Civil Rights

After Brown: the Desegregation of Durham High School

info@paulimurraycenter.org — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 07:55:41 +0000

After Brown: the Desegregation of Durham High School info@paulimurr… Wed, 07/07/2021 - 03:55

Today, this school building is seemingly ordinary – students with backpacks chat with their friends, struggling to carry their textbooks and school projects, as the busses line up outside on the street. Durham High School, founded in 1922 and now known as Durham School of the Arts, was a crucial site in the fight for school desegregation.

Brown v. Board of Education is the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case that declared the segregation of schools by race as unconstitutional. But, the ruling did little to enforce this new policy. Durham, like many southern communities, did nothing to advance any desegregation efforts. White students continued to attend school in this building and Black students attended Hillside High School on Fayetteville Street.

African American leaders soon began to advocate for school desegregation with the support of this Supreme Court ruling. In 1957, the parents of Jocelyn McKissick and Elaine Richardson filed a lawsuit asking that their daughters be reassigned to Durham High School. Although these claims were rejected, McKissick and Richardson inspired a movement to begin the integration process: in the 1959-1960 school year alone, there were about 225 reassignment requests for Black students to transfer to formerly all white schools. Ultimately, eight requests were granted, marking the first integration of Brogden, Carr, and East Durham Junior High Schools as well as Durham Senior High School. In 1960, Jocelyn McKissick became the first African American female to graduate from Durham High School.

Members of Durham’s Black community, joined by the NAACP, continued to push for school desegregation through legal action when these first transfers did not lead to system-wide desegregation. After the NAACP sued the Durham County School System in 1968, the Federal District Court in Greensboro finally ordered complete integration of the Durham County School System in 1970.

The first Black students to attend Durham High School were resilient despite waves of harassment. These students continued their education and their parents called on school leadership to protect their children during the school day. Today the Durham School of the Arts’ student body is very diverse, with African American, Latinx and White students each representing about 30% of the total enrollment. Yet, parents continue to advocate for fair and equitable treatment for all students and battle against the white supremacy that continues to impact our community institutions.

Sources:

https://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/C-0068/excerpts/excerpt_4639.html

https://educationpost.org/why-durham-public-schools-need-integration/

https://durhamvoice.org/?p=34723

https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/jslh25&div=4&id=&page=

http://andjusticeforall.dconc.gov/gallery_images/andree-mckissick-and-henry-vickers-integrate-carr-junior-high/

https://www.facebook.com/DurhamPublicSchools/videos/beyondthecelebrations-desegregation-of-durham-schools-may-12-2021-1-pm/517367259676981/

Location Coordinates

POINT (-78.90708 36.00238)

Tags:

Education

Civil Rights

School Desegregation

Desegregation

400 N. Duke Street
Durham, NC 27701

Amiya Mehrotra

Bring African American Performance Art to Life at the Hayti Heritage Center

info@paulimurraycenter.org — Sun, 23 May 2021 07:30:27 +0000

Bring African American Performance Art to Life at the Hayti Heritage Center info@paulimurr… Sun, 05/23/2021 - 03:30

It is impossible to miss the grand steeple topped with a Haitian vevè and the elegant stained glass windows of the Hayti Heritage Center as you walk down Fayetteville Street. Once the home to the congregation of the historic St. Joseph’s AME Church, the Center’s mission is now “to preserve and advance the heritage and culture of the historic Hayti neighborhood and the African American experience through cultural arts and education programs.”

The church was built in 1891, and for many decades it was a gathering place for African Americans, an institution of faith and a strategic locus and stepping off point for civil rights organizing and protest actions. After urban renewal decimated the neighborhood, the congregation decided to move and built a new church just over a mile further south on Fayetteville Street closer to North Carolina Central University.

However, culture and arts now enliven the original church building, which transformed into the Hayti Heritage Center in 1975. Core programs include classes and presentations of visual arts, performing arts, film, storytelling, and poetry that bring the Center’s mission to life. The Hayti Heritage Film Festival (HHFF) keeps Black Southern film alive by featuring outstanding filmwork from the African diaspora; it is one of the nation’s longest-running Black film festivals. The Bull Durham Blues Festival, the annual Kwanzaa Celebrations, and the Afrofuturism conference are woven together with exhibits and a concert series that brings world-renowned musicians to the Center’s historic performance hall.

