveled for work opportunities during this time. For Black people, any means of travel through the South was an uncertain prospect. Airlines used special codes to keep Black people off of flights or to give their seats to white passengers. Planes that stopped in the South would allow white passengers to depart the plane for food in the airport’s restaurants, while, according to Bay, “Blacks were instructed to stay on the plane and eat boxed lunches.” Not even popular Black public figures were exempt from being racially targeted while traveling. Flying from California to Florida one summer, famous baseball player Jackie Robinson and his wife brought along a large supply of food (including sandwiches) made by his mother for their trip. Robinson may have been embarrassed that his mother packed his lunch, but the food came in handy as Robinson and his wife entered the Jim Crow South. Removed from their flights in New Orleans and Pensacola to make space for white passengers, they weren’t allowed to eat at any of the roadside restaurants or gas stations they came across. Even after the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964 and “Whites Only” signs disappeared from public spaces, the blatant racism of the Jim Crow South persisted, especially at restaurants, hotels, airports, and bus and gas stations. While Black people could travel in the comfort of their own cars, trips were often exceptionally long, because the most direct route wasn’t always the safest; a stop in the wrong town at any time of day could end a family vacation quickly with Black travelers being run out of town or even worse. And the places that were safe for Black people to stop for a quick bite, or even to use the restroom, were few and far in between. So, many families carried on the traditions of packing food that traveled well — baked goods, foods preserved with methods like pickling or curing, and foods like those the waiter carriers once sold, such as chicken and biscuits. It was important that these foods could hold at room temperature for hours at a time, because while some families could pack a cooler to the brim, before easily accessible and affordable cold food storage, most Black folks were packing food in brown paper bags and shoeboxes to have a meal on their trips. The foods packed in these makeshift lunch boxes are the same foods that you’ll find at Southern gas stations today: fried chicken and pork chops, good eaten hot or cold, hard-boiled and pickled eggs, and slices of sweet potato pie that don’t require forks. Many Black families used the funds they saved from selling their foods as waiter carriers to open up their own lodges, inns, gas stations, and small eateries for Black travelers who lived or moved along the newly created roads and railroads that connected the South to the rest of the country throughout the Great Migration. During the civil rights era and beyond, Black-owned fill stations also served as restaurants — one-stop shops for Black patrons who would frequently come across restaurants that would serve them but forbid them from using the restrooms, and gas stations that wouldn’t allow them to fill up. For the owners of these roadside businesses, serving food was just as important as providing gas. Food was the primary moneymaker for Black-owned gas stations across the country and, specifically, those in The Negro Motorist Green Book, Victor Hugo Green’s published list of safe places for Black travelers across the United States. By providing food that was as easily transportable and profitable as in the train car days, gas stations were able to serve travelers who were already used to tea towel-wrapped chicken and biscuits and appeal to others who had begun to travel more. Two years after the Civil Rights Act, The Negro Motorist Green Book ceased publication, and as time went on, Black people were less subjected to the overt racism they once dealt with while traveling. It’s not to say these acts don’t still occur; over the years we’ve seen many examples of Black men, women, and children being treated poorly (arrested, beaten, and even killed) because of the color of their skin, especially at hotels, restaurants, gas stations and convenience stores. But as states struck down discriminatory practices and the national highway system grew, Black communities and economic opportunities spread, and Black ownership of gas stations and roadside eateries declined. Currently, there are only 29 Black-owned gas stations across the country compared to the dozens that were listed in the Green Book in its heyday. But the Black-owned gas stations that remain are reclaiming the narrative of the food they once served to build businesses and community, keeping the roadside one-stop shop — and the spirit of Black entrepreneurship — alive. Rural areas, where most people rely heavily on traveling by car, still blanket the South, so it would only make sense that the tradition of gas stations serving multiple purposes, including serving food, cashing checks, and selling household goods, would continue in the area. Often, these spaces, like 61 One Stop in Fayette, Mississippi, and Roy’s Grille in Lexington, South Carolina, also become places of community, where family and friends might see each other as they grab a bite to eat or fill up their tanks. Roy’s Grille, off of Main Street in the small town of Lexington just outside of the state’s capital of Columbia, serves up Southern food and convenient meals like barbecue and burgers at an Exxon station. Owner Chris Williams carries some of the foods you’d find at many Southern gas stations, but when he opened in 2014, he also wanted to bring other less typical dishes to the proverbial table, like ribeye steaks. However, he quickly found out that his gas station patrons were looking for familiar foods that were inexpensive and fairly easy to eat. “People are reluctant to come into a gas station and buy upscale food,” says Williams. “They were used to things such as gizzards, bologna sandwiches, and chicken that has been sitting out for two hours.” Still, Williams added twists on those familiar dishes to his menu: He makes his food from scratch, and added shrimp and grits, barbeque, and bacon made right outside — items that aren’t as suited to eating on the road, but are welcome comfort if a traveler has time to spare to sit and eat. “A lot of people who hear about us say, ‘A gas station, get outta here. I’m not going to eat out of there,’” says Williams. “I knew that would be people’s response going into it, but I wasn’t worried because I knew we had a good product.” Roy’s Grille is also part of a longer history. Esso stations (the predecessor to ExxonMobil) were once known to be one of the only national gas stations that employed Black people in addition to allowing them to stop, shop, and dine during the Jim Crow era. That continues with Williams’s business, a testament to the long-standing tradition across Southern gas stations of offering food and respite to their communities and hungry travelers alike. Amethyst Ganaway is chef and writer from North Charleston, South Carolina. Naya-Cheyenne is a Miami-raised, Brooklyn-based multimedia illustrator and designer. Fact-checked by Andrea López-Cruzado. Source: https://www.eater.com/.../black-owned-gas-station-food... Previous Next

< Back Devon Henry ​ “I keep thinking about when this statue went up, '' McClellan said John Mitchell said, " . . . it’ll be a Black man that takes it down,” McClellan said, referring to a legendary Black newspaper editor from the Jim Crow era. “And then I saw the contractor take a picture in front of it,” she said, gesturing to Devon Henry, who is Black and oversaw the tricky logistical effort. “I think the healing can begin.” Virginia State Sen. Jennifer L. McClellan CONTEXT: In 1890, John Mitchell Jr., the crusading African-American editor of the Richmond Planet and a member of the city’s Board of Aldermen, objected to the monument's symbolism. “The men who talk most about the valor of LEE, and the blood of the brave Confederate dead are those who never smelt powder or engaged in the battle,” he wrote in 1890. “Most of them were at a table, either on top or under it when the war was going on.” The proliferation of Lost Cause adornments throughout Richmond angered Mitchell, who was born into slavery. He insisted that a Lee statue would bequeath to the future a “legacy of treason and blood.” In a further wrinkle, African-American laborers helped build the pedestal and place the massive statue upon the base. Mitchell suggested that the black men who put up the statue should, if that time came, be present to take it down. " Richmond Magazine, June 22, 2017 In the photograph we see Devon Henry. His construction company, Team Henry, LLC. being awarded the contracts to remove other confederate monuments in other locations like Charlottesville., dismantled and removed the #LeeMonument in #RichmondVirginia. After the removal he embraced his mom. It was the largest Confederate statue in the nation. Previous Next

< Back William C. Chance ​ Mr. William C. Chance Protested Segregated Rail Cars, 1948 On June 25, 1948, Parmele, NC native William Claudius Chance (23 Nov. 1880–7 May 1970), was made to get off an Atlantic Coast Line Railroad passenger train car in Emporia, Virginia, for refusing to move to a car for black passengers. Chance was a well-respected educator in Martin County, having established and operated the Parmalee Industrial Institute. He was returning home to Parmele from the Republican National Convention, held in Philadelphia that year, when he was instructed to leave a “white car” at the stop in Emporia. When he refused, Chance was placed under arrest for disorderly conduct. After the incident, Chance sued the Atlantic Coast Line and conductor Alva S. Lambeth for $25,000. A jury in Richmond initially determined the railroad had committed no crime in ejecting Chance from the train, but awarded him a sum of $50 for wrongful arrest. With the support of the NAACP, Chance appealed the case to the Fourth U. S. Circuit Court where the initial decision was overturned in January 1951. The court determined that the Atlantic Coast Line’s enforcement of Jim Crow laws on their passenger lines was an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce. Chance’s case served as a foundation for later cases of desegregated interstate travel. ------- William Claudius Chance, Sr. is the grandfather of Carol Wilson Caldwell and was the spark behind her social consciousness and sense of mission. One of Mr. Chance's greatest desires before his death was to have one of his descendants carry on his work in Eastern North Carolina as a lawyer, preferably in the Martin County area, which had very little legal and social services for Blacks and other minorities at that time. He had wanted to become a lawyer himself, but the conditions of black education and livelihood were so dreadful in Eastern North Carolina around 1909 that he left law school to establish a private school for black children in Parmele. So, since none of his children answered his call to carry on his mission, Carol, as his oldest grandchild and a recent graduate of Valparaiso University Law School, answered the call and moved to Parmele with her husband and one-year old daughter in August of 1973. W.C. Chance was born in Parmele on November 23, 1880 to W. V. Chance and Alice Chance, who were former slaves, along with his grandparents. He was actually raised by his grandparents, Bryant and Penethia Chance. He was reared on a small farm in poverty-stricken Martin County, which, perhaps provided the negative motivation to fuel his burning desire to improve his living conditions. He attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro and graduated with honors with an A. B. degree in agriculture. Subsequently , he entered Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he spent four years of which the last year was devoted to the study of law. After leaving Howard's law school prematurely he raised the funding through the contributions of the community, churches, and wealthy benefactors to establish a private school for the under-served black children in the Parmele area in 1909. This school was very successful, so much so that in 1911 the black public school and his private school merged to become the Parmele Industrial Institute, a public school, of which Mr. Chance was chosen principal. With the help of prominent educators and politicians of such distinguished people Mr. Chance was able to attract enough funds to erect the first brick school building in Martin County in 1914. This school was so successful that the community changed the name of the school to W. C. Chance High School. By 1948 the school had the highest percentage of graduating seniors entering college (70 percent) of any school in Martin County (the average was 50 percent). Many of his former students went on to become attorneys, doctors, college presidents, college deans, businessmen, ministers, school principals, and teachers. Mr. Chance's school was the first in Martin County to initiate a longer school term, eight months yearly. Later, in 1911, the black public school and his private school merged to become Parmele Industrial Institute, a public school, of which Chance was chosen principal. With the aid of such distinguished people as U.S. Representative John H. Small and Dr. Anson Phelps Stokes, secretary of Yale University, Mr. Chance was able to attract enough funds to erect the first brick school building in Martin County in 1914. Because of Mr. Chance's devotion to his school throughout the years, the community changed the name of the school to W. C. Chance High School. Under his leadership, the school in 1948 had the highest percentage of graduating seniors entering college (70 percent) of any school in Martin County (the average was 50 percent). Many of his former students rose to become attorneys, doctors, college presidents, college deans, businessmen, ministers, school principals, and teachers. Having achieved many successes in the education of black children and adults, Mr. Chance retired in 1951. After retirement, he by no means was destined for inactivity. Realizing the inequities in the white and black schools in Martin County, he was instrumental in organizing black parents in filing a petition with the board of education in 1951 to fight these inequities. Although no immediate remedies resulted from this lawsuit, the petition did serve notice that Mr. Chance and other blacks were ready for some drastic social changes. On another front, W.C. Chance became more widely known for his successful challenge of the Jim Crow policy on the Atlantic Coastline Railroad. He filed suit to recover damages from the railroad on the grounds that because of his race, he was wrongfully ejected from a railroad car on 25 June 1948 in Emporia, Va., and subsequently subjected to unlawful arrest and imprisonment in connection with this ejection. At the time of the incident he was returning from a business trip in Philadelphia, Pa. Between July 1948 and November 1952, four court actions were heard in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which ruled in favor of Chance and outlawed the Jim Crow policy in interstate travel. After having won such a significant victory at the age of 72, W.C. Chance still remained active in community and civic affairs, both locally and regionally, through the NAACP and his Presbyterian church. W.C. Chance was married twice: in 1917 to Evelyn Payton, who died in 1927; and in 1929 to Julia Johnson, who died on 8 Mar. 1972. He had seven children, who are now all deceased; William C., Jr., former attorney in New York City; Warren C., from teacher in New York City; Anson G., former employee of the Seaboard Coastline Railway; Harold P., former teacher in upstate New York; Mrs. Anice C. Wilson, executive director of Hopkins House Association in Alexandria, Va. And mother of Carol Wilson Caldwell; Wilbur J., former school principal in Caroline County, Va.; and Edward A. Chance, former psychiatric social worker and director of social services at Spring Grove State Hospital in Baltimore, Md. W.C. Chance died on May 7, 1970 in Lynchburg, Va. and was laid to rest in a cemetery in Bethel, NC about four miles from his birthplace in Parmele. Previous Next

< Back Mary McLeod Bethune ( left). One of the African American unions formed in the U.S. (right) ​ In the late 1800s, African American workers, tradesmen, and professionals who were excluded from all-White labor unions organized their own unions. Mrs. Bethune wrote in her 1936 speech “Closed Doors”: “My boy belonged to a labor union, but when there came the chance for the distribution of jobs, it was not until all white applicants had been supplied, and then even though he is a skilled laborer, nothing was offered him in his own field, but he was forced to accept a job as a common laborer.” Image description: Left is a portrait of Mary McLeod Bethune. Right image shows us one of the African American unions formed in the U.S. before the turn of the century. Images source: LOC To read about Mrs. Bethune's life, click this link: https://archive.org/.../marymcleodbethun00smit_djvu.txt Previous Next

