REYNOLDS

continued from page 5 be Mrs. Reynolds’ fate.

Mrs. Reynolds never experienced legal segregation in school. Yet, African-American students were on the periphery. She affirms, “It was integrated, but, you know, there were certain things you didn’t do and you didn’t attend or participate in, and although you were there (in the school), you were not a part of it.”

One of those underlying things for Mrs. Reynolds was the limited opportunity and support to further her education after graduation. She explains, “I did go to college, but I didn't go to college right out of high school.” She elaborates, “When I was in high school, I had a guidance counselor who told me I was not college material and the only thing I would be able to be was a bookkeeper. That did not guide me to college.” However, in her late-twenties, after being hired in a clerical position for Curtis Publishing, Mrs. Reynolds was accepted into Rutgers-The State University-Camden Campus. She majored in urban studies for a year before leaving to work at Camden County College. After working there for a few years, Mrs. Reynolds accepted a new position at Cooper Hospital. Through her

June 5, 1946 though she was one of just six African-American students during high school, Dr. Waugh rose to head the Color Guard. She was the first African American to do so.

Because her father was one of few African-American physicians in Camden County and this demanded working long hours, Dr. Waugh’s mother was her primary support throughout her childhood. She routinely assured her daughter that she was “perfect” the way she was, and that she had just as much to offer the twenty-six years of working in Camden, she reveals, “I have watched [Camden] go through a regressive stage where it was falling apart… It became one of the most dangerous cities in the country in the process of being rebuilt.”

Shortly after graduating from high school, Mrs. Reynolds married and moved to Camden. She has four children and pridefully calls them the “greatest achievements” of her life. She explains, “I’m most proud of my kids. My children are fantastic…..” They work in a number of professions: education, nursing, and performing arts. She celebrates that her children have more opportunities and that “they are viewed as individuals and not put into a category because of their race.”

To a large extent, she credits their disposition to the appreciation she developed for a sound academic foundation in her hometown. This significantly affected choices she made about their primary education. All of them attended Catholic school until ninth grade. This decision also was precipitated by a chance conversation she had with an elementary school-age neighbor. When she asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up? He replied: ‘Nothing.’” She thought: “My children will be well-educated. They will be ‘something.’” world as the other children in Haddonfield. With this emotional and psychological foundation, Dr. Waugh endured all twelve years of school in a place where many didn’t think she belonged.

Throughout high school, Dr. Waugh coped with being one of the only African Americans in the entire building. She explains that being in such a small minority group was “very isolating,” and most of her social network was outside Haddonfield. For the most part, the few friends Dr. Waugh connected with in school were Jewish “because it was like we were all outcasts together.”

Her favorite topics were English, Latin, French, and Biology. Dr. Waugh admits that Physics and Chemistry were the bane of her school career, so her parents and a classmate’s parents hired a tutor. They were the courses necessary for medical school. Temporarily, she “kinda gave up that dream,” and looked into a different path.

After graduating from high school, she attended American University in Washington, DC. There, she studied anthropology, zoology, and social science courses. She was admitted to an anthropology Ph.D. program, but it conflicted with her position in the Peace Corps, so she declined. After returning to the United States from a stint with the Peace Corps, she decided to pursue a master’s degree in Nutrition. Dr. Waugh later began consulting for physicians, as well as providing young professionals with dietary improvement plans. Although this work was gratifying, she sensed colleagues didn’t take her seriously because she lacked a medical degree. So, she attended Howard University to complete the requisite science courses, graduating from Howard University College of Medicine in 1977.

Dr. Waugh’s career in medicine is impressive. She retired as Associate Medical Director for the U.S. Postal Service and consults part-time for the federal government.

She cautions young people not to let anything prevent them from achieving their goals: “If you look ahead and see a hurdle, you just figure out how to go under it, over it, or around it… once you get past it, you don’t look back.” She stresses that there are different specialties and ways to practice medicine. For example, she started three years of residence in radiology but became dissatisfied by the second year. Rather than continuing along this unfulfilling path, Dr. Waugh researched options and decided to pursue occupational and environmental medicine.

When she was twenty-two years old, Dr. Waugh and her husband made a difficult choice. In a desperate attempt to keep her husband from being drafted, they decided to join the Peace Corps. Dr. Waugh explains how she was influenced by an old friend to join. She was told that she could travel to Africa to learn about her ancestry, while also doing meaningful, fulfilling work. They were sent to a small village in Kenya, East Africa. It was located ten miles from the nearest town and fifty miles from the nearest city. They taught at a local harambe school; a school built by the people in the area. Although they had no running water and other obstacles, they taught there for two years and, eventually, a four-year government high school was built in their former village. Reflecting the values imparted through her upbringing as a Friends Meeting member, working at a school while in the Peace Corps was very important to her. Dr. Waugh advised her students to “not be afraid to ask for help; do not think you're too dull or too slow; don't be your own worst enemy.” She also advised them not to give up, and to keep trying and asking until they found the right person. “That was a very formative experience for me. I had the opportunity to work in a different culture and learned a different language to do all of that. It also gave me time to think about what I wanted to do when I got back.”

People of faith know things don’t always work out the way we believe they should. Dr. Waugh’s childhood home no longer exists. It was the only African-American-owned property in that section of Haddonfield and its purchase required a Straw Buyer. Soon after she sold it, following her parents’ death, it was demolished by the new owner.

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REPORTER’S NOTE: Dr. Waugh’s story sheds light on a significant, historic period in Haddonfield and America. She spent a substantial amount of time growing up in a place where she was an outcast, but she persevered and rose above contempt. After the Peace Corps, she learned valuable lessons about human compassion. She carries these virtues to this day. Her life is one of displaying great acts of courage for the time in which it has taken place. She sets a great example for those who feel as though they don’t quite fit in.

