Chapter 8: Building Coalitions

On the afternoon of February 25, 1974, supporters of West Charlotte High gathered at the school, preparing for yet another march from the west side to downtown. It was a sight that had become familiar over the years – a group of Black Charlotteans assembling to traverse the distance between their community and the center of city power. But this march had a key difference.

Earlier processions had pressed city leaders to desegregate historically white institutions. This one sought to save a beloved Black school. Ever since Julius Chambers had convinced Judge James McMillan to order full desegregation of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, officials had struggled to maintain enrollment at West Charlotte High, the city’s only surviving historically Black high school. Earlier that month, staff had proposed to turn West Charlotte into a magnet school – an untested concept at the time. Fearing the change was the first step on the road to closure, West Charlotte’s supporters took action. They met with key officials, gathered 3,000 petition signatures, then organized the march.

“The Black community rallied like I had never seen it before,” West Charlotte graduate Stan Frazier later recalled. “Churches got together and talked about it publicly. It was one of the few times I saw the Black community just really get together and say, ‘Enough is enough. You did this to Second Ward. You will not close this school.’” 1

“It was my first civil rights protest,” recalled Latrelle Peeler McAllister, then a West Charlotte sophomore and daughter of community photographer James Peeler. “We have pictures of us marching up Beatties Ford Road. It was the whole community that gathered around, and the House of Prayer’s church band came. We all gathered to rally around our neighborhood school.” 2

Equally dramatic protests had not saved Second Ward. But times had changed. Faced with opposition from residents and from Judge McMillan, Superintendent Rolland Jones withdrew the magnet school plan, stating that the outpouring of community opposition made it unworkable. The overwhelmingly white board, “dumbfounded” by the pushback, was unable to agree on an alternative.

The march, combined with the board’s inertia, made it clear that pressing issues such as school desegregation could only be effectively addressed if Blacks and whites worked together on a more equal basis than before. There was some precedent for this. When Julius Chambers came to Charlotte, the first partner he hired was white lawyer Adam Stein. Black and white Parent Teacher Associations had created an integrated PTA council in the 1960s. At UNC Charlotte, Black activist students could count on the support of founding donor Bonnie Cone. As other Charlotte leaders came to understand this new reality, the 1970s became a vibrant period of coalition-building and civic engagement.

National Model

The value of working together showed most dramatically in the schools. Charlotte’s residential segregation meant schools could only be fully integrated through massive cross-town busing. Under pressure from Chambers and McMillan, the school board tried one half-hearted busing plan after another, only to be thwarted by families who maneuvered to avoid it – especially white families assigned to historically Black schools like West Charlotte.

Black and white families grew increasingly angry with the constant shifts. That anger intensified when the school board steadfastly refused to bus children out of the city’s wealthiest white neighborhoods, a decision that increased the amount of busing required of everyone else. Parents packed demonstrations; fights broke out at schools. As the conflict dragged on, economic leaders began to worry that the prolonged strife was once again threatening Charlotte’s cherished reputation.

These concerns opened the way for a new approach. In the fall of 1973, a group of 25 residents, Black and white, formed what they called a Citizens Advisory Group. Participants came from across the county and the political spectrum, among them Cherry neighborhood activist Phyllis Lynch, Myers Park homemaker Maggie Ray, NAACP stalwart Kelly Alexander and Hickory Grove industrialist Jim Postell. Through meetings and dinners, group members aired their concerns and hammered out a set of principles they thought would make the plan as fair as possible. Once the school board’s efforts collapsed, the Advisory Group’s work won the backing of Judge McMillian and some of the community’s most powerful political leaders. 3

The proposal the group crafted spread the burden of busing far more evenly across the county. Most dramatically, it assigned students from the high-wealth neighborhoods of Eastover and Myers Park to West Charlotte High. Realizing that their city’s future was at stake, civic leaders such as C.D. and Meredith Spangler and Jim and Mary Lou Babb put their children on the bus. Across the county, parents, teachers and students went to work. The plan would make Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools the most desegregated major school system in the nation for nearly a quarter century. Over time, that accomplishment became a major source of community cohesion and a key point of civic pride.