< Back Cameron Village Sit-In ​ Photograph: Attorney George Greene (far left) is seen at the Wake County Jail with St. Augustine College and Shaw University students after they were arrested outside the Cameron Village (present-day Village District) Woolworth’s before a planned sit-in protest, 12 February 1960. Sourced from: NO.60.2.1189 From the N&O Negative Collection, State Archives of North Carolina. . Civil rights protesters charged with trespass for protesting segregated lunch counters at Woolworth's, Cameron Village, enter Raleigh City Court, March 28, 1960. On February 10, 130 African American students entered eight Raleigh establishments requesting service, despite a reported meeting between church and city leaders to head off civil disobedience in the city. According to The News and Observer, students protested at Woolworth's (downtown), McLellan's, Hudson-Belk, Kress, Eckerd's Drug Store, Walgreen's Drug Store, Cromley's, Sir Walter Drug Store, and the Woolworth's in Cameron Village Shopping Center. Anticipating the action, lunch counters were closed and some entire stores closed early. Reporting suggests the students came from Shaw and Saint Augustine's and were organized, "They came and went in shifts, with from 10 to 20 students always remaining in a store. " The students were quiet and did not respond to hecklers and threats. In some stores, students left when police arrived and threatened arrest. In the Cameron Village Woolworth's, between 6 and 30 protested over the course of the day. Raleigh Mayor William G. Enloe issued a statement that read, in part, "It is regrettable that some of our young Negro students would risk endangering Raleigh's friendly and cooperative race relations by seeking to change a long-standing custom in a manner that is all but determined to fail." A student at Woolworth's was quoted, "We've been organized all year...We decided to do this yesterday. (Adapted from an essay submitted with historical marker application by Mary Ruffin-Hanbury) Citations Craven, Charles and David Cooper, "Student Sitdown Strike Spreads to Stores Here," The News and Observer February 11, 1960 Craven, Charles "Police Arrest 41 Students In Raleigh Demonstration," The News and Observer February 13, 1960 DeLaney , Theodore Carter , "The Sit-In Demonstrations in Historic Perspective" The North Carolina Historical Review , October 2010, Vol. 87, No. 4 , pp. 431-438 "43 Students Convicted, Fined for Trespassing in 'Sitdowns'," The News and Observer, March 29, 1960 Hampton, Chester "Moral, Human Right," Afro-American February 20, 1960 Johnson, Aaron and Deb Cleveland Man from Macedonia: My Life of Service, Struggle, Faith, and Hope Bloomington, Indiana: West Bow Press, 2010. "Major Sit-Down Victory is Won," Atlanta Daily World, April 28, 1960 "Major Sit-Down Victory Won," Michigan Chronicle (1939-Current); Apr 30, 1960 "Many Arrested, but Sit-Downs Roll on from Florida to N. Y. C." New Journal and Guide , March 12, 1960 "Mayor's Statement," The News and Observer February 11, 1960 Sourced from: NC AAHC Previous Next

< Back Cameron Village Sit-In. ​ Black Students Arrested During Sit-in In Former Cameron Village Honored With Historic Marker Photos – from the News and Observer, now archived at the State Archives of North Carolina – show the protests and subsequent courtroom coverage. Protesters can be seen carrying signs down Fayetteville Street with messages like, "Do we eat today??" and "Just a cup of coffee." Other images show stores with signs reading, "Closed in the interest of public safety," indicating how some members of the public felt about the protests. . . While many Raleighites know and love the Village District shopping center, they are likely unaware that one of the most pivotal peaceful protests in the Civil Rights movement occurred right on the 400 block of Woodburn Road - at what was formerly known as Woolworth's. WRAL - Posted 10:03 a.m. Sunday April 27, 2023 - Updated 7:26 a.m. Friday April 28, 2023 While many Raleighites know and love the Village District shopping center, they are likely unaware that one of the most pivotal peaceful protests in the Civil Rights movement occurred right on the 400 block of Woodburn Road – at what was then known as Woolworth's. Inspired by lunch counter protests in Greensboro, 130 African American students entered eight Raleigh establishments and requested service. Of those protesters, 41 students from both Shaw and St. Augustine's universities were arrested for trespassing while peacefully protesting discriminatory policies. One sign hanging over a lunch counter reads: "We reserve the right to serve the public as we see fit." Newspaper articles from the 1960s show sit-ins were becoming more prominent across the state – and provide some insight into how businesses were responding. "A large group of Negroes asked for service today at Walgreens in Winston-Salem, and the store promptly closed the counter," said one article from The Durham Sun. Stores like Woolworths, Kress and McLellan closed their counters, and some even closed down their entire stores in response to sit-ins. One store kept their lunch counter open, but intentionally ignored African-American students. One protester and leader summed up the protest in an interview. "I have no malice, no jealousy, no envy. I just want to come in whenever I would and be served," he said. On Feb. 16, Martin Luther King, Jr., met with students from numerous North Carolina schools in Durham. He characterized the student sit-down strikes as “one of the most significant developments in the civil rights struggle." Raleigh mayor says sit-ins 'destined to fail' Raleigh's then-mayor W. G. Enloe released a statement amid many of the sit-ins happening in the 1960s, first praising Raleigh's relationship with the African-American community and the contributions of both Shaw and St. Augustine colleges. However, he then said the sit-ins were damaging and "destined to fail." "It is regrettable that some of our young Negro students would risk endangering these relations by seeking to change a long-standing custom in a manner that is all but destined to fail," said Enloe, according to a News & Observer article from February 11, 1960. Enloe expressed sympathy for the merchants, rather than the students, arguing the merchants had 'no control' over the 'custom' of not allowing African-American men and women at their lunch counters. Raleigh's sit-downs spurred the first major breakthrough of the student movement The 41 students arrested at the former Cameron Village Woolworths were released on bond guaranteed by the Raleigh Citizens Association, according to Friends of Oberlin Village, who are hosting the public installation of the Civil Rights marker this Saturday, April 29. More than 700 people tried to attend the first day of the trial, and the protesters were found guilty. However, lawyers combined four of the students' cases in an appeal, as a test for the others. The appellate court dismissed the case, and cases against the remaining students were not pursued. This was hailed as "the first major legal breakthrough in the student sit-down situation." The sit-down movement across the south inspired young people to engage in non-violent protests. It gave the Congress for Racial Equity (CORE) leverage in negotiating agreements with chain stores and spurred the creation of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) at Shaw University. Be there for a historic moment: Installing the Civil Rights marker in the Village District Friends of Oberlin Village applied for the Civil Rights marker in recognition of the protests and were successfully awarded status on the North Carolina Civil Rights Trail. The unveiling of the marker will take place on Saturday, April 29, 2023 at 1 p.m. in the 400 block of Woodburn Avenue in the Village District, where once-arrested student, now reverend David C. Forbes will share stories and experiences from the Civil Rights movement. People are invited to experience the historic moment. Immediately afterwards at 2 p.m., Forbes and other students involved in the 1960s sit-ins will hold a panel conversation at Oberlin Regional Library. Later that same day, the public is invited to celebrate and support Raleigh's Black history in Historic Oberlin Village. The family-friendly event will include trolley tours, jazz music, a marketplace to support local Black businesses, a pop-up museum and a BBQ dinner. Visitors will also be able to tour one of the last known surviving antebellum Black settlements in the state, including: -The 3-acre Oberlin Cemetery, established in 1873 soon after emancipation The site of the lost Latta University, a segregated college no longer standing today -Wilson Temple United Methodist, one of the original congregations of historic Oberlin -Multiple late Victorian homes belonging to early Oberlin families. Tickets and information are available, and all funds raised benefit Friends of Oberlin Village. The historic marker will be unveiled at 1 p.m., Saturday April 29 2023 and the tours, jazz and BBQ run from 5 to 8 p.m. at 815 Oberlin Road. -End of article- Article source link: https://www.wral.com/.../civil-rights-marker.../20831914/ Previous Next

< Back Carolina Theatre round robin protest, 1962 ​ Image: March 15, 1962-A “round-robin” demonstrator asks to buy a ticket to the Carolina Theatre and gets a refusal at the box office. Once turned away, protesters went to the end of the line and waited their turns to try again. Photographer: Jim Sparks, Durham Herald Sun. Source: Durham Civil Rights Heritage Project Collection (NCC.0040), North Carolina Collection, Durham County Library, NC . Photo ID: mss_0040_079 . Black artists such as Marian Anderson had been performing at the Carolina Theatre since 1927. In early 1961, desegregation advocates began to protest the theater's segregation policies. Protesters included North Carolina College students and local Black high school students. In March 1962, protesters began a "round robin" style protest. They lined up to purchase their tickets at the white ticket booth and when the box office refused, they moved to the back of the line to repeat the process. The Carolina Theatre refused to integrate. The protests lasted for months, drawing coverage in the media and creating long lines for white patrons to purchase tickets. The protest was ordered to end by the court, but activists shifted tactics by filing a lawsuit. . DESEGREGATION OF THEATRES IN DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA, United States, followed a series of protests between 1961 and 1963, as well as petitions to local government officials and eventually legal action. The protests eventually came to focus on the Carolina Theater. In March 1962, the theater's manager rejected a proposal from the local NAACP chapter to negotiate its desegregation and later refused the city council's request that it reconsider the decision. In response, the protesters began "round-robin" demonstrations. After a court order ended those demonstrations, activists took their case to the courts. Eventually, in July 1963, after mass demonstrations and support from new mayor Wense Grabarek, Durham's segregated movie theaters began to open to all the public. MOVIE GOING AND DISCRIMINATION At the beginning of the 1960s, some theaters in North Carolina only allowed white Americans, while others segregated white and black Americans by assigning them into different sections in the theater. In certain theaters, owners and managers differentiated tickets with stamps or hired ushers in order to guarantee that black Americans be seated only in top balconies, called “Buzzard’s Roosts”. In other cases, black Americans were forced to enter from a separate entrance or be restricted to late showings called 'midnight rambles'. To take advantage of a new prosperous section of the Black population, entrepreneur Frederick King Watkins opened a number of black-only theaters. These seldom screened the latest Hollywood films, and often alternated films with all-black casts with western films. SEGREGATION ON PUBLIC LANDS A court ruling in Greensboro, North Carolina, concerning a privately owned golf course operating on leased public property upheld that African Americans had a right to be on public lands despite ownership. The verdict was that segregation could not be maintained indirectly: the golf course remained public property despite the business being privately owned. The Carolina Theater, established in 1926, was in 1961 privately owned by Charles Abercrombie, but the building, the Durham Auditorium, was leased for $10,000 a year. The similarities between the two situations provided a legal base upon which protestation against the desegregation of the municipally-owned Carolina theaters rested. PETITIONS AND MASS MOVEMENTS On November 2, 1960 the Carolina Theater case was brought before the City Council. The NAACP petitioned for the integration of the Carolina Theater, among many other racial reforms. The City Council relegated the petition to the Mayor’s Human Resource Committee. In January 1961, the NAACP issued a letter voicing its complaint about the segregation in theaters to the committee on Human Relations, City manager George Aull, and manager of the Carolina Theater Milo Crawford. In the letter, protestors stated their discontent with the “illegal” and “morally unjustified” policies of the theater. The NAACP acquired the signatures of students from nine different high schools and colleges: Duke University, North Carolina College, Durham High School, Henderson of Hills High School, Merrick-Moore High School, Whitted Junior High School, Deshazor’s Beauty College, Bull City Barber College, and Durham Business College. On January 21, in front of the Center and Carolina Theaters, faculty and students from the all-black North Carolina College and Duke University joined together to stage a protest. They locked arms to block the entrance to the theater, forcing their way into the entrance, and staging sit-ins. The new manager of the Carolina Theater, Charles Abercrombie, was persistent in his refusal to discuss the segregation issue, stating that “the question of whether or not to desegregate had been accepted by the Commission as a foregone conclusion”. In March 1962, the Carolina Theater was integrated for the first time when fourteen African Americans students snuck past the ticket ushers. For two days, long lines were formed by over a thousand African Americans in front of the ticket box, in which each black participant who was refused a ticket to the white section returned to the end of the line to try again, a tactic called "round-robin". As students were denied their entrance to the theater, they attempted elicit a reason from the salesman in order to gather evidence that African Americans were being denied entrance due to race. When the box office moved to the inside of the Theater, white advocates aided in the effort by purchasing tickets for black moviegoers, who would then sneak into the side doors of the theater. RESPONSE TO PROTESTS In response to the two-day mass demonstration, Judge Hamilton Hobgood issued a restraining order for the 34 students of the NAACP Youth Group who were in charge of the demonstration to stay away from the theater. Claiming to have suffered tremendous financial and reputational losses from the student-run protest, Abercrombie demanded a total of $30,000 in compensation: $25,000 for punitive damages and $5,000 for disruption of the natural procession of the theater. The restraining order also restricted interfering with the normal business functions of the theater, blocking the incoming and outgoing of consumers, and re-entering the line after being refused a ticket. A copy of the restraining order was posted outside the theater and handed out to each of the 34 students. DESEGREGATION AND AFTERMATH In 1963, the Mayor’s Interim Committee of Race Relations proposed a solution that both the theater managers and the chapters of NAACP and CORE supported. On July 15 the NAACP and CORE chapters initiated a twenty-day trial period in which most of Durham’s theaters, including the Carolina Theater, integrated blacks into the theaters in a controlled and spaced manner. Mrs. Bessie McLaurin, one of the adult supervisors in CORE, served as the scheduling manager for numerous theaters during the twenty-day trial. Black movie-goers interested in a particular showing had to contact McLaurin in order to schedule a time and date for their attendance. The idea was to gradually increase the number of African Americans allowed into each showing by each of the twenty trial days in order to slowly integrate them into the audience. On August 5, 1963, new mayor Wense Grabarek informed Miss Joyce Ware, the NAACP-CORE council chairman, that all movie houses except the Uptown Theater would be open to the entire public. This marked the end of the 20-day trial period and the integration of the Carolina Theater. Source link: https://en.wikipedia.org/.../Desegregation_of_theaters_in... . Previous Next