Managed by the St. Joseph’s Historical Foundation, the Center remains an agent of social change by fostering cross-cultural understanding between historically marginalized communities and promoting intercultural awareness. The sounds of African drumming and dance, slam poetry, and jazz concerts reverberate through these halls, inviting all of us to embrace the experiences of Black Americans and preserve the African American culture that is central to Durham’s history.

Sources:

https://hayti.org

https://civilrightstrail.com/attraction/hayti-heritage-center/

https://www.visitnc.com/listing/PJeQ/hayti-heritage-center-st-joseph-s-performance-hall

https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/hayti-heritage-center

https://www.ourstate.com/5-sites-that-tell-north-carolinas-civil-rights-story/

Location Coordinates

POINT (-78.89817 35.98576)

Tags:

Civil Rights

African American Music

Education

804 Old Fayetteville Street
Durham, NC 27701

Amiya Mehrotra

Geer Cemetery

info@paulimurraycenter.org — Sat, 03 Apr 2021 22:36:13 +0000

Geer Cemetery info@paulimurr… Sat, 04/03/2021 - 18:36

Geer Cemetery is the final resting place for many notable members of Durham and North Carolina’s Black community including Edian Markum, founder of St. Joseph’s A.M.E. Church, Margaret Faucette, the founder of the White Rock Baptist Church, and Augustus Shepard, whose son founded North Carolina Central University. But it all started in 1876 when an 11-year old boy working on the farm of Jesse Geer was accidentally killed by a horse, and his family requested that the child be buried under a tree near the site of his death. One year later in March 1877, Willie Moore, John Daniel, and Nelson Mitchell bought the two acres of land for fifty dollars; the deed, signed by Jesse Geer and his wife, Polly, stated that the land was to be used for burials. Thus began Geer Cemetery, one of the earliest African-American cemeteries in Durham.

Many of the men, women, and children buried at this site between 1877 and 1944 experienced slavery, rural-to-urban migration, and the inhumanity of Jim Crow. Over the course of its approximately 65 years in use, it is estimated that over 3,000 people have been buried in this cemetery. The city of Durham did not issue death certificates until 1908, leaving over 35 years of additional burials as unrecorded so only the names of approximately 1,500 bodies have been identified and catalogued.

The city of Durham’s white founders neglected this site, refusing to maintain the land with tax dollars. As a result, the cemetery was badly neglected. It did not help that on the original Orange County deed to this land, there was no conveyance of the property to heirs or others; it is instead listed with the County as “Unknown Owner.” After the health department inspected the cemetery in 1939 and found it to be overgrown and overcrowded, the site was closed.

In 2003, the Friends of Geer Cemetery (FOCG) was formed to provide maintenance for the abandoned and overgrown site. FOCG has spearheaded several projects to catalog the names of the burials in the cemetery. Now recovered, Geer Cemetery represents a significant piece of Durham’s history by preserving the memories and spirits of Durham’s earliest African American leaders.

Sources:

https://durhaminplainsight.com/about/

https://www.opendurham.org/buildings/geer-cemetery

https://durhamcountylibrary.org/the-north-carolina-collection/digital-exhibits/r-kelly-bryant-papers-and-obituary-collection/the-history-of-historically-black-geer-cemetery/

https://durhaminplainsight.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/fogc_ips_brochure_20210210.pdf

Date

Thu, 03/01/1877 - 12:00

Location Coordinates

POINT (-78.88404 36.01025)

Tags:

Civil Rights

800 Colonial Street
Durham, NC 27701

Amiya Mehrotra

Mechanics & Farmers Bank

info@paulimurraycenter.org — Mon, 15 Mar 2021 10:51:47 +0000

Mechanics & Farmers Bank info@paulimurr… Mon, 03/15/2021 - 06:51

Mechanics and Farmers (M&F) Bank was established in 1907 to advance African American progress and build economic power. It is located in a National Historic Landmark building on Parrish Street, once known as Durham’s Black Wall Street. Its founders—R.B. Fitzgerald, J.A. Dodson, J.R. Hawkins, John Merrick, Aaron M. Moore, W.G. Pearson, James E. Shepard, G.W. Stephens, and Stanford L. Warren— were all prominent community leaders who knew that access to capital was central to their efforts to build successful businesses and community institutions such as schools, hospitals and libraries.

