RECEIVED THIS FROM LOWELL DEMPSEY TO THE DOUGLASS HIGH SCHOOL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION, AND OTHER ALUMNI ASSOCIATIONS IN THE TRI-CITIES, UPPER EAST TENNESSEE AND SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA AREA
Hi Calvin:
The month of April marks the 42nd anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We are commemorating the life and work of Dr. King by creating a memorial in our nation's capital. The Washington, D.C., Martin Luther King, Jr., National Memorial will honor his life and contributions to the world through non-violent social change. I'm reaching out to ask if you and your readers would help spread the word by posting about this wonderful project on News Of Our Douglass Friends And Neighbors.
I've put together this blogger-friendly micro-site to help get the message out - there are videos, photos, banners, and even a web toolbar that, when used, donates money to the creation of the memorial:
Click here to go to the memorial's website.
After years of fund raising, the memorial is now $14 million away from its $120 million goal. This will be more than a monument to a great humanitarian, the National Memorial will be a place for visitors from around the world to share the spirit of love, freedom, and peace. If you are able to post or tweet about this please let me know so I can share it with the team. If you have any questions please pop me an email. And if you are able to help, thank you so much.
Lowell
--
Lowell Dempsey,
BuildTheDream.org
Twitter @mlkmemorial
Facebook.com/MLKNationalMemorial
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Jonesborough community gathers to reminisce at old Booker T. Washington
THIS STORY COURTESY THE KINGSPORT TIMES-NEWS
By HEATHER RICHARDSON
NET News Service
JONESBOROUGH — Walls were talking Friday afternoon at the old Booker T. Washington School as community members — many of whom attended the school when it was still open — gathered to reminisce and talk about the future of the building.
The hall of what once served as a school for Jonesborough’s African-American children was filled with community members, black and white, sharing stories about the school, its classrooms and the gymnasium. For most, Friday’s open house was the first time they had seen the inside of the once-beloved building in decades.
Community Performance Inc. has been working with Jonesborough, collecting the stories from its residents in an effort to document their lives and their history so the town can better tell its own s t o r y.
“We are the storytelling capital of the world,” Town Administrator Bob Browning told the crowd gathered around the old gymnasium’s stage. “We’ve done a lousy job of collecting our own stories. We do a lousy job of telling our story to other people.”
Jules Corriere of Community Performance Inc. stepped forward to share with the crowd some of the stories they have heard.
“Charles came in here the other day, and he started pointing out where he used to sit. He pointed to the window where sometimes when he was late his daddy would drive him up to school. He would drive him right by the side of the window. They would open the window, and his daddy would lift him and toss him through the wind o w. ”
Corriere went on to tell stories she heard of the older girls in the school leaving in the middle of classes to go to the kitchen to stir the soup.
“Everybody would bring a bowl and a cup and a spoon to school every day, and they would have their hot cocoa and their soup, and that’s what they would have for lunch every day. Can you imagine being in a classroom now and the girls would have to excuse themselves, ‘Sorry, I have to run to the cafeteria. I’m cooking lunch today.’ I thought that was amazing.”
Richard Geer, founder and artistic director of Community Performance Inc., said many of those stories were also accompanied by a disappointment with what the school has become.
“We also heard that now people who attended one time here turn their eyes away when they drive by because it hurts too much to see what it’s fallen to.”
Faces in the crowd nodded in agreement.
“A year from now when this place is beautiful once again we’ll hear these walls talk,” Geer said. “It won’t just be a play. It will be walking in here into a gallery, a dance, a film, a story that will bring this place alive again and the wisdom of this place alive again. We see, because we know the power of story in community ... that event as being a ripple in a pond that will move out through this community and help us once again be in touch with the wisdom that is here in this place, that’s here in our elders and that’s here in our young people too.”
The town has been working for some time to revive the now dilapidated building into a multi-use cultural arts center.
The facility, recently renamed the McKinney Center for the Arts at Booker T. Washington School, was renamed in honor of community leader and former principal at the school Ernest McKinney and his family.
McKinney passed away last year. His wife, Marion, and members of his family attended the open house.
By HEATHER RICHARDSON
NET News Service
JONESBOROUGH — Walls were talking Friday afternoon at the old Booker T. Washington School as community members — many of whom attended the school when it was still open — gathered to reminisce and talk about the future of the building.