Military Back To Military Home Page 371st Infantry Band 371st Infantry Band, c.1917, likely at Camp Jackson, SC,. Read More 41st Engineers Possibly related to: Fort Bragg, North Carolina. 41st Engineers on parade with Sergeant Franklin Williams in color guard] March 1942. Read More 6888 Central Postal Directory Battalion Members of the Six Triple Eight take part in a parade commemorating Joan of Arc in Rouen, France, in May 1945. Read More African American Gold Star Mothers A group of Gold Star mothers pose outside a replica of Mt. Vernon Read More African American Gold Star Mothers African American Gold Star mothers sail to France aboard the American Banker in 1933, on a mission to visit the graves of their sons killed in World War I. (Dick Lewis/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images) Read More African American Gold Star Mothers- A critique of the Gold Star pilgrimage program appeared on the cover of Chicago’s Metropolitan News in 1936. (Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California) Read More African American Military Convalescent Patients Contact print of a photograph of a group of African American convalescent patients, shown wearing their hospital gowns and hats [some of which appear handmade]. Read More African Americans Defend Washington, N.C. During the siege of Washington in April 1863, Union troops armed African Americans to participate in the defense of the town. The incident is an early example in North Carolina of the shift in U.S. policy towards recruiting African Americans for military service in the Civil War. Read More After serving in World War I, Thomas Stith, Sr., worked for Rocky Mount schools for 20 years and 18 years for the US Post Office, but he is recognized for his dedication to the youth of the area as founder of Boy Scout Troop 161. He was active in developing the baseball park for the Negro League. He also founded the Southeastern Business College in Durham. Mr. Stith taught Sunday School at the St. James Baptist church for 15 years. He was inducted into Hall of Fame 2005. Read More Algonquin Club Black World War II servicemen socializing playing the piano and dancing at the then Algonquin Club Read More Andrew J. Brown [or Browne] Real-photo postcard of a studio portrait of Andrew J. Brown [or Browne] of Vaughn, N.C., wearing his U.S. Army uniform, sitting in a chair. An African American soldier. Read More Bennis Blue Photograph of 1st Lt. Bennis Blue (center, left with pack on) being fitted in preparation for a practice paratrooper jump with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., in 1978. Read More Billy Jinwright Out of the many Brunswick County men and women who served in the Vietnam war, ten lost their lives in service to our country. Here is some information about Captain McKenzie William “Billy” Jinwright. Read More Black Loyalists Exodus to Nova Scotia, 1783 The Black Loyalists were the approximately 3,600 American African supporters of the British during the American Revolution repatriated to British Canada at the end of the conflict. Read More Bryan Dickson Bryan Dickson, Grandson of Isaac Dickson, 1917. Asheville, Buncombe County (N.C.) Read More Bryan Dickson, Grandson of Isaac Dickson, 1917. Asheville, Buncombe County (N.C.) Bryan Dickson, Grandson of Isaac Dickson, 1917. Asheville, Buncombe County (N.C.) Read More Buffalo Soldiers 1 Image 1/3: Circa 1899, Yosemite National Parks Buffalo Soldiers, 25th Infantry or the 9th Cavalry soldiers, .S. Army Yosemite National Parks. Read More Buffalo Soldiers 2 1899 photo of Buffalo Soldiers in the 24th Infantry carrying out mounted patrol duties in Yosemite. Read More Buffalo Soldiers Image 3 Image 3/3: Cavalry members from a Buffalo Soldier Regiment, standing by their horses. Circa 1899. Read More Buffalo Soldiers-Circa 1899 Image 2/3: 1899 photo of Buffalo Soldiers in the 24th Infantry carrying out mounted patrol duties in Yosemite. Read More Camp Lejeune Fifty years ago, July 20, 1969 while other U.S. troops were fighting in Vietnam, dozens of Marines at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina were rioting on the base. I Read More Cavalry members from a Buffalo Soldier Regiment, standing by their horses. Circa 1895. Cavalry members from a Buffalo Soldier Regiment, standing by their horses. Circa 1895. Read More Cavalry members from a famed Buffalo Soldiers regiment standing next to their horses circa 1895. Buffalo Soldiers were America's first National Park Rangers Read More Charles George November 30, 1952, Charles George died at age 20 near Songnae-dong, Korea. Private First Class George, a member of the 45th Infantry Division, had sustained injuries the night before when he threw himself on a grenade to shield his comrades. Read More Charles T. Norwood Charles T. Norwood was from Raleigh, NC, and was Raleigh's first Black soldier to die in WWI. Read More Charles T. Norwood Charles T. Norwood was from Raleigh, NC, and was Raleigh's first Black soldier to die in WWI. Read More Charles W. Bundrige Charles W. Bundrige (1921-1997) joined Palmer Memorial Institute faculty in 1952 Read More Chatham's Patriots of Color Did you know that Chatham County can claim at least 30 free people of color who participated in the Revolutionary War? Read More Chief Hiram A. Bennett Chief Hiram A. Bennett (1922-1973) was a descendant of Washington and Jenny Harvey Bennett, both formerly enslaved at Somerset plantation Read More Circa 1899, Yosemite National Parks Buffalo Soldiers, 25th Infantry or the 9th Cavalry soldiers, .S. Army Yosemite National Parks. Circa 1899, Yosemite National Parks Buffalo Soldiers, 25th Infantry or the 9th Cavalry soldiers, .S. Army Yosemite National Parks. Read More Clara Adams-Ender Clara Adams-Ender was born In Willow Springs, North Carolina on Tue, 07.11.1939. She is an African American U.S. Army General, Nursing advocate and author. Read More Come Out Fighting! Trezzvant William Anderson was a member of the 761st Tank Battalion of the U.S. Army during World War II. Anderson wrote the unit's history book "Come Out Fighting: The Epic Tale of the 761st Tank Battalion, 1942-1945" , exploits during World War II. The battalion was made up of Black soldiers. Read More Dan Bullock On June 7, 1969, Private First Class Dan Bullock, a rifleman in the U.S. Marine Corps, was mortally wounded by a burst of enemy small arms fire. He died shortly thereafter. He was only 15-years-old. Read More Dunn Veasey and President Barack Obama In September 2016, President Obama and Dunn Veasey saluted each other at an event commemorating women who served in WWII Read More Eastern NC Residents Fought, Died for Union In Civil War Thousands of men from North Carolina enlisted to fight in the Civil War, many them for the Confederacy, but some – including 1,300, white, eastern North Carolinians – went against their state’s government and fought for the Union Army. They were later joined by nearly 1,100 black men from region. Read More Edward “Eddie” Allen Edward “Eddie” Allen (1893-1981), son of Green & Alice Cardwell Allen. Shown in his military uniform Read More Elinor Powell Photograph:Elinor Powell (right) with a fellow nurse at POW Camp Florence in Arizona, circa 1944-1945 (Photo courtesy of Chris Albert) Read More Elizabeth Barker Johnson For her 99th birthday, Elizabeth Barker Johnson was surprised with a party and an opportunity she has longed for since 1949. The World War II veteran found out she would finally be able to put on her cap and gown and walk across the stage at Winston-Salem State University’s graduation. Read More Ernest Richardson Real-photo postcard of a studio portrait of Ernest Richardson of the community of Essex in Halifax County, N.C. He is wearing his U.S. Army uniform, sitting in an elaborately-carved wood chair with an American flag in the background. Read More Excerpt of a letter from First Lieutenant James W. Alston to H. H. Brimley on November 1, 1918 about being only Black officer in a hotel in France. James William Alston was a First Lieutenant in the 372nd Infantry, an all-Black regiment, during World War I. Alston was born in Wake County, NC on January 16, 1876. In 1907, he started working as a janitor and messenger for the State Museum, later the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. During the war, Alston wrote several letters to H. H. Brimley, who was White. Brimley was a curator and the first director of the State Museum. Read More First Negro Nurses Land in England. First Negro Nurses Land in England. England, 1944. August 21. Read More Frank Roberts Frank Roberts, an Elizabeth City native and member of the 1st North Carolina Colored Volunteers, which was later renamed the 35th USCI Read More Franklin Williams Photograph description: Sgt. Franklin Williams of the US Army 41st Engineers leads his platoon on a charge. Fort Bragg, North Carolina,1942. Read More Fred L. Brewer Jr. Image: Remains uncovered in Italy after World War II have been identified as Second Lieutenant Fred L. Brewer Jr., a Charlotte, North Carolina native and Tuskegee Airman. Brewer graduated from Shaw University in Raleigh in 1942. He enlisted in the Army the following year and trained as a pilot at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Tuskegee, Alabama. Read More Fred L. Brewer Jr., a Charlotte, North Carolina native and Tuskegee Airman. Brewer graduated from Shaw University in Raleigh in 1942. He enlisted in the Army the following year and trained as a pilot at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Tuskegee, Alabama. Read More Frederick Clinton Branch ( The Marine Corps' First Black Commissioned Officer: The Life and Legacy of Frederick C. Branch Battles and wars: World War II Years of service: ‎1943-1955 Rank: ‎Captain Frederick Clinton Branch (May 31, 1922 – April 10, 2005) was the first African-American officer of the United States Marine Corps. Read More Garland E. Cooper Garland E. Cooper, Pvt. Medical Det. Recruit, WWI. Enlisted June 9th, 1918, Nash County, NC. Read More Garland E. Cooper, Pvt. Medical Det. Recruit, WWI. Enlisted June 9th, 1918, Nash County, NC. Garland E. Cooper, Pvt. Medical Det. Recruit, WWI. Enlisted June 9th, 1918, Nash County, NC. Read More Grady Jackson Mr. Grady Jackson, in his military uniform. He was a member of Boone’s (NC) historically Black community, Junaluska. Read More Henry Johnson Henry Johnson was born July 15 1892. He was a decorated African American soldier in WW1. He was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina William Henry Lincoln Johnson moved to Albany, New York when he was in his early teens. He worked as a redcap porter at the Albany Union Station on Broadway. Read More Herman Somerville Real-photo postcard of a studio portrait of Herman Somerville of Warrenton, N.C. He is wearing his U.S. Army uniform, standing with his arms behind his back. An African American soldier, Somerville served during World War I in Company 19, 161st Depot Brigade, and Company F, 365th Infantry, 92nd Division, U.S. Army (undated) Read More Howard P. Perry Howard P. Perry was the first Negro to enlist in the U.S.Marine Corps at Camp Lejune, on June 1, 1942 "Breaking a tradition of 167 years, the U.S. Marine Corps started enlisting Negroes on June 1, 1942. Read More Inez Stroud Inez Stroud, a member of the WAC ASF Band, poses with her saxophone at Ft. Des Moines, Iowa in 1943. She is wearing the enlistees' summer khaki uniform. Read More Inez Stroud, a member of the WAC ASF Band, poses with her saxophone at Ft. Des Moines, Iowa in 1943. She is wearing the enlistees' summer khaki uniform. Inez Namoi Stroud was born on 9 July 1909 in Wilmington, North Carolina. She was the third of nine children of the Rev. C.A. Stroud and Mrs. Beatrice Ford Stroud. Her father was a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and the family moved frequently. Read More Ivan James McRae, Jr. We decided to add this interview between 2n​d​ ​Lieutenant Ivan James McRae, Jr who was with the Tuskegee Airmen, and his granddaughter Briana R. McRae to this gallery. Read More James Edward Barnes STUDIO SHOT, NO. 176: JAMES EDWARD BARNES. This photograph shows James Edward Barnes (1926-1955), in his World War II uniform. In the 1930 census of Black Creek township, Wilson County: Frank Barnes, 22, farm laborer; wife Iantha, 17; and children James E., 4, and Oza, 1. Read More James Hunter Young Pictured is James Hunter Young, politician, businessman and racial spokesman. Born in Vance county in 1858, Hunter came to Raleigh following the Civil War, where he later became actively involved in the Republican Party, and later Fusion politics in the 1890s. Read More James W. Alston letter to H. H. Brimley mage: Excerpt of a letter from First Lieutenant James W. Alston to H. H. Brimley on November 1, 1918 about being only Black officer in a hotel in France. Read More Jean Marie Bright Jean Marie Bright was born on 25 September 1915, the daughter of farmers John and Lollie Bright of Rutherford County, North Carolina. Read More Jean Moore Fasse (seated) Image: Jean Moore Fasse (seated) and other Special Services members participate in craft activities with two Army soldiers, circa 1955. Read More Joe Louis Joe Louis poses with a group of African Army soldiers from the 364th Infantry Regiment (Colored), 92nd Infantry Division Read More John H. Hunter French real-photo postcard of John H. Hunter of Warrenton, N.C., wearing his full U.S. Army uniform and campaign hat, standing outside in front of a stone wall with his arms at his sides. An African American soldier, Hunter served in the Army’s Quartermaster Corps during World War I (undated). Read More John Withers Lieutenant John Withers had every reason to say no. The army, though segregated, was his only realistic shot at a better life. As an aspiring professor, Withers hoped the GI Bill would help him get a Ph.D., and maybe — just maybe — escape the fate that America had written for him. Read More Maj Charity Adams Photo: Maj Charity Adams (centre) inspects the first arrivals to the 6888th in England in February 1945. Read More Mattie Donnell Hicks Photograph:Newspaper clipping about Mattie Donnel Hicks. From the Greensboro Daily News, April 12, 1966. Read More Memorial Day Creators The Black Roots Of The Day Have Been Erased From Popular culture, History Books And Official Commemoration. Memorial Day Was Created By Freed Black People To Celebrate Black Liberation From American Chattel Slavery Read More Memorial Day Creators The Black Roots Of The Day Have Been Erased From Popular Culture, History Books And Official Commemoration. Memorial Day Was Created By Freed Black People To Celebrate Black Liberation From American Chattel Slavery Read More Memorial Day Creators The Black Roots Of The Day Have Been Erased From Popular Culture, History Books And Official Commemoration. Memorial Day Was Created By Freed Black People To Celebrate Black Liberation From American Chattel Slavery. Read More Memorial Day Creators Who Invented Memorial Day? By Jim Downs As Americans enjoy the holiday weekend, does anyone know how Memorial Day originated? Read More Memorial Day-1865 Black people may have started Memorial Day. Whites erased it from history. By Donald Beaulieu / WaPo May 29, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT Read More Military Back of the Bus No matter what we accomplished abroad or in America, we were still identified as second class citizens in America. Read More Millie Dunn Veasey Photo: Millie Dunn Veasey and her unit's contribution to WW2 was "huge", one expert said. Obituary: Millie Dunn Veasey, pioneering sergeant turned rights activist By Roland Hughes BBC News 18 March 2018 Read More Montford Point at Camp Lejeune #OnThisDay April 26, 1942, the United States Marine Corps opened Montford Point at Camp Lejeune, specifically for the training of African American recruits. Photograph description: Top photo-Two Marine recruits at Montford Point standing up in a tank with a 90mm anti-aircraft gun, 1943. Library of Congress: Bottom photo- Three Marines with rifles, jumping over a barrier as they train at Montford Point. Image from National Archives. Read More Montford Point at Camp Lejeune On April 26, 1942, the United States Marine Corps opened Montford Point at Camp Lejeune, specifically for the racially segregated training of African American recruits. Read More Montford Point at Camp Lejeune *Photo: Camp Legune Montford-Point Marines,1943* ---- You Ain’t Going To Be No Officer By Ned Forney On November 10, 1945, the 170th anniversary of the founding of the United States Marine Corps, a small ceremony took place at Montford Point, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Read More NEGRO SOLDIERS LIBERATING SLAVES Item description: Illustration, published in Harper’s Weekly on 23 January 1864, entitled “Colored troops, under General Wild, liberating slaves in North Carolina.” The illustration depicts the liberation of slaves in Camden County, North Carolina. Read More Navy B-1 Band Racial Barrier-Busting U.S. Navy B-1 Band The First African American Band Honored With Chapel Hill NC Historical Marker MAY 25, 2017 By Tammy Grubb The 44 members of the U.S. Navy B-1 Band cracked the color barrier, leaving an impression on the Chapel Hill community during their two-year service on UNC’s campus during World War II. Read More Parker David Robbins This is Mr. Parker David Robbins, he was a free person of Indigenous American and African descent, and he constructed the steamboat Saint Peter in 1888. Born in 1834 in either Colerain Township, Bertie County, North Carolina or the Choanoac Indian community of Gates County, North Carolina. Read More Pea Island Life-Saving Station Pea Island Life-Saving Station was a life-saving station on Pea Island, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It was the first life-saving station in the country to have an all-black crew, and it was the first in the nation to have a black man, Richard Etheridge, as commanding officer. Read More Pea Island Lifesaving Station N.C. Aquarium Will Highlight Keeper Of Pea Island Lifesaving Station By Jeff Hampton / The Virginian-Pilot -Feb 07, 2015 AT 12:00 AM Image description from article about painting: Top Image is a painting of Richard Etheridge, keeper of the first all-Black U.S. Lifesaving Station at Pea Island, stands with his crew at the far left. His portrait has been enlarged to the right in this painting. the painting is by Outer Banks artist James Melvin. Read More Ralph Berry Ralph Berry was the U.S. Coast Guard’s first African American diver. On Nov 23, 2021 he was recognized for his service in Elizabeth City, NC. Berry grew up in Manteo, enlisted in 1974 and in 1979 he completed dive training. Read More Richard E. Pennington Real-photo postcard of a studio portrait of Richard E. Pennington of Macon, N.C., wearing his full U.S. Army uniform, standing and holding an American flag on a pole, with a hand-painted backdrop behind him. An African-American soldier, Pennington served during World War I in Company E, 365th Infantry, 92nd Division, U.S. Army Read More Richard Etheridge Keeper Richard Etheridge (on left) and the Pea Island Life-Saving crew in front of their station, circa 1896. Pea Island, NC Pea Island Life-Saving Station was a life-saving station on Pea Island, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It was the first life-saving station in the country to have an all-black crew, and it was the first in the nation to have a black man, Richard Etheridge, as commanding officer. Read More Robert Allen Robert Allen (1891_1935), son of Green & Alice Cardwell Allen. Shown in his military uniform. This image is part of a collection of family artifacts, papers, including several albums. Read More Robert Gould Shaw October 10, 1837, Robert Gould Shaw was born. Shaw was born in Boston into one of the wealthiest families in the country. As a young man, he was anti-slavery but never seemed to pick up the same zeal for abolition that his parents did saying “I don’t see how one man can do much against slavery." Read More Robert Lee Weaver Photo and information credit: Mrs. Denise Hester (daughter). SALUTE! WORLD WAR II VETERAN My father Robert Lee Weaver served in the US Army in combat in the South Pacific/Philippines warfront. He attained the rank of Sergeant before being honorably discharged. Read More Shelton Tucker Photograph: Three Generations of Documented Military Service Surrounded by family members, William A. Tucker a WWII and Vietnam veteran (center) accepts Butler Medal posthumously Read More Southport, NC June 5, 1917 , This was the first military registration day in Southport for the elective enrollment of men, and on this day it was taking place all over the United States. Read More Spurgeon Neal Ellington Tuskegee Airman Was Born In Winston-Salem and Taught At Pender County Training School Before Taking To The Air BY Claudia Stack Spurgeon Neal Ellington/American Air Museum in Britain Read More Stanley Williams Real-photo postcard of Stanley Williams of the small community of Elberon in Warren County, N.C. He is wearing his U.S. Army uniform, standing with his arms at his sides outside next to a building at an unidentified location. Read More Thomas J. Bullock. Studio portrait of African American U.S. Army Lt. Thomas J. Bullock. Bullock was born and raised in Henderson, N.C. He served in the Spanish-American War, and later served as the principal of the Williston Industrial School in Wilmington, N.C. Read More Thomas Stith, Sr. After serving in World War I, Thomas Stith, Sr., worked for Rocky Mount schools for 20 years and 18 years for the US Post Office, but he is recognized for his dedication to the youth of the area as founder of Boy Scout Troop 161. Read More Toney Boyd Escaped Slave Joins Company K, 37th Infantry, USCT by ccwinslow394 | Sep 2, 2018 | Craven, Union affiliation AUTHOR: Kenneth Whitehurst (originally posted 9/2/2018; edited and vetted by Cheri Todd Molter 7/22/20) My great-great-grandfather, Toney Boyd, was a slave of Frederick Boyd at a place called Long Acre, near Bath, in Beaufort County, North Carolina. Read More Trezzvant W. Anderson Left portrait: Trezzvant W. Anderson (born in Charlotte, NC November 22, 1906 and died March 25, 1963) began his career in journalism and activism in the late 1920s. Not long after he dropped out of Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, NC, and after he landed a job with the federal Railway Mail Service, this official photograph of Anderson was taken in 1938. Read More United States Colored Troops United States Colored Troops: Fighting for Freedom By John H. Haley, PhD On June 19, 1863, the first company of United States Colored Troop raised in North Carolina—and quite possibly the nation. The brigade’s First Regiment of North Carolina Colored Volunteers was based at New Bern. Read More Veterans Day Although Veterans Day, as a nationally recognized holiday, did not come about until after the end of the Reconstruction Era, Americans have been commemorating our country’s veterans for generations. Read More “Harriet,” movie starring Cynthia Erivo in the title role. Words on image: Tubman was a spy for the Union army during the Civil War which was fought to Emancipate Enslaved Black people. Massachusetts Governor John Andrew, a staunch abolitionist, asked Tubman to join the contingent of his state’s volunteers heading for South Carolina, and promised his sponsorship. Andrew also obtained military passage for Tubman on USS Atlantic. Read More