Growth and Optimism

The favorable publicity that came from effectively addressing the challenge of school desegregation put Charlotte in a prime position to take advantage of the growing national interest in Sunbelt cities. Between 1970 and 1990, more than a thousand new firms moved to Mecklenburg County, and the population swelled by more than 150,000 residents. Civic leaders routinely cited desegregation as a key factor in that growth.

“I believe public school desegregation was the single most important step we’ve taken in this century to help our children,” leading banker Hugh McColl would famously write. “Almost immediately after we integrated our schools, the southern economy took off like a wildfire in the wind. I believe integration made the difference. Integration – and the diversity it began to nourish – became a source of economic, cultural and community strength.” 4

School desegregation did more than bring together students. As families, teachers and community members worked together to support their children’s schools, they pooled their talents, learned about each other, and formed cross-racial bonds – connections that would serve the city well in multiple arenas.

As the plan solidified, many Black residents began to view the change with optimism. Future mayor Anthony Foxx, born in 1971, grew up in the westside home owned by his grandparents, schoolteachers James and Mary Foxx. The Foxxes had moved to Charlotte after Belmont’s Reid High School, where James was principal, was closed as part of Gaston County’s desegregation plan. James Foxx had to settle for a new job as a seventhgrade math teacher. His grandson, in contrast, saw endless possibility.

“I knew that I had a different opportunity in front of me,” Anthony Foxx explained. His grandparents “had worked to make the best of opportunities available within the confines of hand-me-down books, hand-me-down uniforms, hand-me-down facilities and so forth. I didn’t have to deal with that stuff. And all they wanted me to do was knock it out of the park. I definitely felt that I was being given an opportunity they didn’t have. And their impetus for me was just ‘Go as far as you can, young man. Do as much as you can.’” 5

Employment

African Americans also set their sights on better jobs, their efforts aided by a handful of courageous Black workers who joined Julius Chambers and his partners in challenging discriminatory employment and promotion practices. Victories in Griggs v. Duke Power, Robinson v. Lorillard, and Moody v. Albermarle Paper forced the elimination of practices such as tests not related to job performance, and seniority systems that perpetuated past discrimination. 6

As with school desegregation, legal and legislative victories did not change employment practices overnight. But they gave workers tools they could use to stand up for themselves. In the mid-’70s, for example, Omega Autry was working for the N.C. Department of Social Services in Charlotte when a white woman with family connections was promoted over more accomplished African Americans. “It affected morale incredibly,” Autry recalled. A group of Black women filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Although they did not win that particular suit, in subsequent years “we began to see different people get promoted.” 7

Gradual shifts in employment showed up in census figures. In the 1970 Census, 42 percent of Mecklenburg County’s Black workers were classified as service workers, farmers or laborers, and 9 percent were professional, technical or managerial. In the 1980 Census, 32 percent were service workers, farmers or laborers, and 14 percent were professional, technical or managerial. In 1970, 33 percent of Charlotte’s African Americans lived below the poverty line. By 1980, that number had dropped to 27 percent. 8

Politics

Hard work and coalition-building brought Black residents greater political clout. One advance involved the structure of elections. For decades, Charlotte’s at-large voting system had favored a small group of wealthy white leaders. Since African Americans made up less than a third of residents in Charlotte and less than a quarter in Mecklenburg County, at-large voting made it difficult for Black candidates to win. It also caused problems for white activists from less-prominent neighborhoods, who often found themselves stymied by well-funded candidates from wealthier areas.

In 1977, Black and white activists who had worked together on school desegregation successfully promoted a public referendum that changed city council elections from five at-large seats to a hybrid mix of four at-large and seven district seats. In 1979, two Black candidates – political veteran Charlie Dannely and newcomer Ron Leeper – captured district seats.

