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...

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...

I was asked on Facebook who some of the other women were who participated in the Raleigh Chapter of the Panel of American Women.  Here is the list that I have compiled from information I got from Mrs. Jackie Eisen (and the list is not complete).  They are in no particular order, but are listed by race or religion as my lists show (some lists didn't share that information).

Black - Cliff Wimberley, Barbara Bland, Sandra Hardy, Earle Blue, Carolyn Johnson, Cleo Carr, Dolores Walker, Nurry Johnson, Ann Heartley Hunt, Gwen Bailey, Celeste Beatty, Margaret Lockamy, Joan Silvey.

Catholic - Mary Bode, Pat Gessner, Linda Macior, Eileen Moran

Jewish - Jackie  Eisen, Sherry Tove, Harriet Jablonover, Lea Bolt, Sylvia Ruby, Jackie Schlesinger, Ellen Deutsch

WASP (White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant) - Bettye Martin, Bobbi Armstrong, Becky Basnight Toole, Lindsey Tate, Meta Ellington, Fran Myers, Barbara Parker, Ruth Steen, Pat Warner, Betty Adcock, Margot Maddox

These women were not...

Panel of American Women

Many of you may have never heard of the Panel of American Women.  It was an organization started in Kansas City, MO, by Mrs. Esther Brown in 1958.  The panel that she was asked to moderate was to talk about prejudice.  The group of women talking was all white and just sat together and had a conversation.  Other people heard about it and wanted to host similar panels.  And that was where the panel had its beginning.  Eventually, the panels had 4 participants and a moderator. “Panels were made up of a Catholic, a Jew, a white Protestant, and a Negro and someone of another racial or religious minority in those areas where another exists.”

The panel was started in Raleigh, NC, by Mrs. Bettye Martin.  My mother, Cliffornia Wimberley, was one of the panelists as were other women in the community. (Mrs. Nurry Johnson, Mrs. Carolyn Johnson, Mrs. Gwen Bailey, Mrs. Celeste Beatty, Mrs. Barbara Bland, Mrs. Earle Blue, Ms....

The Mary B. Talbert Home for Women was built in 1939 by C. E. Lightner and Brothers Company.  The house stood on E. Davie Street where the playground of Moore Square Middle School is today.[1]

The following information is taken directly out of a personal interview in The Urban Negro in the South.  “….I am a member of the Women’ Club, originally called the Woman’s Reading Club.  It was for married women, and while possible members were discussed, no invitation was necessary to join it.  In late years it started taking in unmarried women too, for we felt that both should belong.  The Mary Talbert Home grew out of this club.

“The origin, development, and functioning of the Mary Talbert Home are especially representative of the implied indirection which has obtained in relationships of women’s formal groups to the Negro Main Street.  The ensuing statements bear this out.

“I organized the Mary Talbert Home for...