Nancy Kirby

April 20, 1940

Clunk! The silver axe slaughtered a plump chicken. Alternatively, its neck was rung by the powerful hand of her neighbor’s grandfather. A young Nancy Kirby and the other children gazed in awe while the chicken ran aimlessly around. As the bird fell to the ground, it was picked up and carried off to be prepared for supper.

In 1940, in the small, predominantly white town of Haddonfield, NJ, Ms. Kirby was born into an African-American household consisting of her mother, grandmother, and eventually her younger sister, Kristine. Ms. Kirby grew up with many family traditions, most important among these was Sunday dinner. During these weekly dinners, neighbors would gather for a feast centered around a main course often bred and raised right in her backyard or nearby, such as beef, lamb, chicken, or quail. The adults would engage in conversation. Some would even drink her grandmother's famous dandelion wine—which she would make despite her refusal to drink due to high religious principles. Occasionally, the minister from Rhoades Temple United Methodist Church of Saddlertown would join them, praying over the food and creating traditions that would help mold Ms. Kirby into the virtuous woman she is today.

Ms. Kirby attended an integrated kindergarten. Then, from first to approximately third grade, even though a law had been passed in 1947 designed to end overt segregation in New Jersey, she attended the still-segregated two-room Lincoln School on Lincoln Avenue in Haddonfield. This school, which is now a senior residential facility, is where she met the teacher who made the greatest impact on her as a person and scholar, Mrs. Theresa Marvel Dansbury. Ms. Kirby reflected, “I have always been an excellent student, and that's because of the things and the training I got from Mrs. Dansbury.” The Lincoln School did not desegregate until

Haddonfield resident Alfred E. Driscoll was elected Governor of New Jersey. As Ms. Kirby recalls, it was an “embarrassment to him that the school system in his community was not integrated.” Under his leadership, Haddonfield schools finally did integrate, and Mrs. Dansbury expected to continue teaching in her hometown. Sadly, though, white parents did not want a Black woman teaching their children. With the help of the NAACP and other organizations, Mrs. Dansbury fought to remain an educator in Haddonfield. She won that fight, but she was not given her own classroom. Instead, she became the reading teacher at Central School. Ms. Kirby laments that more students did not get the chance to have Mrs. Dansbury as their classroom teacher, as they not only missed out on her general teaching excellence but were most likely not taught the invaluable lessons on African-American history that she infused into her curriculum.

After eighth grade, Ms. Kirby attended Haddonfield Memorial High School. Even though the high school was integrated, the students and even the staff treated African-American students differently. The school had an annual college fair which was invite-only. Not a single Black student was asked to attend the fair as the counselors did not expect them to advance to college. Despite that prejudice, Ms. Kirby was determined to excel as a scholar and, to the surprise of counselors who did not know she had applied, was accepted to the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University with full tuition scholarship offers. Her mother had other plans for her, though, and Ms. Kirby ended up attending Bennett–an historically black women’s college in Greensboro, NC–as a sociology and psychology major. It was here that she took her first powerful steps as an advocate for Civil Rights.

In 1960, a group of male students from the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College staged a sit-in after being denied food service at a local Woolworth’s because of the color of their skin. Ms. Kirby recalls that “most people didn’t know that this plan had been organized by the NAACP chapter at Bennett College, and so–in recent years–the history has been corrected. Now, the Bennet women get credit for the idea and organization.” Joining other students from their local chapter of the NAACP, Ms. Kirby participated in the sit-in, defying her mother and grandmother’s directive not to get involved. She remembers their clear missive when they intoned, “We already have our tickets to come to your graduation.” However, she was compelled by a force greater than academics. Along with many of the protesters, Ms. Kirby was arrested for trespassing, disorderly conduct, and disturbing the peace.

One memory from the experience that resonated most with the young Ms. Kirby occurred when she was being processed for bail bonds. She recalls “a little woman who reminded [her] of her grandmother. She had on white gloves and had a pocketbook over her arm like the queen.” She was the owner of a Greensboro funeral home and someone who Ms. Kirby considers an “unsung hero”: she believed in please see KIRBY, page 10

Nineteen fifty-seven was a tumultuous and historic year for the United States. President Eisenhower sent federal troops to ensure safe passage for the Little Rock Nine to enter a white high school in Arkansas, Philadelphia’s own American Bandstand became a national sensation, and “Jailhouse Rock” by Elvis Presley hit the airways. It was a time of guarded optimism, as lawmakers enacted new legislation to ensure equality and the protection of the rights of all Americans. The Civil Rights Movement spread across the nation, demanding equal rights in spaces of work and education. Segregation was coming to an end, but the racial divide in small-town America was still apparent. Reverend Calvin Ronald Woods, Haddonfield Memorial High School Class of 1957, was one of few African-American students in Haddonfield at this time. His story helps shape the Haddonfield narrative.

Born on November 8th, 1938, in Saddlertown, NJ—an historic community within a town, now, known as Haddon Township— Reverend Woods recalls feeling a sense of security and comfort there. In addition to living with his parents and three older sisters, his aunts and uncles lived nearby. He was surrounded by people who looked like him, attended the same church, and valued the same things.

After attending elementary and middle school there, he had the choice of going to Collingswood or Haddonfield Memorial High School. Following in his sisters’ footsteps, he chose HMHS.

Kirby

continued from page 8 the cause so deeply that she was willing to risk her business and her personal safety when she posted bail for Ms. Kirby and her classmates. She looms large as a “champion and giant” in Ms. Kirby’s life history.