In 1980, three African Americans won election to the nine-member school board: incumbent Phillip O. Berry, PTA leader Sarah Stevenson and AME Zion minister George Battle Jr. Minister and community activist Bob Walton, running at-large with backing from both Black and white leaders, took one of the five seats on the county commission. In the mid-1980s, both the school board and the county commission would also switch to hybrid elections, opening further opportunities. 9

Greater Black political representation helped solidify a coalition between Black and white political leaders interested in using government to promote economic growth. White leaders counted on Black votes to elect development-minded candidates, and to approve measures such as the bonds needed to expand the city’s airport. In turn, those leaders supported key Black politicians and strategically invested in Black businesses. 10

A coalition of Black and white leaders also helped push through an innovative strategy known as “scattered site” public housing. Rather than concentrating low-income residents in large developments – often placed in existing low-income communities – scattered site housing built smaller clusters of units in better-off neighborhoods, with the idea that families – especially children – would benefit from greater access to the opportunities found in those neighborhoods. Charlotte became a national leader in that effort, eventually placing scattered-site developments in every part of the city.

Change Throughout the City

As African Americans expanded their influence, they took on new prominence in historically white organizations. They also created new Black institutions, aimed at preserving Black history and nurturing Black culture. Bertha Maxwell-Roddey, who had become a professor of education at UNC Charlotte, worked with students to create a pioneering Black Studies program at the school. In 1974, she teamed with fellow professor Mary Harper to found Charlotte’s Afro-American Cultural Center. 11 Second Ward High graduate Vermelle Ely led the creation of the Second Ward High School National Alumni Association, which focused on preserving the connections and memories created during the school’s long history. Rudolph Torrence and Mae Clark Orr formed the West Charlotte High School National Alumni Association, Inc., to preserve the school’s history and support its ongoing activities.

Sarah Stevenson worked with Jim Richardson, Bob Walton and Black Political Caucus head Bob Davis to create the Tuesday Morning Breakfast Club, a weekly community gathering to discuss issues of interest to African Americans. While white Charlotteans were allowed to attend or make presentations at the meetings, the Black founders kept careful control of the agenda. Early on, Stevenson recalled, a friend cautioned: “Sarah, let’s be careful about letting white folk in, because if we let white folk in they will take over.” But Stevenson had worked with whites for years, most prominently as a leader in the 1960s merger of the county’s Black and white PTAs. She was not afraid. “I said, ‘Not if we don’t let them,’” she explained. 12

Postal worker Willie Stratford continued his decades of involvement in civic affairs, using his influence in both Black and white communities to broker agreements designed to help Black neighborhoods. Aspiring politicians, regardless of race, “had to know Willie Stratford,” recalled fellow politician Harvey Gantt. “And they had to meet him at the Excelsior Club or wherever to get his blessings.” Stratford put particular energy into the YMCA, where he worked tirelessly to improve facilities in Black neighborhoods and opportunities for African Americans across the organization. 13

Growing Promise

As Charlotte grew, it began to draw ambitious African Americans from around the country, a phenomenon highlighted in a story titled “The Changing Profile of Charlotte,” published in Black Enterprise in 1983. “There is room for pioneers,” restaurant owner John McDonald told the Black Enterprise reporters. “A black man can be successful because he is not limited to the black community. He can go downtown. The field is wide open for young aggressive men.” 14

Black Charlotteans knew that the divides created by centuries of inequality could not be overcome in a few short years. They still faced discrimination in many forms. A poverty rate of 27 percent was better than the 33 percent of 1970 or the 64 percent of 1960, but still far higher than the 6 percent rate for whites. The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 marked a conservative resurgence that would lead to sharp cuts in employment and housing programs that had been designed to right old wrongs. Still, there was cause for optimism. The economy was strong. School desegregation remained a point of civic pride – Reagan himself met with a famously chilly reaction when he visited the city and described busing as “a social experiment that nobody wants.” 15

In 1983, Harvey Gantt won the mayor’s office, making Charlotte the first majority-white Southern city to elect a Black mayor. Originally from Charleston, Gantt had been the first Black student at Clemson University, where he studied architecture. He subsequently moved to Charlotte and became interested in politics. Local leaders, Black and white, encouraged his involvement, appointing him to the city council and then backing his mayoral run. “Here’s a kid from Clemson, from South Carolina, who becomes a council member and then a mayor in a little over a decade,” Gantt later noted. “And so I saw this as a progressive community.” 16