Additional Military Return to Military Home Page America's Tenth Man A Pictorial Review of One-Tenth of a Nation -Presenting the Negro Contribution to American Life Today Published 1957 Read More 'Sister Circle, Activate!' RALEIGH (WTVD) -- When WakeMed pediatrician Rasheeda Monroe volunteered as a COVID-19 vaccinator last month, she saw something was missing. "I noticed that it was an amazing event, over 1,100 people got vaccinated. But, I thought where are the people of color," she said. Read More ANNIE DAUGHERTY “[Annie Daugherty] was the midwife of the entire town. She delivered most of all the children in [Black Mountain] for the people who couldn’t afford to go to the hospital or have a doctor no matter if they were black or white. That was my grandmother,” Katherine Daugherty Debrow told a local filmmaker in 2001. Read More American History-African Americans Who Changed This Country: A Medical Perspective of Achievements These are not all of the Black People who forged paths through racism to become change agents in the American Medical Field. Read More Appalachian Genealogy On 05/25/2012, a DNA study in the Journal of Genetic Genealogy was released. Read More Appalachian Genealogy II On 05/25/2012, a DNA study in the Journal of Genetic Genealogy was released. Read More Asheville Colored Hospital Only in the last fifty years has access to Asheville’s hospitals been available to every citizen. Before the 1950s a third of the population was legally segregated from seeking medical treatment. Read More COVID-19 Vaccine Descendants of Tuskegee Syphilis Study Survivors Say It Was Nothing Like the Covid-19 Vaccine They want to set the record straight on their fathers’ legacies and the ahistorical information. Though this article/interview is aboutThe Tuskegee Syphilis Study, we feel it's relevant to NC Black Health care history. American systemic racism structures have created injustices for Black Americans no matter which state we are from or live in now. Read More Carolyn Robertson Payton Carolyn Robertson Payton was born May 13, 1925. She was an African American Psychologist and global peace administrator and advocate. She was born in Norfolk, Virginia to Leroy Solomon Robertson and Bertha Flanagan Robertson. Read More Carrie Early Broadfoot Biography of Carrie Early Broadfoot - Founder, North Carolina Association of Negro Registered Nurses. Born June 13, 1870 in Lynchburg, VA, died January 8, 1945 Read More Charlie Kennedy, M.D. When Charlie Kennedy was a kid, his hopes for a medical career seemed an impossible dream. But with the help of benevolent strangers along the way, scholarships and a fervent determination for greatness, Kennedy would become the first black resident at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and, later, the first black pediatrician in Winston-Salem. Read More Chester Pierce Dr. Chester Middlebrook Pierce (B. March 4, 1927 – D. September 23, 2016) was an American psychiatrist who was a tenured professor of education and psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Read More Della Raney Top photo: chief nurse, Lieutenant Della Raney, Bottom photo: The 17 nurses who were under the charge of chief nurse, Lieutenant Della Raney, were in the 1942 yearbook of Tuskegee Army Flying School. They were part of the station hospital’s medical department for the Alabama base used for the advanced training of black men learning to fly military planes. Read More Dinah Scarborough Darden and her elder sons From Wilson, NC, Dinah Scarborough Darden and her elder sons, pharmacist James B., lawyer Charles S., and physician John W. Darden. Read More Division of Cooperation in Education and Race Relations Photograph of doctors attending a conference held by the Division of Cooperation in Education and Race Relations Read More Dr. Austin Maurice Curtis, Sr. Dr. Austin Maurice Curtis, Sr. was born either in June or January 15, 1868 in Raleigh, NC. He was a prominent turn-of-the-century physician and protégé of Dr. Daniel Hale Williams Read More Dr. Charles R. Drew Dr. Charles Richard Drew was born on June 3, 1904, in Washington, DC. Drew was a famous physician, surgeon, racial justice activist, and medical researcher who excelled in the area of blood transfusions. Dr. Charles R. Drew died on April 1, 1950, at Alamance General Hospital in Burlington, North Carolina at age 45 after being involved in an automobile accident while traveling through the area. Read More Dr. M.T. Pope House, 511 S. Wilmington Street, Raleigh, NC A Medical Perspective For African Americans Read More Dr. Thomas Unthank The birth of Thomas C. Unthank on Monday, 01.22.1866 is celebrated on this date. He was an African American Physician. Read More Eliza Bryant NOTE: We found different accounts concerning Eliza Simmons Bryant's ethnicity. Also there are different accounts concerning whether she was a free Black woman or enslaved. We give both accounts in this post. Below: We also added the history about The Eliza Bryant Nursing Home In Ohio . Read More Eliza Dyer Eliza was the baby nurse for many Goldsboro children. She was the first Black person to be buried in Willowdale Cemetery. She was buried by white friends as a Testimonial Token, Loyalty, and Faithfulness. She died 10-10-1910; aged ca. 96 years. Read More Emma Dupree Emma Dupree (1897-1992) was an influential black herbalist from Falkland and Fountain, in Pitt County in North Carolina. She was known locally as “granny woman.” She was the daughter of freed slaves and grew up on the Tar River. She was known for her work with native herbs: Sassafras, white mint, double tansy, rabbit tobacco, maypop, mullein, catnip, horseradish, and silkweed. Read More Emma Dupree Mrs. Emma Dupree was an herbalist and was given the loving moniker of "granny woman" .She was a traditional healer in Falkland, Pitt County, North Carolina. Read More Henrietta Phelps Jeffries Henrietta Phelps Lawson Jeffries died on August 22, 1926 in the town of Milton in Caswell County, North Carolina. She is buried at Macedonia A.M.E. Church on Yarborough Road in Milton, North Carolina. Read More Hester Ford Photograph description with article: Charlotte's Hester Ford, the oldest person in the United States, celebrated her birthday with a drive-through parade due to the coronavirus pandemic. (She is sitting in an opened door, wearing a pink crown with happy birthday on it, and wearing a pink sash. On a tray in front of her is a birthday cake. ) - Photograph credit: Jessica Koscielniak Read More Hester Ford A Charlotte, NC woman, Mrs. Hester Ford with 260 descendants, celebrates August 15, 2020 as her 116th Birthday! Records say she's the oldest living American. Read More In 1918 and 2020, Race Colors America’s Response To Epidemics Photo description: A photo of nine African American nurses, standing on the steps of a building, who worked at the Camp Sherman Base Hospital in Ohio during World War I. From the W. E. B. Du Bois Papers. Special Collections and University Archives, UMass Amherst Libraries. Read More JOHN CLEMON WILLIAMSON, M.D. DR. JOHN CLEMON WILLIAMSON. Born near Lucama in 1876 to Alex and Gracie Shaw Williamson, John Clemons Williamson attended Slater Industrial (the precursor to Winston-Salem State University), then Leonard Medical School. He returned to Winston-Salem to practice medicine and founded a private sanitarium in 1914. Read More James F. Shober, M.D. James Francis Shober was an African American doctor and the first Black physician in North Carolina. Read More Joseph H. Ward, M.D. The Indiana History Blog published Nicole Poletika's detailed look at Dr. Joseph H. Ward's role in challenging segregation as the head of Tuskegee, Alabama's Veterans Hospital No. 91 in the 1920s and '30s. Dr. Ward is on the front row, center (next to the nurse) in this 1933 photograph of Veterans Hospital staff. Photo courtesy of VA History Highlights, "First African American Hospital Director in VA History,". Read More Julia Roberts This is Julia Roberts, she was born in 1908. She was 96 when she died in 2004. Mrs. Roberts’ grandmother was enslaved on a plantation in Virginia, and Julia remembered her talking about having to "tend to white babies as a child." Roberts who was a midwife in the Kings Mountain, North Carolina, area for many years was described by many as the backbone and matriarch of her small, rural Black community of Ebenezer. Read More Leonard Medical School Leonard Hall, left, was constructed in 1881 and served as the base of operations for the Leonard Medical School. The "new" hospital, shown right, was completed in 1910, just 8 years before the school's closing. Courtesy State Archives of North Carolina. Read More Leonard Medical School At Shaw University Photograph: Leonard Medical School At Shaw University alumnus Lt. Urbane F. Bass was willing to give his life to save others. He was killed in action on Oct. 17, 1918. Courtesy U.S. National Library of Medicine. Read More Lincoln Hospital-Durham, NC THE FIRST Lincoln Hospital was erected on the corner of Proctor Street and Cozart Avenue with a gift of $8,550.00 from Mr. Washington Duke. The plant was completed in July 1901 and was opened for patients in August of the same year. Mr. Washington Duke first had in mind the erection of a monument, on the campus of Trinity College, now Duke University, to the memory of the Negro slaves for the part they played in the dark days of the Civil War. The late Dr. A. M. Moore, Durham's first Negro physician, together with Mr. John Merrick and Dr. S. L. Warren, convinced Mr. Duke that a hospital for the descendants of the slaves would be more serviceable. Read More Lincoln Hospital-Durham, NC II Lincoln Hospital (1901-1976) was a medical facility located in Durham, North Carolina founded to serve the African Americans of Durham County and surrounding areas. With original hospital construction financed by the Duke family, Lincoln served as the primary African American hospital in Durham until 1976, when it closed and transferred its inpatient services to Durham County General Hospital. Read More Louise Celia "Lulu" Fleming, M.D. Louise Cecelia Fleming was a graduate of Shaw University in Raleigh, NC, and she was the first Black woman to graduate from the Women’s Medical College at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Read More M. T. Pope, M.D. Dr. Manassa Thomas Pope was born in 1858 in Northampton Co., NC and died in 1934 at age 76. He is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery, Raleigh, NC. Manassa T. Pope was born free. Read More Mary Hayden Photograph: Black Mountain, NC Midwife "c1942-Mary Hayden, 84, with her granddaughter, Mary O. Burnette, about 1942 and two of Hayden's great-grandchildren. (Photo: SPECIAL TO BMN) Read More Mary Hayden Photograph: Mary Hayden, about 1919, with her daughter-in-law Hattie Payne Burnette and two of her oldest grandchildren, Lorenzo and infant Juanita. (Photo: SPECIAL TO BMN) Read More Mary Mills Image-Painting, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the Harmon Foundation. S/NPG.67.19 In all likelihood only one individual has been awarded both Lebanon’s Order of the Cedar and North Carolina’s Order of the Longleaf Pine. Mary (Margaret) Lee Mills, at first glance, may seem like an unlikely candidate for that distinction. Born in rural Pender County, North Carolina in August 1912, Mills hailed from the disenfranchised African-American community of one of the poorest parts of NC. How did she come to travel to Lebanon, much less win the highest award bestowed by the Lebanese government? Read More Minnie Wood Perkins "Minnie Wood Perkins was born in Northampton County on January 31, 1910, to Will and Jane Flood Wood. She attended Waters Training School in Winton. She married Claude Deans in 1929 and their only child, Iris, was born in 1931. Read More Nancy Jones She was born in Burke County in 1856 and died in 1943.. She lived near Magnolia her entire life She is holding Nan Fleming Jeter, born 1905 and died in 1991 Read More Racial Bias in Flexner Report Permeates Medical Education Today — Landmark study forced all but two Black U.S. medical schools to close Read More St. Agnes Hospital Saint Augustine's College established St. Agnes Hospital and Training School for Nurses to provide medical care for and by African Americans. It was the “first” school of nursing in the state of North Carolina for African American students and served as the only hospital that served African Americans until 1960. Read More St. Agnes Hospital Located on St. Augustine's College campus in Raleigh, NC, St. Agnes Hospital first opened its doors in October 1896 and served as a hospital and nurse training center for African Americans. Read More St. Agnes Hospital The site bears a Raleigh Historic Property designation, but being on that registry now puts some constraints on what can be done with property. The Department of the Interior, as well as other local groups and St. Augustine University alumni are looking for ways to restore the building as a medical school and museum. Read More St. Agnes Hospital Located on St. Augustine's College campus, St. Agnes Hospital first opened its doors in October 1896 and served as a hospital and nurse training center for African Americans. The hospital was expanded in 1903 to include new facilities, including an operating room. Read More St. Agnes Hospital Nursing School In June of 2015, Penelope Johnson Brown of Pikesville, MD, identified her mother, Madie L. Johnson White (Green), as being the nurse in the middle of the front row of three sitting in the grass. Madie L. Johnson White (Green) was born and raised in Chester, Maryland (Kent Island). Read More THE BIG LIE Red Cross nurses deliver food to a Charlotte home where a young mother had just died. Read More Tempe Avery Before the Civil War, Avery was owned by Nicholas Woodfin, a state senator and the largest slave owner in Buncombe County, NC. Tempe was a famous nurse who delivered many babies in Asheville, both black and white. In return for her loyalty and service to his family, Nicholas Woodfin gave Tempe several lots in Montford, which she passed on to her descendants when she died in 1917. Read More The Eugenics Board The 1919 law was the first foray for North Carolina into eugenics; this law, entitled "An Act to Benefit the Moral, Mental, or Physical Conditions of Inmates of Penal and Charitable Institutions" was quite brief, encompassing only 4 sections. Provision was made for creation of a Board of Consultation, made up of a member of the medical staff of any of the penal or charitable State institutions, and a representative of the State Board of Health, to oversee sterilization that was to be undertaken when "in the judgement of the board hereby created, said operation would be for the improvement of the mental, moral or physical conditions of any inmate of any of the said institutions". Read More The Eugenics Program Photo Collage Description: Left image- A page from a eugenics pamphlet in the 1930s Handout Pamphlet- Courtesy of the UNC Wilson Library, NC Collection- Transcript of words on pamphlet At bottom of Post* Right Image: In this June 22, 2011 photo, Elaine Riddick has her face in a handkerchief and wipes tears from her eyes as she listens to other victims testify before the Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation task force compensation hearing in Raleigh, N.C. Between 1929 and 1974, North Carolina sterilized more than 7,600 individuals in the name of “improving” the state’s human stock. Jim R. Bounds- AP Read More The Myth of Black Immunity: Racialized Disease during the COVID-19 Pandemic Photo description: A Public health doctor giving tenant family- a Black mother and her children who are standing on the steps of their front porch-- medicine for malaria near Colombia, South Carolina, 1939 (Photo: Marion Post Wolcott, Library of Congress). Read More The Negro Midwives Association Over 100 midwives existed in Pitt County, NC in the 1920s and only 4 were left in 1968. Read More

