RESEARCH AND RESOURCE

Jessie Highsmith Copeland

Jessie Copeland was a woman with community spirit who fought for the rights of tenants in housing communities.  A single mother of three, she moved into Chavis Heights in 1951, remembering it as a place where residents banded together and tended beautiful gardens.  It was a safe place to raise children and families looked out for one another. 

Considered “The Mother of Chavis Heights”, she was always looking out for children and young mothers, remembering when she had been one herself.  She raised many children other than her three, in the neighborhood as well as those she nurtured as a domestic worker.

Mrs. Copeland’s community activism helped to raise awareness in Raleigh of the issues of those living in public housing who seemed to have been forgotten.  She was on the Raleigh Housing Authority’s Board of Directors for eight years, after being the first public housing resident appointed in 1974 and rising...