M&F is the second oldest Black bank in the US, having survived the Great Depression without closing. In addition to supporting business interests, M&F made major investments in real estate mortgages, making home ownership more accessible for African Americans in the area and contributing to the establishment of middle class communities.

Above all, M&F Bank proved to non-believers that African Americans with access to opportunity can be successful in the economic world. They proved themselves as businessmen who could withstand racism, banking crises, and all other obstacles that came their way. Mechanics and Farmers Bank provides the story of a fight for equality, respect, and freedom. As Durham historian, William Boyd eloquently declared, “the American dollar knows no race and no creed.”

Location Coordinates

POINT (-78.90078 35.99614)

Tags:

Economic Justice

Civil Rights

116 W Parrish St.
Durham, NC 27701

Barbara Lau

Integration in the Arts: The Carolina Theater

info@paulimurraycenter.org — Mon, 22 Feb 2021 04:57:51 +0000

Integration in the Arts: The Carolina Theater info@paulimurr… Sun, 02/21/2021 - 23:57

In 1927, Marian Anderson, a famous African-American opera singer, performed at the Carolina Theater to a Black and white audience. Despite being granted admission to this event, Ms. Anderson’s Black fans were forced to enter through a different door, pay at a separate ticket booth, and use seats that required walking up three extremely steep, unsafe flights of stairs. Sadly, this was the norm at the Carolina Theatre where Blacks were invited to perform and attend shows and events but all aspects of their experience were segregated by race.

The Carolina Theater was built in 1926 as the only theatre in the area to admit Blacks and whites. It quickly became a go to place in Durham for community events, live performances, and movie showings. Decades later in the early 1960s, the Carolina Theater became a target for protests by desegregation advocates. Protesters, including Black theatre goers, North Carolina College students, and local Black high school students, with the support of a few white students from nearby Duke University and the University of North Carolina employed a round robin style action. This involved lining up to purchase their tickets at the white ticket booth and after being refused moving to the back of the line and repeating the process. The protests lasted for months, drawing coverage in the media and impacting the experience of white patrons who also had to wait in these long lines to purchase tickets. Protesters were called names and spit on, but this only motivated them to continue their efforts all day, every day, until the theatre was integrated in the summer of 1963.

The Carolina Theatre was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 in part because of these historic protests. To this day, the theatre remains important, dedicated to enriching the culture and economy of downtown Durham. This history is also now documented in an exhibit in the third floor lobby, originally designated for Black patrons’ use.

Location Coordinates

POINT (-78.902761902956 35.997963308911)

Tags:

Protest

Desegregation

Civil Rights

African American Music

309 W. Morgan Street, Durham, NC 27701

Sara Heilman

Confronting the Courthouse: Make Democracy More Than a Word Protest

info@paulimurraycenter.org — Fri, 19 Feb 2021 07:23:12 +0000

Confronting the Courthouse: Make Democracy More Than a Word Protest info@paulimurr… Fri, 02/19/2021 - 02:23

Singing songs and carrying signs that read, “To Make Democracy More Than a Word,” students marched from North Carolina College to downtown Durham, where they entered restaurants and stores that upheld segregation policies. The passionate students refused to disperse until the police hauled 130 of them off to jail. The date was May 18, 1963.

Just hours after the demonstration, Wense Grabarek was elected as mayor of Durham. Sympathy for those arrested fused with enthusiasm for Grabarek’s victory prompted hundreds of Blacks to gather in front of the Durham County Courthouse, then located at 200 E. Main Street, where jailed members were being held. When they arrived, they met blocks of opposing whites holding baseball bats, broken beer bottles, and cue sticks. As the conflict simmered, the police summoned Mayor Grabarek. Upon arrival, he met with the movement’s spokesperson, Hugh Thompson, who requested food and cigarettes for the jailed protestors. When the Mayor instructed the police chief to grant this request, the crowd dispersed.