The hall of what once served as a school for Jonesborough’s African-American children was filled with community members, black and white, sharing stories about the school, its classrooms and the gymnasium. For most, Friday’s open house was the first time they had seen the inside of the once-beloved building in decades.
Community Performance Inc. has been working with Jonesborough, collecting the stories from its residents in an effort to document their lives and their history so the town can better tell its own s t o r y.
“We are the storytelling capital of the world,” Town Administrator Bob Browning told the crowd gathered around the old gymnasium’s stage. “We’ve done a lousy job of collecting our own stories. We do a lousy job of telling our story to other people.”
Jules Corriere of Community Performance Inc. stepped forward to share with the crowd some of the stories they have heard.
“Charles came in here the other day, and he started pointing out where he used to sit. He pointed to the window where sometimes when he was late his daddy would drive him up to school. He would drive him right by the side of the window. They would open the window, and his daddy would lift him and toss him through the wind o w. ”
Corriere went on to tell stories she heard of the older girls in the school leaving in the middle of classes to go to the kitchen to stir the soup.
“Everybody would bring a bowl and a cup and a spoon to school every day, and they would have their hot cocoa and their soup, and that’s what they would have for lunch every day. Can you imagine being in a classroom now and the girls would have to excuse themselves, ‘Sorry, I have to run to the cafeteria. I’m cooking lunch today.’ I thought that was amazing.”
Richard Geer, founder and artistic director of Community Performance Inc., said many of those stories were also accompanied by a disappointment with what the school has become.
“We also heard that now people who attended one time here turn their eyes away when they drive by because it hurts too much to see what it’s fallen to.”
Faces in the crowd nodded in agreement.
“A year from now when this place is beautiful once again we’ll hear these walls talk,” Geer said. “It won’t just be a play. It will be walking in here into a gallery, a dance, a film, a story that will bring this place alive again and the wisdom of this place alive again. We see, because we know the power of story in community ... that event as being a ripple in a pond that will move out through this community and help us once again be in touch with the wisdom that is here in this place, that’s here in our elders and that’s here in our young people too.”
The town has been working for some time to revive the now dilapidated building into a multi-use cultural arts center.
The facility, recently renamed the McKinney Center for the Arts at Booker T. Washington School, was renamed in honor of community leader and former principal at the school Ernest McKinney and his family.
McKinney passed away last year. His wife, Marion, and members of his family attended the open house.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Free legal clinic scheduled for Saturday in JC
• JOHNSON CITY — The Washington County Bar Association will host a free legal clinic Saturday. March 6th, 2010 at Good Samaritan Ministries from 9 a.m. until noon. The clinic is staffed by volunteer attorneys and legal staff for financially challenged individuals and families who need legal assistance. For better service, appointments can be scheduled through Legal Services by calling 928-8311.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Langston School’s founder an accomplished doctor, teacher
THIS ARTICLE COURTESY THE JOHNSON CITY PRESS
By Rex Barber
Press Staff Writer
rbarber@johnsoncitypress.com
A deadly cholera epidemic swept through this region in 1873.
Local doctors struggled to cure their patients. Most did not succeed.
It was reported the patients of Dr. Hezekiah Hankal, though, lived. Hankal’s reputation as a superb physician grew among his peers in Johnson City following the epidemic and his advice was commonly sought, according to Ray Stahl’s “Greater Johnson City: A Pictorial History.”
Hankal was also ordained as a minister. He conducted a successful ministry in the region through the establishment of churches in Jonesborough, Bristol and on land he purchased on Market Street in Johnson City, according to one volume of the “History of Washington County, Tennessee.”
Hankal’s service as a Johnson City alderman beginning in the late 1880s has been well documented.
Perhaps one of Hankal’s most well known accomplishments was the establishment of Langston Normal School, a school in Johnson City for black students.
According to Stahl, Hankal taught at Langston and was probably the first black man in the state certified to teach in the public school system.
Hankal was only one of many notable and influential black leaders in the early history of Johnson City. Mary Alexander noted the history and development of Johnson City’s black population from the middle 1800s to 1965 for her master’s degree thesis in history at East Tennessee State University.
Several pages in her thesis were devoted to Dr. Henry Johnson, another prominent physician in Johnson City. In fact, when Johnson died in 1955, there would not be another black physician in Johnson City until the Quillen College of Medicine was opened in 1978, Alexander wrote.
