Cliffornia Grady Wimberley

Cliffornia Grady Wimberley

“Cliff” Wimberley was a native of Mt. Olive, North Carolina.  She was part of the Wynn and Grady families.  She and her sisters were known as “The Grady Girls”.  She graduated from Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) in 1951 and returned home to teach.  She was invited to come to Raleigh to teach 3^rd grade at Washington Elementary School. 

She had earlier met William Peele Wimberley when they were both headed to Virginia for college at the train station.  They began dating then but weren’t married until 1959.  By this time, she had not only taught in Raleigh, but had taught for a year in Sagamihara, Japan at the American Dependent School.

She settled in and was active in the community, particularly in areas dealing with education and young people.  Her interest led her to participate in the Panel of American Women, speaking at schools, churches, halls and other places about racism and prejudice in her life and the life of her family.  During this time, she was asked to be one of the first Black teachers to desegregate the Raleigh Public School system at Mary P. Douglas Elementary School. 

She and her husband purchased a home in the Ridge Road area, after searching for a house for quite a long period of time.  They moved in this white neighborhood 3 weeks after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.  Not long after, the 1971 Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education case regarding busing programs to speed up racial integration of public schools occurred and she and a group of people from Raleigh attended the hearings.  As a result of that case, the Raleigh City School board began planning to officially desegregate the schools with the students and not just the teachers.

Continuing her activity, she eventually ran and was elected to the Raleigh City School board and later the 1^st merged Wake County School Board from 1973 to 1977.  She helped to bring about the merger of the two school systems, primarily because the Wake County Board of County Commissioners was not providing enough funding for the Raleigh City Schools.  As a result of white flight, the inner-city schools were losing white students.  Cliff was discouraged to run by some because they were afraid that she would cause Vernon Malone to lose.  They were both elected, and it was the first time that two Black people had served on the board at the same time.  (This did not occur again until 2013 – 40 years later.)

She also taught Elementary Education at Meredith College, supervising student teachers.  Before retirement she served in the Juvenile Delinquent Schools Division and ended her work career as the Chief of Vocational Rehabilitation Program in the Division of Youth Services for the State of North Carolina.

She was also active in organizations like the League of Women Voters; NAACP; Wake Democratic Women; the Women’s Auxiliary of the Old North State Medical, Dental, and Pharmaceutical Society; NEA; NCAE; HOME (Housing Opportunities Made Equal); Raleigh Community Relations Committee (precursor to the Raleigh Human Relations Commission); Carolina Pines Girl Scouts; Strengthening the Black Family, Inc.  She was a charter member of Hospice of Wake County; Meals on Wheels at the Glenwood Terrace site; the Raleigh Chapter of Women-in-action for the Prevention of Violence and Its Causes and helped to plan the first Montessori School in Raleigh.  She was the first female President of the Raleigh-Wake Citizens Association.

Former Governor James B. Hunt appointed her to the Revenue Laws Study Commission (as his first Black and female appointee when he was Lt. Governor); the 1980 Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies; the Governor’s Study on Length of Sentences and the Board of Trustees at Wake Technical Institute (now Wake Tech Community College) where she served for 13 years.

She had two children and two grandchildren before she died in 2015.