< Back A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History Re-examines civil rights history and the way it's been manipulated. Jeanne Theoharis is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College. Her book The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, won a 2014 NAACP Image Award and the 2013 Letitia Woods Brown Award from the Association of Black Women Historians. Previous Next

< Back Tenant farmer plowing corn in Person County, North Carolina, July 1939. He mainly raises tobacco. Photo by Dorothea Lange- Library of Congress Tenant farmer plowing corn in Person County, North Carolina, July 1939. He mainly raises tobacco. Photo by Dorothea Lange- Library of Congress Tenant farmer plowing corn in Person County, North Carolina, July 1939. He mainly raises tobacco. Photo by Dorothea Lange- Library of Congress Previous Next

< Back Jackie "Moms Mabley" Moms Mabley, was born on 3, 19 1897. She was an African American vaudeville performer and comedian, the first Black woman to establish herself as a single act in standup comedy in America. Photograph : Jackie "Moms Mabley" Comic Pioneer, circa 1970- credit by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images Moms Mabley, was born on 3, 19 1897. She was an African American vaudeville performer and comedian, the first Black woman to establish herself as a single act in standup comedy in America. Jackie "Moms" Mabley was from Brevard, North Carolina. She rose to national recognition as a standup comedian in the early 1960s. A pioneer of social satire, she has strongly influenced such contemporary Black comedians as Richard Pryor and Whoopi Goldberg. Mabley was also known for her compassion and kindness; these qualities earned her the endearing sobriquet "Moms". Born Loretta Mary Aiken, Mabley grew up in a large family in the south. Her father ran several businesses while her mother presided over a large household that included boarders. When Loretta was 11 her father died when his fire truck overturned and exploded. Encouraged by her grandmother to make a life for herself, she departed for Cleveland, Ohio. After singing and dancing in local shows, she began performing throughout the country. Traveling the vaudeville circuit, she experienced overt racism and demeaning working conditions and deflected her pain through satirical wit that drew heavily from black folk traditions. Mabley’s career took off when, in 1921, the husband-wife vaudeville team, Butterbeans and Susie, invited her to perform with them in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In her comedy routines, Mabley adopted a stage persona based loosely on her own grandmother but with a distinctly cantankerous and sassy edge. She was known for her folksy humor and ribald jokes and affectionately referred to her audience as her "children." Onstage Mabley became famous for her gaudy housedresses, floppy hats, and oversized clodhoppers. During the 1960s, she recorded more than 20 albums of her comedy routines and appeared on television shows hosted by Harry Belafonte, Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin, and Bill Cosby. A year after starring in the feature film Amazing Grace (1974), Mabley died of natural causes at the age of 78. Reference: The Book of African-American Women 150 Crusaders, Creators, and Uplifters by Tonya Bolden Adams Media ISBN 1-58062-928-8 Black Women in America An Historical Encyclopedia Volumes 1 and 2, edited by Darlene Clark Hine Copyright 1993, Carlson Publishing Inc., Brooklyn, New York ISBN 0-926019-61-9 Previous Next

< Back Selma Burke Selma Burke - sculptor "I have known African art all my life. At a time when this sculpture was misunderstood and laughed at, my family had the attitude that these were beautiful objects". Selma Burke - sculptor Previous Next

< Back Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching By Paula Giddings (Author) March 2008 - Illustrated. 800 pp. Amistad/HarperCollins Publishers ----- O Pioneer! By Richard Lingeman/NYT Book Review - May 18, 2008 If slavery is America’s original sin, lynching is its capital crime. The historical memory dies hard: only last year, three nooses were hung from a schoolyard tree contested by white and black students in Jena, La. The wave of mob killings of blacks in the South � by hanging, burning, shooting and torture � started after the end of Reconstruction. These public murders were carried out with the real purpose of keeping blacks in their place, economically and socially. The practice was supported by leading citizens and became a popular public spectacle, a carnival of cruelty that drew excited crowds. According to “Rope and Faggot,” the 1928 study by the N.A.A.C.P. general secretary Walter White, between 1882 and 1927 there were 4,951 lynchings in the United States. About a third of them were aimed at whites, mainly in the West; 92 of the victims were women. Ida B. Wells-Barnett was one of the first African-Americans to raise an informed protest against this outrage. Paula Giddings’s devoted and scrupulous biography is not the first study of this pioneering woman, but it is a comprehensive work that attempts to portray her as part of the progressive movement that emerged among the black bourgeoisie in post-bellum America. Wells-Barnett dedicated her life to bringing lynchings to the attention of America and the world. Determined, outspoken and fearless, an incendiary pamphleteer, she was politically astute, anticipating the tactics of the civil rights movement. Giddings, a professor of African-American studies at Smith College and author of “Where and When I Enter,” a history of black women activists, brushes in the historical context of Wells-Barnett’s campaign ably, if in occasionally numbing detail. Excavating scattered letters, fragmented diaries and second-hand references to her writings for short-lived African-American weeklies, Giddings aims, she writes, to uncover the achievements of a bold woman whose militancy and “dominating style” sometimes cost her allies in her own day and proper credit in the eyes of history. Ida Bell Wells was born to slave parents in 1862 in Holly Springs, Miss. Her father, a skilled carpenter, and mother, a housekeeper, were struck down by yellow fever when Ida was 16. Giddings writes of this turning point: “Throughout the remainder of her life, she struggled to turn the negative emotions of abandonment into a righteous determination to reform herself and the society that had forsaken her race.” A precociously mature, bright and pretty teenager, standing barely five feet, Wells took charge of the upbringing of her younger siblings with help from relatives. She got some higher education, became a voracious reader with a love of Shakespeare and showed a talent for writing. She turned to teaching school to support her family, eventually moving in 1880 to Memphis. There she siphoned off some of her energy into journalism, turning out a column for a local African-American paper that regularly challenged the racist libels of the white press. Yet she remained very much the Victorian young lady who admired “noble true womanhood and perfect ladyship” and vowed to curb her “unfeminine” anger. Her craving for “perfect ladyship” toughened into a demand for respect. Black women at the time were often demeaned as dusky temptresses, which presumably explained their illicit sexual attraction to so many white men. Wells lashed out against the “wholesale contemptuous defamation of black women” and the “refusal to believe there are among us mothers, wives and maidens who have attained a true, noble and refining womanhood.” Her determination to be treated as a lady provoked her first clash with white supremacy, in 1883, when she violently resisted being ejected from the whites-only “ladies car.” She sued the railroad, but the Tennessee Supreme Court, in a preview of Plessy v. Ferguson, ruled she was no lady, merely a “mulatto passenger,” separable and unequal, whose intention wasn’t to ride comfortably but to “harrass” and litigate. Wells’s anti-lynching crusade hinged on a word ladies did not utter: “rape.” Defenders of the Snopesian New South, fearing Northern capitalists would pull out investments, claimed that lynching was a necessary response to an epidemic of attacks on white women by ravening black men. Defying Victorian gentility, Wells debunked this propaganda with evidence that accusations of rape were a factor in less than one-third of lynchings. The campaign that became her life’s work really started in 1892 with the murders of her friend Tommie Moss and two others by a Memphis mob. Moss’s offense had nothing to do with rape; he was defending the cooperative grocery of which he was president against a group of whites he believed were bent on destroying it. A solid citizen who also worked as a postman, Moss was captured with two others and jailed. A mob abducted them and put them to a slow, painful death by gunshots. The Memphis Appeal-Avalanche boasted that the lynching was “one of the most orderly of its kind ever conducted.” Wells, who had since moved to New York, was shocked by Moss’s death. It was “our first lesson in white supremacy,” she declared. Writing about the affair in Free Speech, the paper she began editing in 1889, she almost got herself lynched by daring to suggest that white men who “overreach” in charges of rape might end up being “very damaging to the moral reputation of their women.” Infuriated whites trashed her newspaper office and would have killed her had she not been out of town. Wells decided to stay in New York, and soon set down in an African-American paper a long article, “The Truth About Lynching,” expanding on her contention that some white women chose to consort with black men and that black women were exploited by white men. She called for boycotts and strikes by blacks to protest lynchings. “The Winchester rifle,” she wrote, “should have a place of honor in every black home,” since government refused to protect them. She herself bought a gun, but investigative journalism was her primary weapon. From a variety of platforms, she broadcast authoritative facts, statistics and case histories. One of her pamphlets was devoted to an 1899 auto-da-fé in Palmetto, Ga., where a laborer named Sam Hose was accused of killing his employer, raping his wife and throwing their baby onto the floor. (A private detective hired by Wells showed that the wife had never in fact accused Hose of rape.) Hose was taken to the town square, tied to a tree and stripped naked. His ears, fingers and penis were sliced off, and then he was burned alive. Afterward, bits of charred bone, slices of liver and even parts of the tree were sold as souvenirs. The tide of lynchings continued to terrorize Southern blacks well into the 20th century. Local authorities covered up for the mobs, while the federal government looked the other way. In the early 1920s the federal anti-lynching legislation Wells-Barnett had championed died in the Senate. Meanwhile, Ida had in 1895 married a Chicago lawyer named Ferdinand Barnett, a feminist who contributed his legal skills to the cause, suing to enforce Illinois’s anti-lynching laws. She settled in Chicago and bore four children, even as she continued lecture tours and meetings and ran The Conservator, a black paper her husband owned. Inspired by Jane Addams, she created programs for young black men and women patterned after those of Hull House. Susan B. Anthony endorsed her cause, and Wells joined the suffragists. But Anthony and others in the movement feared alienating their Dixie membership, so Wells concentrated on organizing black women to get out the vote for race candidates in local elections. Not long before her death in 1931, she ran unsuccessfully for state senator. Ida Wells-Barnett was among the first to grasp that the battle against lynching was the moral cutting edge of African-Americans’ struggle for equality. In fighting words and brave personal witness, she exposed lynching as a crime against a people. Previous Next

