Historic Charlotte

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Above: The letter that started it all: Darius
Swann’s request to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg
Schools to allow their son to attend a white
school. This 1964 letter triggered the eventual
Supreme Court ruling, which initiated thirty
years of busing for school integration.
SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, ATKINS LIBRARY,
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHARLOTTE.
Right: The Supreme Court ruling, which
mandated school integration, has now been
challenged. The schools are defending the
original ruling while working to develop a
less race-conscience districting plan.
SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, ATKINS LIBRARY,
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHARLOTTE.
their demands for more comprehensive
school integration too assertively. “I never
knew of any occasion when he even wrote a
letter,” Poe stated many years later when discussing
Chambers. “He never came in and
said, ‘let’s talk about these things.’” Such
behavior frustrated and angered Poe.
Anger of a more sinister kind erupted in
Charlotte during the early morning hours of
November 22, 1965. Sticks of dynamite
exploded with dramatic suddenness in the
yards of the homes of Fred Alexander, Kelly
Alexander, Reginald Hawkins, and Julius
Chambers. It was as if a compressed coil of
racial hatred suddenly sprang forward.
Luckily, nobody was hurt. The perpetrators
were never identified. According to Alex
Coffin, Brookshire regarded these bombings
as the “low point in his time in office.” Mayor
Brookshire himself would experience the
barbs of racial retaliation. A burning cross was
found in his yard on August 26, 1966.
Charlotte experienced another round of
intense racial stress in the days following the
tragic assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr. on April 4, 1968. Mayor Brookshire and
County Commission Chairman Jim Martin
declared a citywide day of mourning and
scheduled a memorial service for noon on
April 6th at Ovens Auditorium. George Leake,
the minister of Little Rock A.M.E. Zion
Church, alarmed Mayor Brookshire and other
civic leaders during a meeting of the
Committee on Community Relations on April
6th. Leake spoke with uncharacteristic candor
to representatives of the white elite. He
warned that Charlotte could experience “long
hot summers” and even “chaos” unless it
curbed racist behavior. Leake invited whites to
come to a memorial service on April 8th where
“men of color will honor one of their own.”
This writer attended the Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. Memorial Service held at St. Paul’s Baptist
Church on the evening of April 8, 1968. Mayor
Brookshire was there. County Commission
Chairman Jim Martin was there. “I didn’t believe
you would come,” proclaimed Reverend Leake. “I
am encouraged that at last you did come down
and share with us.” Kelly Alexander, Fred
Alexander’s brother, agreed. “I’m glad to see so
many people here,” he declared. “I’m sorry it took
Martin Luther King’s death to bring us together.”
The service ended with black people and
white people singing “We Shall Overcome,”
the anthem of the civil rights movement. This
writer realized that he was witnessing a watershed
moment in the history of Charlotte and
Mecklenburg County. Dr. Raymond Wheeler
of the Southern Regional Council appreciated
its meaning. “I tell all of you, black and white,
racial separation is not the answer.”
HISTORIC CHARLOTTE
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