Multiple events Black History Month in Danville

In the 1940s, Langston High School teacher Charles Coleman fought for teacher salary equalization for blacks.

He eventually ran for City Council in Danville.

Before the 24th Amendment was ratified, people had to pay a poll tax in order to vote. Coleman kept a ledger recording money people had given him and when they got enough to pay the poll tax he would help them register to vote. He got enough people registered that he ran for a position on the all-white City Council, but lost by less than 100 votes.

He never made it to City Council, but Coleman set a precedent for black people in Danville. In 1968, Charles Harried became the first black man to sit on the city council since Reconstruction.

When researcher Emma Edmunds talked about Coleman during a lecture at Danville Public Library this month, no one in the audience remembered Coleman. She also spoke of him at Averett University on Thursday and other oral histories in Danville for Black History Month.

Edmunds is the creator of “Mapping Local Knowledge.” a website on black history in the region, and hopes telling stories can shed a different kind of light on this history of the city.

“Danville has a really interesting African-American history that is really worth people uncovering and understanding,” said Edmunds.

She said she wants her lecture to encourage other people to do their own family history or local history.

“To get a better understanding of racial history is for people to talk to each other about it,” said Edmunds.

Virtually all of the schools in the Dan River Region have activities geared toward black history this month. On Wednesday, Averett will host a Health Awareness Day and Lawrence Campbell will speak at 6 p.m. in Blount Chapel. The founder and pastor of Bible Way Cathedral, Campbell will reflect on the Danville Civil Rights Movement. Danville Community College is having a host of speakers and events as well.

Each school is trying show the importance of Black History Month in an area consuming a great deal of it — many of which is not in a lot of history books.

“We are trying to teach children there are a lot of famous black Americans not in their textbooks,” said Kentuck Elementary School teacher Gladys Jones.

Jones and other teachers at Kentuck arranged for a special program with the children in celebration of Black History Month. Children in second grade and below took part in a parade around the school, highlighting African-American accomplishments.

Another group of students from Dan River Middle School took part in DCC’s motivational speaking event with Tawan Perry this month. During his talk, retired educator Johnnie Fullerwinder got up and told her story of being the first black teacher back in Danville when there was a “black world and a white world.”

Her motto is that failure is never an option — and even penned her own book with that title.

In 1966, Fullerwinder was the first black teacher to integrate into the Danville Public Schools. When she first taught at George Washington High School, she said she had a class in the back of the building and was often resented, but years later she would become an assistant principal and eventually moved to a position in the school board office.

Fullerwinder’s story got major applause from the young crowd. DCC teacher Alice Walker later asked the predominately black group of students why they celebrate Black History Month.

“You are supposed to celebrate your heritage,” Walker told the group. “We are here for one purpose — unity and to celebrate all the heritages and all the cultures that make us who we are.”

Talking about heritage, history, and local people like Coleman can shed a new light on people, especially young people. Many older black people from the region remember the night riders, segregation and the civil rights. Fullerwinder, as well as others, have talked to young people about standing up for what is right so younger generations can benefit.

Dan River High School Senior Tyrabia Womble remembers her grandparents telling her stories about hiding from the night riders in the bushes and marching for civil rights in Danville with Martin Luther King. Her grandparents wanted their children to have a life of more freedom and greater opportunity.

Womble is in line to be Dan River High School’s valedictorian. She is hoping to go to Duke University and study medicine. In her lifetime, black people sit on school boards and the City Council and the country inaugurated a black president.

Racial tensions may not be over, but Womble testifies to a life where she is “excited to see what the future holds.” But she will not forget the trials of the generation that came before her.

As Edmunds and Walker both said, sometimes going forward must be achieved by understanding the past.