< Back Shaw University was Founded by Dr. Henry Martin Tupper on December 1, 1865. ​ On December 1, 1865, SHAW was Founded by Dr. Henry Martin Tupper. Shaw University, located in Raleigh, North Carolina is the first historically Black institution of higher education in the South and among the oldest in the nation. The University was founded in 1865 by Henry Martin Tupper, a native of Monson, Massachusetts, a soldier in the Union Army during the Civil War, and a graduate of Amherst College and Newton Theological Seminary. Shaw boasts many “firsts”: the first college in the nation to offer a four-year medical program, the first historically Black college in the nation to open its doors to women, and the first historically Black college in North Carolina to be granted an “A” rating by the State Department of Public Instruction. Dr. Paulette Dillard currently serves as the University's 18th President. ------------- Shaw University, founded as the Raleigh Institute, is a private liberal arts institution and historically black university(HBCU) in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. Shaw University is the first HBCU in the Southern United States Shaw University has been called the mother of African-American colleges in North Carolina, as the founding presidents of North Carolina Central University, Elizabeth City State University, and Fayetteville State University were all Shaw alumni. The founder of Livingstone College studied at Shaw, before transferring to Lincoln University. What became North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University was located on Shaw's campus during its first year. Shaw University is affiliated with the General Baptist State Convention of North Carolina and a member of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. which supports the Shaw University Divinity School. Along with Howard University, Hampton University, Lincoln University, PA and Virginia Union University, Shaw was a co-founding member of the NCAADivision II's Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) Conference, the oldest African American athletic association in the U.S. The university has won CIAA championships in Football, Basketball (women's and men's), Tennis (women's and men's) and volleyball. The university won a 5-year grant with University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill to create a Partnership for the Elimination of Health Disparities for minorities, and a 7-year grant with Johns Hopkins University for Gerontological Research. In 2007, Shaw received $2.5 million from the National Science Foundation to support its Nanoscience and Nanotechnologyprogram. In 2004, Shaw University received $1.1 million from the U.S. Department of Education to develop an Upward Bound Program. The school was founded by the American Baptist Home Mission Society Henry Martin Tupper came south immediately after the end of the Civil War, establishing the Second Baptist Church of Raleigh (changed to Tabernacle Baptist Church in 1910, and now the Tupper Memorial Baptist Church.)[5] Later Tupper and his Bible study students constructed a two-story church, with one story for the church, and one for the Raleigh Institute, where he taught freedmen. By 1915, supported by the American Baptist Home Mission, the school had 291 students, evenly divided between men and women. In 1867 the school consisted of three buildings, two of which were Antebellum cabins. As of 1875 when Shaw Collegiate Institute became Shaw University only two major structures existed – The Shaw Building and Estey Seminary. The former, erected where once stood corn fields in which Tupper hid from lynch mobs, with a 165-foot frontage, four stories high and possessing a tower, was the most commodious school building in all of North Carolina at that time. It provided instruction services, a library, and lodging. The seminary, reputed to be the first building ever erected for the education of African-American females, was devoted to training women in cooking, sewing, music, and the like. Henry Martin Tupper bought the material from which the women made garments and he himself sold the garments in an effort to pay for the cost of the material and other expenses. In 1879, a third major building was erected – a chapel and dining hall called the Greenleaf Building. It was named for O.H. Greenleaf of Springfield, MA, a yearly liberal contributor. The upper part of the building was accessible by stairs. Doors on either side of the tower provided entrance to the dining room. At the right of the chapel was a small room and at the left a library. A storeroom existed under the stairway. Funds saved from the school were used to build this structure. These were augmented by contributions of $650 (15,116.28 in current dollars) from O.H. Greenleaf, Captain Ebenezer Morgan, and Deacon O.B. Grant of Stonington. It was renamed Shaw Collegiate Institute after Elijah Shaw, benefactor of Shaw Hall, the first building. In 1875, it became Shaw University. In 1873, Estey Hall was built, marked the first female dormitory on the campus of a co-ed school in the United States. In 1866 when the Raleigh Institute was first being developed, Tupper had hoped to open a medical school; in 1881 the medical building became a reality, $15,000 (220,588.24 in current dollars) was contributed to make it. The medical school complex consisted primarily of three structures – a four story medical dormitory built to accommodate 75 men and erected around 1880 when the trustees approved the establishment of a medical department; the Leonard Medical Building, erected in the summer and fall of 1881 and containing lecture rooms, dissecting rooms, an amphitheater, and opened for its first session on November 1, 1881; a 25 bed hospital which opened for the reception of patients on January 10, 1885. It was the first four-year medical school to train African-American doctors in the South. On December 11, 1888 the university opened their law school. The full curriculum offering at Shaw are unknown, but it was the only black law school that had a course in legal shorthand. The course was offered on the premise that such a skill would broaden the opportunities for a black lawyer to work in a legal firm in a clerical position or as an office assistant should discrimination impede their ability to practice law. Shaw University graduated fifty-seven law students before it closed in 1916. It graduated fifty-four law students between 1891 and 1914. North Carolina politician John S. Leary was an important figure in the founding of the law school served as its dean starting in March 1890. He was followed as dean by Edward A. Johnson, who was the law school's first graduate and later the first African-American member of the New York State Assembly. Leonard Medical School was founded in 1881 as the first four-year medical school in the South to train black doctors and pharmacists. The first medical school in the state to offer a four-year curriculum, it operated until 1918. Given their importance in United States educational history, both Estey and Leonard halls have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. By 1900, more than 30,000 black teachers had been trained. In 1968, Shaw University became the first black college to own a radio station. At first, the station used an antenna on top of a building on the downtown campus, but in the late 1990s a new tower was built in southeast Raleigh near Interstate 40. WFSS in Fayetteville, North Carolina moved from 89.1 FM to 91.9 FM to allow WSHA to increase power. The university sold the station to Educational Media Foundation effective July 26, 2018, who subsequently renamed it WRKV. CIVIL RIGHTS The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) /ˈsnɪk/ was one of the organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged from a student meeting organized by Ella Baker that was held at Shaw University in April 1960. SNCC grew into a large organization, gaining many supporters in the North as well as in the South. It led grassroots organizing for voter education and registration in Mississippi, among other initiatives. Study of World War II service of black veterans Shaw University led a research study to investigate why no black veterans of World War II had been awarded the Medal of Honor. The study concluded that racial discrimination had contributed to the military's overlooking the contributions of black soldiers. The 272-page study recommended ten soldiers whose military records suggested they deserved the Medal of Honor. In January 1995, the team's findings were sent to the U.S. Department of Defense. In April 1996, the department agreed that seven of the ten soldiers should be awarded the Medal of Honor. All ten had been awarded other medals during the war years. President Bill Clinton awarded the Medals of Honor on January 13, 1997. The department's decision in response to Shaw's study marked only the third time that the military re-evaluated military records to award the Medal of Honor. Only one of the seven nominees, 1st Lt. Vernon Baker of St. Maries, Idaho, was alive to receive his medal. Those who were awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously were: 1st Lt. Charles L. Thomas of Detroit, Michigan; Pvt. George Watson of Birmingham, Alabama; Staff Sgt. Edward A. Carter Jr. of Los Angeles, California; 1st Lt. John R. Foxof Boston, Massachusetts; Pfc. Willy F. James Jr. of Kansas City, Kansas; and Staff Sgt. Ruben Rivers of Tecumseh, Oklahoma. Their families received the medals. Source:Shaw University Source:Black American Colleges and Universities: Profiles of Two-Year, Four-Year, & Professional Schools by Levirn Hill, Pub., Gale Group, 1994 ISBN: 0-02-864984-2 Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaw_University Previous Next

< Back Winston Salem State University ​ In 1925, Slater Academy became Winston-Salem Teachers College, the first Black institution in the nation authorized to offer a bachelor’s degree in education. Source: Winston Salem State University Archives, Winston Salem, NC. Previous Next

< Back Memorial Day-1865 Black people may have started Memorial Day. Whites erased it from history. By Donald Beaulieu / WaPo May 29, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT Black people may have started Memorial Day. Whites erased it from history. By Donald Beaulieu / WaPo May 29, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT Image description: 1865 photograph of graves of 250+ Union soldiers that had been buried by confederates in a mass grave at the tattered remnants of a Confederate prison camp at Charleston’s Washington Race Course and Jockey Club – today known as Hampton Park. Formerly enslaved men dug up the bodies and worked for two weeks to give them a proper burial as gratitude for fighting for their freedom. Source: Library of Congress . . -Begin article On May 1, 1865, thousands of newly freed Black people gathered in Charleston, S.C., for what may have been the nation’s first Memorial Day celebration. Attendees held a parade and put flowers on the graves of Union soldiers who had helped liberate them from slavery. The event took place three weeks after the Civil War surrender of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and two weeks after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. It was a remarkable moment in U.S. history — at the nexus of war and peace, destruction and reconstruction, servitude and emancipation. But the day would not be remembered as the first Memorial Day. In fact, White Southerners made sure that for more than a century, the day wasn’t remembered at all. It was “an erasure from public memory,” said David Blight, a history professor at Yale University. In February 1865, Confederate soldiers withdrew from Charleston after the Union had bombarded it with offshore cannon fire for more than a year and began to cut off supply lines. The city surrendered to the Union army, leaving a massive population of freed formerly enslaved people. Also left in the wake of the Confederate evacuation were the graves of more than 250 Union soldiers, buried without coffins behind the judge’s stand of the Washington Race Course, a Charleston horse track that had been converted into an outdoor prison for captured Northerners. The conditions were brutal, and most of those who had died succumbed to exposure or disease. In April, about two dozen of Charleston’s freed men volunteered to disinter the bodies and rebury them in rows of marked graves, surrounded by a wooden, freshly whitewashed fence, according to newspaper accounts from the time. Then, on May 1, about 10,000 people — mostly formerly enslaved people — turned out for a memorial service that the freed people had organized, along with abolitionist and journalist James Redpath and some White missionaries and teachers from the North. Redpath described the day in the New-York Tribune as “such a procession of friends and mourners as South Carolina or the United States never saw before.” The day’s events began around 9 a.m. with a parade led by about 2,800 Black schoolchildren, who had just been enrolled in new schools, bearing armfuls of flowers. They marched around the horse track and entered the cemetery gate under an arch with black-painted letters that read “Martyrs of the Race Course.” The schoolchildren proceeded through the cemetery and distributed the flowers on the gravesites. Other attendees entered the cemetery with even more flowers, as the schoolchildren sang songs including “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “John Brown’s Body.” “When all had left,” Redpath wrote, “the holy mounds — the tops, the sides, and the spaces between them — were one mass of flowers, not a speck of earth could be seen; and as the breeze wafted the sweet perfume from them, outside and beyond, to the sympathetic multitude, there were few eyes among those who knew the meaning of the ceremony that were not dim with tears of joy.” The dedication ended with prayers and Bible verses from local Black ministers, followed by speeches from Union officers and Northern missionaries, a picnic on the racecourse and drills by Union infantrymen, including some African American regiments. The observance didn’t end until sundown. And then, Blight said, the event was forgotten. Not right away — but within a few decades, any recollection persisted merely as rumor, in verbal anecdotes. The reason, he said, is that “by the middle and end of Reconstruction, the Black folks of Charleston were not creating the public memory of that city.” The Southern generals who stuck with the Union in the Civil War The portrayal of the Civil War and its aftermath was controlled in the South by groups such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Ladies’ Memorial Association, as well as Confederate veterans, Blight said. “The Daughters of the Confederacy were the guardians of that narrative,” said Damon Fordham, an adjunct professor of history at The Citadel, a military college in Charleston. “And much of that was skewed toward the Confederate point of view.” Blight chronicled the 1865 Charleston ritual in his 2001 book “Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory,” based on evidence that Fordham helped him uncover. Blight had been researching the book in 1999, in an archive of the Houghton Library at Harvard University, when he found a collection of papers written by Union veterans that contained a description of the May 1, 1865, events in Charleston. If the description was accurate, Blight said, he knew that “that event in Charleston deserves its own full commemoration, just because of the poignancy of it, the sheer scale of it.” But first he had to corroborate it. One of the first places he contacted was the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture at the College of Charleston. “I called up the curator there,” Blight recalled, “and I said, ‘I just found this in a collection of veterans materials. Have you ever heard of this story?’ And the guy said, ‘No. That never happened.’” The “guy” was Fordham, who at the time was a graduate student at the college and a research assistant at Avery. Despite his doubts, Fordham knew the center had microfilm of the Charleston Courier, a daily newspaper from that time, so he checked it. “About two hours later, he called me back, and he said, ‘Oh my God, here it is,’” Blight said. It was a Courier article from May 2, 1865, “describing this extraordinary parade on the old planters’ racecourse.” Blight went on to find more proof, including an illustration of the fenced cemetery that was published in Harper’s Weekly in 1867. “Pretty soon I had all these sources that no one had ever bumped into, so one thing kept leading to another,” he said. “But even people in Charleston said, ‘No, never heard of it.’ That shows the power of the erasure of public memory over time.” In the book, Blight describes a 1916 letter written by the president of the Ladies’ Memorial Association in Charleston, replying to an inquiry about the May 1, 1865, parade. “A United Daughters of the Confederacy official wanted to know if it was true that blacks and their white abolitionist friends had engaged in such a burial rite,” he wrote. “Mrs. S.C. Beckwith responded tersely: ‘I regret that I was unable to gather any official information in answer to this.’” In the 1880s, the bodies of the Union soldiers, the “Martyrs of the Race Course,” were exhumed and moved to Beaufort National Cemetery. The horse track closed shortly after that, and the 60 acres of land became Hampton Park, named for Wade Hampton III, a Confederate general and Charleston native who became governor of South Carolina in 1876. Hampton enslaved nearly 1,000 people before the war, and his governorship was supported by the Red Shirts, a White paramilitary group that violently suppressed the Black vote. After slavery, Black people desperately searched for family through newspaper ads By the end of the century, no vestige of the racecourse, the cemetery or the 1865 parade remained. More spring graveside memorials followed the one in Charleston. Several occurred in towns across the country in the spring of 1866, and many of these places — such as Columbus, Miss., whose commemoration became annual — claim to have held the original Memorial Day observance. Officially, the nation recognizes Memorial Day as having started in Waterloo, N.Y. In Charleston, the freed people didn’t have the power to develop an annual tradition after 1865. But the city now recognizes itself, regardless, as the holiday’s birthplace. “On May 1, 1865, a parade to honor the Union war dead took place here,” reads a state historical marker erected in Hampton Park in 2017. “The event marked the earliest celebration of what became known as ‘Memorial Day.’” Article source link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/.../first-memorial-day.../... . A 2017 article source: https://today.cofc.edu/2017/05/29/memorial-day-history/# Previous Next