This protest was the first of a series of three that changed the momentum of Durham’s Civil Rights Movement and prompted real reforms. Within three weeks, many of Durham’s restaurants, hotels, movie theaters, swimming pools, and libraries voluntarily desegregated.

For many, memories of these protests at the Durham County Courthouse symbolize Black Durham’s unity and cohesiveness during the Civil Rights Movement. Although many of its members were arrested on that summer day in 1963, the rest of the Black community showed its continual support by agitating for the release of the prisoners. Today, the top floor of the Durham County Courthouse no longer serves as a jail, but contains offices for county officials. We can no longer hear protestors shouting from the windows on the top floor of the courthouse, but their passionate voices will forever echo in our minds.

Date

Sat, 05/18/1963 - 12:00

Location Coordinates

POINT (-78.89954 35.99372)

Tags:

Protest

Civil Rights

College students

Old Durham County Courthouse
200 E Main St, Downtown Durham
Durham, NC 27701

Amiya Mehrotra

Reading for Justice: Stanford L. Warren Library

info@paulimurraycenter.org — Fri, 19 Feb 2021 06:49:16 +0000

Reading for Justice: Stanford L. Warren Library info@paulimurr… Fri, 02/19/2021 - 01:49

African American leaders in Durham understood the power of the word. They knew their community needed a safe haven where they could gather to read, learn, and discuss ideas. Thus was born the Durham Colored Library, later renamed as the Stanford L. Warren Library.

Dr. Aaron McDuffie Moore, who was born free to land-owning parents and became Durham’s first African American physician, was struck by the “lack of good, wholesome reading matter” available to Durham’s African American community. In 1913, he formed a library by donating a collection of 799 books to White Rock Baptist Church, where he oversaw the Sunday school. In 1916 and with the help of his friend and business associate John Merrick, Dr. Moore established the Durham Public Library on the corner of Fayetteville and Pettigrew streets. The library operated on community funding for an entire year before receiving financial support from the City of Durham in 1917, as well as an additional appropriation from Durham County in 1918.

In 1940, a newly built Durham Colored Library, opened on the corner of Umstead and Fayetteville streets. This building was chiefly funded by a loan from the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company and supplemented by generous individual contributions, such as the $4,000 that long-time board president Dr. Stanford Leigh Warren donated to buy the land for the library’s new location. One of the goals of this library was to expand access to books and educational resources for all African American residents of Durham County. In 1914, the library equipped a bookmobile that sometimes traveled 600 miles each month to ensure that Blacks living in rural areas also gained this access.

Although the Durham County Library system has since desegregated, the Stanford L. Warren branch has remained in the same location since 1940. To this day, the original 799 volumes that Dr. Moore donated remain a significant piece of the library’s history and are currently designated to a special, non-circulating book collection in the library.

Source: https://durhamcountylibrary.org/exhibits/slw/index.php

Location Coordinates

POINT (-78.89856 35.982571)

Tags:

Civil Rights

Education

Durham County Library - Stanford L. Warren Branch Library
1201 Fayetteville Street, Durham, NC 27707

Amiya Mehrotra

High School Students and their Parents Mobilizing for Civil Rights

balau — Thu, 05 May 2016 20:04:17 +0000

High School Students and their Parents Mobilizing for Civil Rights balau Thu, 05/05/2016 - 16:04

“What shall we teach our children about race and race relations?” This question from Wallace Nelson, a Cincinnati representative of the Congress for Racial Equality, silenced the Hillside High School Parent-Teacher Association meeting on January 14th, 1952.

Nelson’s answer was a boycott of segregated public schools to prove that non-violent direct action was a viable strategy in Durham’s efforts to promote learning and friendships between students of different races. The room of more than 100 parents and community leaders erupted in applause to this proposal. Hillside parents understood the value of education in promoting social mobility and were especially motivated to engage in this action by their desire for a better future for their children.

