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 3rd 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...

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Panel of American Women - List of Participants

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...

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Panel of American Women

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....

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Trip Down My Memory Lane

Post is 2 years old (2019) and that makes it Black History!!  It went with an article from MSNBC about Gentrification.
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Listen and learn.


Yes this happens about every 50 years. My grandparents purchased a house on Bloodworth street from a white couple when they moved in the 1940's...when many African Americans were living in the county or Oberlin or Smoky Hollow. I came home from St. Agnes to Washington Terrace apartments about 8 years after they were built. Madonna Acres and Golden Acres, Biltmore Hills and Rochester Heights were built for middle class African Americans in the 1950s and 1960s.


Desegregation of the Raleigh communities wasn't an easy thing. There were streets that became dividing lines of race and class. Streets like New Bern Avenue and Person Street. There were areas that the white middle class didn't want to live in and that the African American middle class didn't want to live in.


In the 1960s, when "Urban Renewal"...

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