< Back North Carolina A&T University-Cover page of The Colored American working man of the new time an address delivered by Rev. A. D. (Amory Dwight) Mayo, 1823-1907 ​ Image: Cover page of The Colored American working man of the new time an address delivered by Rev. A. D. (Amory Dwight) Mayo, 1823-1907 before the State Agricultural and Mechanical College for the Colored Race, at Greensboro, N. C., May 26, 1898. There are 37 pages in this report. This college is now known as, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (North Carolina A&T) in Greensboro, NC, was created as the Agricultural and Mechanical College for the Colored Race by the General Assembly in March 1891. Summary: An address stressing the value of general education in a democracy, but recommending industrial education for the working class, especially for African Americans in the South. LOC notes: Names - Mayo, A. D. (Amory Dwight), 1823-1907. Agricultural and Mechanical College for the Colored Race (Greensboro, N.C.) Daniel Murray Pamphlet Collection (Library of Congress) African American Pamphlet Collection (Library of Congress) Published: Press of Hampton Institute, 1898. Hampton, Va. Source: LOC Link to source: https://www.loc.gov/resource/lcrbmrp.t2416/?sp=1&r=-0.756,0,2.512,1.405,0 Previous Next

< Back Geer Cemetery-Katie Lillian Brown Shared From: Friends of Geer Cemetery - Durham, NC October 12, 2021 5:34pm According to her headstone, Katie Lillian Brown was born this day, October 12, in 1905. Sadly, she died at the age of only 8 in July of 1914, within a few days of her 4-year-old sister Jennette. While no death certificates could be found for either sister, four other souls buried in Geer all died of Tuberculosis within a few weeks of them, suggesting a possible cause of death. Shared From: Friends of Geer Cemetery - Durham, NC October 12, 2021 5:34pm According to her headstone, Katie Lillian Brown was born this day, October 12, in 1905. Sadly, she died at the age of only 8 in July of 1914, within a few days of her 4-year-old sister Jennette. While no death certificates could be found for either sister, four other souls buried in Geer all died of Tuberculosis within a few weeks of them, suggesting a possible cause of death. Unfortunately, we know little else about either Katie or her sister. Both headstones read “daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Brown”. Durham City Directories at the time listed a Henry and Tena Jones Brown - Henry from Florence Co., SC and Tena from Cumberland Co., NC. However, the couple doesn’t appear to have had any children together (Tena had 3 daughters from a previous marriage) and Katie is not listed with them in the 1910 Census on Proctor St. in Durham’s vibrant Hayti neighborhood. Thus, we can’t say for certain if Henry and Tena are the individuals referenced on the headstones of the young girls. It was not uncommon for children to be unofficially adopted by family or friends when life circumstances necessitated, a phenomenon that speaks to both the challenges of the African American experience as well the resilience of the African American community. It is possible Katie was not Henry and Tena’s biological child, but instead adopted and cared for as their own, including with the provision of a headstone in what appears to be a family plot reading “gone but not forgotten”. Despite her short time in the world, she was shown great love to be memorialized in Geer by those who called her their daughter. Henry died from a fall from a train in Virginia in 1930 while working as a boiler fireman on the Southern Railroad, while Tena passed away in 1945 in Manhattan, NY. Both of their remains were relocated back to Durham; however, a headstone couldn’t be located either in Geer Cemetery or Beechwood Cemetery. Two of Tena’s older daughters (Fannie Jones Hurley and Julia Jones Snipes) married and had families after leaving Durham. It is possible their descendants hold more keys to the stories of young Katie Lillian and Jennette. Previous Next

< Back Finding Personality In The Past Photo: FINDING PERSONALITY IN THE PAST: Jerome Bias conducts a cooking demonstration last spring at the Lakeport Plantation near Lake Village. Beyond the Big House, with Jerome Bias A Q&A with the furniture maker, culture educator. By Stephanie Smittle -March 22, 2018 It's been over 150 years since the 13th Amendment to abolish "slavery and involuntary servitude" in the United States was passed, but the fight to affirm the humanity of enslaved people in U.S. history is alive and well among historians, museum tour guides and textbook manufacturers. Count North Carolina furniture maker Jerome Bias among the many whose work helps us understand that the struggle and suffering endured by enslaved people in America didn't constitute the whole of their existence, and that the traditions enslaved people brought with them from Africa informed much of what we've come to think of as Southern culture today. Bias comes to Arkansas for Preserve Arkansas's "Behind the Big House," a series of live demonstrations and lectures at the Historic Arkansas Museum March 23-24 that looks beyond the grand historic homes and plantations to the experiences of the enslaved people who maintained them. Can you talk a little bit about your work at the Stagville State Historic Site [in Durham, N.C.]? I was on the board at Historic Stagville. I was the treasurer, and I took on the challenge of how to increase the number of African-American visitors to our site. And that was in response to some evidence that African Americans were being missed? Statistically, for museums, especially for plantations and historic sites, you'll find that African Americans make up a very small percentage of the local visitorship. I hesitate to ask you to conjecture on why that is. On the other hand, I suspect you've spent some time thinking about why that is. From our polling that we took in our visitorships, the response was, "Why do I want to come hear about suffering?" People were generally ashamed of the suffering and the experience that their ancestors had, and that's the only vision or perception that they have of the enslaved population. What they aren't seeing is that they were whole human beings. Was there a moment that called you to this line of work? Yes. I was shopping for a bed at Furnitureland South, a huge mall of a store. And I came across a bed that was made by a rather nice furniture company. And I was with my fiance at the time, my spouse-to-be — for the moment, at least. And we looked at it and looked at the little card and it was described as being made by Thomas Day, a free black cabinetmaker from Caswell County, N.C., and that he was the largest cabinetmaker in the state, and he was making furniture between 1820 and 1860, and that he made furniture for the governor, and that this was a copy of a bed that he made for the state attorney general. And I was just blown away. 'Cause I didn't know that black folks did anything besides pick cotton and work in the kitchen. 'Cause that's what I had been told. So I fell in love with this bed. And it cost $11,000. Oh, my God. That's what I was sayin.' And I was in school at the time, so I said, "You know, if we did this kind of stuff, I'm game to try it." I'd never made anything before in my life. So I endeavored to make a king-size, four-poster bed with a canopy. And that's what my wife got for her wedding day present. Do you still have it? Yeah. I have the bed. I don't have the wife. As you've studied these traditions, whether it was furniture or food, has there been anything that surprised you? Well, there are two things. The latest thing that surprised me was when I just did a weeklong expedition at Montpelier [President James Madison's home in Virginia]. We were digging through the slave quarters there, and I was really blown away by how individual these people were. They were buying their own dishes, and I would've expected plain white dishes, but by digging up the enslaved areas and the areas where the Madisons were dumping their trash, you could see that these were two different sets of dishes. These were not the Madisons' dishes, and the Madisons were not buying these dishes for them. There were dishes of all kinds of colors — and they weren't the cheapest things in the stores, either. And I was blown away that even though they were in crappy situations, they were finding a way to celebrate life and enjoy life. The other thing was by doing this slave-dwelling project, we spent the night together as African-American interpreters under the conditions that our ancestors did. We get up in the morning, and we're in the heat cooking a meal, and it was interesting to watch the personalities come out, and it's interesting to realize that these were not people who got up in the morning, worked all day, sunup to sundown, went home, got to bed, and got up and did the same thing all over again. They were not automatons. They were human beings. We were in one place and it was 102 degrees at night, with mosquitoes that were eating us up left and right. And humidity that was god-awful horrible. And the next morning it was 98 degrees, and the mosquitoes went away, thank God. But we didn't sleep all night, and when we went to cook ... well, green pea soup did not get spit out of peoples' faces, but heads did spin, attitudes did get thrown and it was just ugly. I was embarrassed at first that this is what we did, that we performed like this, because these folks are professionals. But I realized that our goal was to recreate the experiences of our enslaved ancestors, and this is what happens when you get people who sit up all night tellin' bad jokes 'cause it's too hot and sticky to sleep and they have to get up and go to work the next day. Someone's gonna bite someone's head off. You're going to be cooking down here in Arkansas — specifically, things that would have been typical of the diets of enslaved peoples. Can you talk a little bit about what your plans are? The menu is not hard and fast yet, but what I'm looking at is doing one or two dishes that — oh, also when we talk about the food of African Americans, we use the word "soul food," and it's often separated from "Southern food," and there is no difference. Right, like "soul food" is just a code word for describing who's making it? Uh-huh. I've talked to some people who think "soul food" means it's from Louisiana. Then you have white folks who say, "Oh, we're just cooking Southern food," and it's like, "No, this is food that has been heavily influenced by Africans brought to this country." So what I'm gonna do is cook a number of items that are either from cookbooks written by African Americans in the 19th century, or are coming over from Africa. So, I'm gonna do two dishes. One is gonna be a sweet potato pone. A version made in Kenya and a version that's been made in my family since the 1800s. The other dish that I'm looking at is on the basis of where we get our collard greens from. Africans eat greens, and they were eating greens in whatever shape or form they could get their hands on because they didn't want to starve. So, one thing they would eat would be sweet potato leaves. Sweet potatoes aren't in season, so when I get down there, we'll get some collard greens and do it that way, or some spinach if spinach is in yet. I'm using whatever's the local thing you guys have this season. More than likely, it's gonna be a Liberian collard greens recipe. When we speak about these individuals now, we often say "enslaved people" instead of saying "slaves." Does the language matter? Does it impact the way we see these people? For me, yes. So, we're gonna be at the Brownlee kitchen. If I go into that space and just talk about statistics, whether they're black or white, it's pretty dry and no one really cares. Now, if I go into that space and start talking about personality — what someone's like, what they didn't like, whether she was a grumpy old lady, whether she came here and didn't want to participate in being in the South and wanted to go back home to her mama — that's a much more interesting story. So I find that the terminology of "the enslaved person" is useful. It's much more cumbersome, yes, but it makes me slow down and use my words and better describe the person and the situation. It acknowledges that dual status; that, at the time, legally and the way this human being was treated, [it] was as an item. But this was also a person. Jerome Bias of NC. Jerome Bias' talk, "Hearth, Kettle, Spoon, and Larder: How the Tasks and Tools of an Enslaved Cook Give us a Window into Who She Was as a Person," is part of the Saturday lineup for "Behind the Big House," March 23-24 at the Historic Arkansas Museum. See preservearkansas.org for a full schedule and a link to register to attend. Source:https://www.arktimes.com/.../beyond-the-big.../Content... Previous Next

< Back Untitled photo, possibly related to Roanoke farms, Enfield, North Carolina - April 1938. Photo shows the bare feet of African American children. They are standing on the porch of a newly built house shown in LC-USF33-00107-M2. [Untitled photo, possibly related to Roanoke farms, Enfield, North Carolina] - April 1938. Photo shows the bare feet of African American children. They are standing on the porch of a newly built house shown in LC-USF33-00107-M2. (See previous post) Photographer: John Vachon, (1914-1975) Source: LOC - Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives Previous Next

< Back Christine M. Darden ​ Photograph: Portrait of NASA engineer Dr. Christine M. Darden. Dr. Darden was featured in Margot Lee Shetterly’s book Hidden Figures. Date taken: 31 January 1977 Source: Imago History Collection Christine Mann was born September 10, 1942, to school teacher Desma l. Cheney and insurance agent Noah Horace Mann Sr. in Monroe, Union county, North Carolina. . Christine Darden (born September 10, 1942, as Christine Mann) is an American mathematician, data analyst, and aeronautical engineer who devoted much of her 40-year career in aerodynamics at NASA to researching supersonic flight and sonic booms. She had an M.S. in mathematics and had been teaching at Virginia State University before starting to work at the Langley Research Center in 1967. She earned a Ph.D. in engineering at George Washington University in 1983 and has published numerous articles in her field. She was the first African American woman at NASA's Langley Research Center to be promoted to the Senior Executive Service, the top rank in the federal civil service. Darden is one of the researchers featured in the book Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race (2016), a history of some of the influential African American women mathematicians and engineers at NASA in the mid-20th century, by Margot Lee Shetterly. In 2019, Darden was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. . EARLY LIFE AND CAREER Christine Mann was born September 10, 1942, to schoolteacher Desma l. Cheney and insurance agent Noah Horace Mann Sr. in Monroe, North Carolina. Both parents encouraged her to pursue a quality education. Starting from age three, Darden was brought by her mother to her own classroom where she taught, and at age four, Darden was enrolled in kindergarten. During elementary school, Darden took a great interest in breaking apart and reconstructing mechanical objects like her bicycle. Darden finished her last two years of primary school at Allen High School, a boarding school in Asheville, North Carolina. She graduated as the class valedictorian in 1958, subsequently receiving a scholarship to attend Hampton University, a Historically Black College then known as Hampton Institute. During her studies at Hampton, she participated in some of the early protests of the Civil Rights Movement. She participated in several student sit-ins alongside her other Black peers. Mann graduated from Hampton with a B.S. in Mathematics in 1962. She also earned a teaching certification, and taught high school mathematics for a brief time. In 1963, Mann married Walter L. Darden Jr., a middle-school science teacher. In 1965 she became a research assistant at Virginia State College, studying aerosol physics. At Virginia State, Darden earned an M.S. in 1967 and taught mathematics there. That same year she was hired by NASA as a data analyst at Langley Research Center. Darden started in the "computer pool", performing calculations as a computer for engineers. She began automating the process by writing computer programs. After moving into more aeronautical research, in 1973 Darden was promoted to a position as aerospace engineer by her superior John V. Becker. She had nearly been fired earlier. Her early findings in the 1960s and 1970s resulted in a revolution of aerodynamics design to produce low-boom sonic effects. In 1983 Darden earned a Ph.D in engineering from George Washington University. In 1989, Darden was appointed as leader of the Sonic Boom Team, a subsidiary of the High Speed Research (HSR) Program. On the Sonic Boom Team she worked on designs to decrease the negative effects of sonic booms, such as noise pollution and the depletion of the ozone layer. Her team tested new wing and nose designs for supersonic aircraft. She also designed a computer program to simulate sonic booms. The program was canceled by the government in February 1998, "without fan fare or press announcement." 1998 abstract published by Darden describes the program as focused on "technologies needed for the development of an environmentally friendly, economically viable High-Speed Civil Transport [HSCT]." Darden wrote more than 50 articles in the general field of aeronautical design, specializing in supersonic flow and flap design, as well as the prediction and minimization of sonic booms. NASA's "HUMAN COMPUTERS" In 1935, the first African-American women mathematicians were hired as human computers at NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), then known as NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics). Since many men were overseas fighting in World War II, more job opportunities were given to both white and African American women. The latter computer pool became known as the "West Area Computers", in reference to their segregated office. The human computers performed calculations to support research into plane flight and, later, rockets. Because the state of Virginia, where the Langley Research Center was located, had racial segregation, Jim Crow laws were followed at the facility, which is located near Hampton. This changed after the 1964 Civil Rights Act which banned segregation. The collective, once tasked with processing scores of collected flight test data, by the 1940s had garnered a reputation as "human computers" who were essential to NASA's operation. During the 1950s and 1960s, more of these women gained opportunities to advance as technicians and engineers. Darden started working in the computer pool in 1967 at NASA, after she had completed an M.S. in mathematics at Virginia State University and taught there. By that time, computers were increasingly used for the complex calculations to support engineering and design. Darden left the computer pool in 1989 for a position as engineer, working on decreasing sonic boom in supersonic flight. She earned her PhD in 1983 (with the support of NASA), and became known for her research as "one of NASA's preeminent experts on supersonic flight and sonic booms." Darden was promoted as a manager, and she advanced to become the first African American woman at Langley to be promoted into the Senior Executive Service, the top rank in the federal civil service. In March 2007, Darden retired from NASA as director of the Office of Strategic Communication and Education. . AWARDS n 1985, Darden received the Dr. A. T. Weathers Technical Achievement Award from the National Technical Association. She received a Candace Award from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1987. She received three Certificates of Outstanding Performance from Langley Research Center: in 1989, 1991, and 1992. On January 28, 2018, Darden received the Presidential Citizenship Award at Hampton University in recognition for her contribution and service". Darden received an honorary degree from North Carolina State University on December 19, 2018. Darden also received an honorary degree from the George Washington University on May 19, 2019. In 2019, Darden was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. She delivered the Christine Darden Lecture at MathFest 2021. Source: Wikipedia Previous Next