They all agreed that actions speak louder than words. Reverend Charles Jones, a Presbyterian minister from Chapel Hill, also commented that a child is not taught by “telling.”

Hillside High School, the site of the meeting, was more than a gathering space. The students at Hillside High represented hope for the future for the historically disenfranchised black community in Durham. Significantly, the school was one of the South’s highest-ranking Black schools before desegregation. The overwhelming support in favor of the proposed boycott pushed the Durham Committee on Negro Affairs to name a special committee with Reverend William Fuller as head, to review and study Nelson’s call to action.

Unfortunately, the Durham Committee on Negro Affairs declared the “present time unsuitable for the boycott” during their meeting on January 20th. This meeting was one of many that mobilized Durham’s Black community and sparked essential conversations about change and equality in education and all aspects of their lives. The success of the economic boycotts in Durham years later were possible because of the attempts like this one that began in the halls of Hillside High School.

Date

Fri, 01/04/1952 - 12:00

Location Coordinates

POINT (-78.904145 35.975817)

Tags:

1900 Concord Street
Durham, NC 27707
(site of former Hillside High School, now on campus at NCCU)

Amiya Mehrotra and Chandra Christmas-Rouse

Civil Rights Action Central – Floyd McKissick Family Home

balau — Wed, 04 May 2016 19:09:12 +0000

Civil Rights Action Central – Floyd McKissick Family Home balau Wed, 05/04/2016 - 15:09

Imagine a center of creativity and collaboration during the fight for civil rights; a place where leaders and protestors alike could come to stay the night and share their passions. Now imagine a family home on Roxboro Street, does that match up with what you had in your head? Maybe not but the McKissick family home, known as the “Freedom House” or the “Do-Drop-Inn,” served as “action central headquarters.”

Floyd McKissick was an early leader of the civil rights movement and a lawyer who through his practice took on many desegregation cases defending those involved in sit ins. He served as the director of the Congress of Racial Equality and the youth chairman of the N.A.A.C.P. of North Carolina.

Floyd McKissick was not the only notable member of the McKissick household, his entire family helped to lead the fight. His eldest daughter Jocelyn was participating in sit-ins from a very young age, going on to sacrifice a great deal for the cause from getting arrested to being beaten, and was the first African American female to attend and graduate from Durham high school. His middle daughter, Andree attended the previously all white Carr Junior High School and his youngest daughter Charmaine and her brother Floyd Jr. were admitted to North Durham Elementary School, among the first wave admitted at the elementary level. Each one experienced undue hardship and torment on a daily basis and never gave up. This home was where the seeds were sown and where Floyd was able to instill the values in his children that made them so willing and able to join him in the fight.

In addition to being just a family home, the “Freedom House” served as a gathering place for civil rights activists. The McKissicks had regular visitors who were prominent leaders in the civil rights movement who came for the cultural and educational enlightenment as well as a bed when local hotels would refuse them. Evelyn McKissick, Floyd’s wife, often hosted dinners of 20 people that would overflow through the house. Thus, the home is not important simply for who lived there but rather for the conversations and meetings that it helped to foster. “Regular visitors to their home included NAACP leader Roy Wilkins and CORE leader and Freedom Ride organizer James Farmer.” Floyd McKissick Jr remembers sharing his bunk bed with CORE field secretary and Freedom Rider Ike Reynolds. Charmaine McKissick said of the nickname “Do-Drop-Inn,” “that’s what people did - they dropped in — and you never knew how long they were going to stay.”

The McKissick home is on the National Register of Historic Places study list and the family is hoping for it to serve as a headquarters or museum. This home serves as a monument to the incredible progress that Floyd McKissick, his family, and his fellow fighters helped to usher in and will hopefully find a worthy new owner.

More Information:http://www.opendurham.org/buildings/1123-north-roxboro-street-mckissick-house

Location Coordinates

POINT (-78.893503 36.003176)

Tags:

Civil Rights

Judge Floyd B. McKissick

1123 North Roxboro Street

Melissa Fisch