Johnson’s medical office was located at 111 1/2 Fountain Square in 1921, Alexander reported in her thesis. Johnson was also on the medical staff at Memorial Hospital in the late 1940s or early 1950s.
Following his death, black patients had to rely on white doctors for care. That care was typically provided after hours because blacks and whites could not be in the same waiting room at the same time in this period.
According to Alexander, many black businesses existed in Johnson City in the early part of the 20th century. She quoted the 1909 edition of the Langston Voice, a local publication, that included an ad for Edith J. Weems’ dress-making business at 404 E. Fairview Ave. and J.W. Owens’ brick masonry business at 214 Welborn St. Another black business in that issue of the Langston Voice as well as the 1915 city directory included residential contractor George W. Rhea, residing in the Carnegie area.
Alexander said some of the most vital businesses for Johnson City’s black community in the early days of the city were mortuaries and cemeteries.
The most notable is probably West Lawn Cemetery, located on a plot of land near Forrest Drive and Broadway Avenue. Both Hankal and Johnson are buried there, along with many other black families.
In the late 1800s, Harrison Whiterston donated land in the southern end of the city for blacks to have a cemetery. Some years later, a wealthy city commissioner and doctor liked the location of the cemetery and wanted the land for his own. He had the bodies exhumed and moved to what is now West Lawn.
The graves of Hankal and Johnson make the old cemetery a historical site.
By Rex Barber
Press Staff Writer
rbarber@johnsoncitypress.com
A deadly cholera epidemic swept through this region in 1873.
Local doctors struggled to cure their patients. Most did not succeed.
It was reported the patients of Dr. Hezekiah Hankal, though, lived. Hankal’s reputation as a superb physician grew among his peers in Johnson City following the epidemic and his advice was commonly sought, according to Ray Stahl’s “Greater Johnson City: A Pictorial History.”
Hankal was also ordained as a minister. He conducted a successful ministry in the region through the establishment of churches in Jonesborough, Bristol and on land he purchased on Market Street in Johnson City, according to one volume of the “History of Washington County, Tennessee.”
Hankal’s service as a Johnson City alderman beginning in the late 1880s has been well documented.
Perhaps one of Hankal’s most well known accomplishments was the establishment of Langston Normal School, a school in Johnson City for black students.
According to Stahl, Hankal taught at Langston and was probably the first black man in the state certified to teach in the public school system.
Hankal was only one of many notable and influential black leaders in the early history of Johnson City. Mary Alexander noted the history and development of Johnson City’s black population from the middle 1800s to 1965 for her master’s degree thesis in history at East Tennessee State University.
Several pages in her thesis were devoted to Dr. Henry Johnson, another prominent physician in Johnson City. In fact, when Johnson died in 1955, there would not be another black physician in Johnson City until the Quillen College of Medicine was opened in 1978, Alexander wrote.
Johnson’s medical office was located at 111 1/2 Fountain Square in 1921, Alexander reported in her thesis. Johnson was also on the medical staff at Memorial Hospital in the late 1940s or early 1950s.
Following his death, black patients had to rely on white doctors for care. That care was typically provided after hours because blacks and whites could not be in the same waiting room at the same time in this period.
According to Alexander, many black businesses existed in Johnson City in the early part of the 20th century. She quoted the 1909 edition of the Langston Voice, a local publication, that included an ad for Edith J. Weems’ dress-making business at 404 E. Fairview Ave. and J.W. Owens’ brick masonry business at 214 Welborn St. Another black business in that issue of the Langston Voice as well as the 1915 city directory included residential contractor George W. Rhea, residing in the Carnegie area.
Alexander said some of the most vital businesses for Johnson City’s black community in the early days of the city were mortuaries and cemeteries.
The most notable is probably West Lawn Cemetery, located on a plot of land near Forrest Drive and Broadway Avenue. Both Hankal and Johnson are buried there, along with many other black families.
In the late 1800s, Harrison Whiterston donated land in the southern end of the city for blacks to have a cemetery. Some years later, a wealthy city commissioner and doctor liked the location of the cemetery and wanted the land for his own. He had the bodies exhumed and moved to what is now West Lawn.
The graves of Hankal and Johnson make the old cemetery a historical site.
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