< Back Anna Julia Haywood Cooper Anna Julia Haywood Cooper (1858-1964) was an American author, educator, sociologist, speaker, Black Liberation activist, and one of the most prominent African American scholars in United States history. "To-day America counts her millionaires by the thousand; questions of tariff and questions of currency are the most vital ones agitating the public mind. In this period, when material prosperity and well-earned ease and luxury are assured facts from a national stand point, woman's work and woman's influence are needed as never before; needed to bring a heart power into this money-getting, dollar-worshiping civilization; needed to bring a moral force into the utilitarian motives and interests of the time needed to stand for God and Home and Native Land versus gain and greed and grasping selfishness." -Anna Julia Cooper - A VOICE FROM THE SOUTH.BY A BLACK WOMAN OF THE SOUTH. 1892 ---- Anna Julia Haywood Cooper (1858-1964) was an American author, educator, sociologist, speaker, Black Liberation activist, and one of the most prominent African American scholars in United States history. Cooper is a graduate of St. Augustine College , Class of 1882. Upon receiving her PhD in history from the University of Paris-Sorbonne in 1924, Cooper became the fourth African American woman to earn a doctoral degree. She was also a prominent member of Washington, D.C.'s African American community and a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. Cooper was born in enslavement in Raleigh, North Carolina, to an enslaved mother and her white master, a lawyer. Later, she would say that her mother was "the finest woman I have ever known. She wrote, "A Voice from the South, part 1" (1892). about her frustration as a young student in a school offering inadequate intellectual stimulation. Cooper would become a teacher and at age 67, On February 27, 1964, Cooper died in Washington, D.C., at the age of 105. Her memorial was held in a chapel on the campus of Saint Augustine's College, in Raleigh, NC where her academic career began. She was buried alongside her husband at the City Cemetery in Raleigh. --- Anna "Annie" Julia Cooper was born into enslavement in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1858 to Hannah Stanley Haywood, an enslaved woman in the home of prominent Wake County landowner George Washington Haywood. Either George or his brother Fabius J. Haywood are thought to be Cooper's father. Cooper worked as a domestic servant in the Haywood home and had two older brothers, Andrew J. Haywood and Rufus Haywood. Andrew was a slave of Dr. Fabius J. Haywood, and he later served in the Spanish–American War. Rufus was also born a slave and was the leader of the music group Stanley's Band. In 1868, when Cooper was nine years old, she received a scholarship and began her education at the newly opened Saint Augustine's Normal School and Collegiate Institute in Raleigh, founded by the local Episcopal diocese for the purpose of training teachers to educate former slaves and their families. The Reverend J. Brinton offered Cooper a scholarship to help pay for her expenses. According to Mark S. Giles, a Cooper biographer, "the educational levels offered at St. Augustine ranged from primary to high school, including trade-skill training." During her 14 years at St. Augustine's, she distinguished herself as a bright and ambitious student who showed equal promise in both liberal arts and analytical disciplines such as math and science; her subjects included languages (Latin, French, Greek), English literature, math, and science. Although the school had a special track reserved for women – dubbed the "Ladies' Course" – and the administration actively discouraged women from pursuing higher-level courses, Cooper fought for her right to take a course reserved for men, by demonstrating her scholastic ability. Cooper is a graduate of St. Augustine College , Class of 1882. During this period, St. Augustine's pedagogical emphasis was on training young men for the ministry and preparing them for additional training at four-year universities. One of these men, George A. C. Cooper, would later become her husband. He died after only two years of marriage. Cooper's academic excellence enabled her to work as a tutor for younger children, which also helped her pay for her educational expenses. After completing her studies, she remained at the institution as an instructor. In the 1883–84 school year she taught classics, modern history, higher English, and vocal and instrumental music; she is not listed as faculty in the 1884–85 year, but in the 1885–86 year she is listed as "Instructor in Classic, Rhetoric, Etc." Her husband's early death may have contributed to her ability to continue teaching; had she stayed married, she might have been encouraged or required to withdraw from the university to become a housewife. After her husband's death, Cooper entered Oberlin College in Ohio, where she continued to follow the course of study designated for men. Her classmates were Ida Gibbs (later Hunt) and Mary Church Terrell. After teaching briefly at Wilberforce College, Cooper returned to St. Augustine's in 1885. She then went back to Oberlin and earned an M.A. in Mathematics in 1887. She later moved to Washington, DC – where she would develop a close friendship with Charlotte Forten Grimké – Cooper began teaching at M Street High School, becoming principal in 1901. Cooper made contributions to social science fields, particularly in sociology. She is sometimes called "the mother of Black Feminism." During her years as a teacher and principal at M Street High School in Washington, D.C., Cooper completed her first book, A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South, published in 1892, and also delivered many speeches calling for civil rights and women's rights. Perhaps her most well-known volume of writing, A Voice from the South is widely viewed as one of the first articulations of Black feminism. The book advanced a vision of self-determination through education and social uplift for African-American women. Its central thesis was that the educational, moral, and spiritual progress of black women would improve the general standing of the entire African-American community. She says that the violent natures of men often run counter to the goals of higher education, so it is important to foster more female intellectuals because they will bring more elegance to education. This view was criticized by some as submissive to the 19th-century cult of true womanhood, but others label it as one of the most important arguments for black feminism in the 19th century. Cooper advanced the view that it was the duty of educated and successful black women to support their underprivileged peers in achieving their goals. The essays in A Voice from the South also touched on a variety of topics, such as race and racism, gender, the socioeconomic realities of black families, and the administration of the Episcopal Church. Cooper was an author, educator, and public speaker. In 1893, she delivered a paper entitled "The Intellectual Progress of the Colored Women of the United States since the Emancipation Proclamation" at the World's Congress of Representative Women in Chicago. Cooper was one of five African American women invited to speak at this event, along with: Fannie Barrier Williams, Sarah Jane Woodson Early, Hallie Quinn Brown, and Fanny Jackson Coppin. She was also present at the first Pan-African Conference in London in 1900 and delivered a paper entitled "The Negro Problem in America." A nation's greatness is not dependent upon the things it make and uses. Things without thots [ sic] are mere vulgarities. America can boast her expanse of territory, her gilded domes, her paving stones of silver dollars; but the question of deepest moment in this nation today is its men and its women, the elevation at which it receives its "vision into the firmament of eternal truth. — Anna J. Cooper, The Ethics of the Negro Question, September 5, 1902 In 1914, at the age of 56, Cooper began courses for her doctoral degree at Columbia University, but was forced to interrupt her studies in 1915 when she adopted her late half-brother's five children upon their mother's death. Later on she transferred her credits to the University of Paris-Sorbonne, which did not accept her Columbia thesis, an edition of Le Pèlerinage de Charlemagne. Over a decade she researched and composed her dissertation, completing her coursework in 1924. Cooper defended her thesis The Attitude of France on the Question of Slavery Between 1789 and 1848 in 1925. At 65, she became the fourth black woman in American history to earn a Doctorate of Philosophy degree. Although the alumni magazine of her undergraduate alma mater, Oberlin College, praised her in 1924, saying, "The class of ’84 is honored in the achievement of this scholarly and colored alumna," when she tried to present her edition of Le Pèlerinage de Charlemagne to the college the next year, it was rejected. Cooper's other writings include her autobiographical booklet The Third Step, about earning her doctorate from the Sorbonne, and a memoir about the Grimké family, entitled "The Early Years in Washington: Reminiscences of Life with the Grimkés,"[ which appeared in Personal Recollections of the Grimké Family and the Life and Writings of Charlotte Forten Grimké (privately published in 1951). On February 27, 1964, Cooper died in Washington, D.C., at the age of 105. Her memorial was held in a chapel on the campus of Saint Augustine's College, in Raleigh, NC where her academic career began. She was buried alongside her husband at the City Cemetery in Raleigh. Her Legacy Pages 24 and 25 of the 2016 of the United States passport contain the following quotation: "The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class – it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity." – Anna Julia Cooper In 2009, the United States Postal Service released a commemorative stamp in Cooper's honor. Also in 2009, a tuition-free private middle school was opened and named in her honor, the Anna Julia Cooper Episcopal School on historic Church Hill in Richmond, Virginia. Cooper is honored with Elizabeth Evelyn Wright with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on February 28. The Anna Julia Cooper Center on Gender, Race, and Politics in the South at Wake Forest University was established in Anna Cooper's honor. Melissa Harris-Perry is the founding director. Previous Next

< Back Nettie McGimpsey McIntosh Photo of Nettie McGimpsey McIntosh (1927-2014),.pictured here in 2004 donating to the History Museum of Burke Co., a wash pot that was on her grandparents' farm. Photo of Nettie McGimpsey McIntosh (1927-2014),.pictured here in 2004 donating to the History Museum of Burke Co., a wash pot that was on her grandparents farm. Article written by, Tammie Gercken, a member of the Morganton Writers’ Group. While attending a Black History Month program at Western Piedmont Community College last month, I learned about a local figure who made a powerful impact on the community. Dr. Leslie McKesson, dean of business, public services and academic support at WPCC, dedicated the program to the late Nettie McGimpsey McIntosh (1927-2014). The only thing I knew about Nettie at the time was that she was the wife of late legendary educator and pastor, the Rev. W. Flemon McIntosh Jr., fondly remembered as “Coach Mac” or “Rev. Mac.” McKesson described Nettie, a native of the Lake James area, as a brilliant scholar who graduated from Olive Hill High School in Morganton, the only high school for African-Americans in Burke County before integration. Nettie earned her bachelor’s degree at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State College, now North Carolina A&T State University, and pursued graduate studies. She taught at Wiley College in Texas before returning to teach at Olive Hill, where she met Rev. Mac. They married in 1951. After the birth of the McIntoshs’ three children, Yvette, Willie and Willette, McKesson said J. Iverson Riddle asked Nettie to teach at Western Carolina Center, now known as the J. Iverson Riddle Developmental Center, the main facility in Burke County that serves the mentally disabled. “Miss Nettie was a remarkable educator in every setting: from a segregated classroom with multiple grades in one room, to helping children with developmental disabilities, to vocational rehabilitation at Broughton Hospital, and volunteering at Oak Hill Elementary and Table Rock Middle schools during her retirement years,” McKesson said. I learned Nettie was an avid historian, serving as the vice-president of the Burke County Historical Society. She worked with other volunteers on a two-volume encyclopedia called, “Burke County Heritage — North Carolina,” an invaluable compendium of local history. She also helped many churches compile and preserve their histories. “She was a skilled researcher, and was considered the authority on the history of Fonta Flora, the early Burke County community that is now covered by Lake James,” McKesson said. Nettie worked hard to preserve the history of local African-Americans, serving as chair of the Committee for the Preservation of Black History. Sixteen years ago, she helped found a Black History Month celebration called “The Gathering of the People” that has convened annually ever since, supported by the Burke County Public Library. She helped found the History Museum of Burke County in 2003, donating some of her family’s heirlooms. Judge Claude Sitton, the museum’s director, said these included quilts, a large sawmill blade, a plow and an old wash-pot. “She was a superhero of mine,” Sitton said. “She was instrumental in getting other African-Americans in the community to donate (items). She was one of the hardest workers we’ve had in the museum.” Nettie dedicated her time and talents to other organizations, serving on WPCC’s board of trustees, and as registrar and polling judge at the Burke County Board of Elections. She was a member of the Burke County NAACP, the Community Foundation of Burke County, the Burke County Democratic Women and the American Association of University Women. She volunteered with the Burke County Senior Center and Catawba Valley Girl Scouts, and helped support the Lake James Fire Department. Nettie was active at Shiloh AME Church in Morganton, where she was a lifelong member. She served as the church’s secretary for most of her working life, in addition to leading Christian education and Sunday school activities, according to her obituary. She was a member of the church’s Nina-Bess Missionary Society, the Stewardess Board No. 1 and the Ladies’ Aid Society, and was the pastor’s aide for a time as well. “Miss Nettie served in numerous capacities, a favorite of which was church musician, which she performed for many years and passed on to her children,” McKesson said. Nettie’s obituary states she taught piano to her two daughters, who both went into music ministry. In addition to Nettie’s close ties to Shiloh AME, she also was known as the “First Lady” of Green Street Presbyterian Church for the nearly 50 years that Rev. Mac pastored there. Nettie looked further outward through membership in the North Carolina Center for International Understanding/Friendship Force, an international organization promoting understanding among cultures around the world. How she had time to think about that between her family, work, volunteer activities and service to her church, just amazes me. “She leaves behind a legacy of excellence and genuine love for mankind,” McKesson said. “Her faith was real, and her humility was genuine. She gave encouragement instinctively, imparted wisdom and knowledge unselfishly and believed in the power of every person’s potential. She was an inspiration and a role model to many. Our community is better because she lived among us.” Tammie Gercken is a member of the Morganton Writers’ Group Source: http://www.morganton.com/.../article_a0a0eaee-2625-11e8... Previous Next