Living history: Durham youth meet with civil rights legend Ann Atwater

Oct. 12--DURHAM -- It's not every day that you get to meet a piece of living history.

It's certainly not every day that a piece of living history walks into your community center, talks about her life and times for more than an hour, answers your questions, gives you her phone number and encourages you to call if you need help, sits for a photograph, signs your notepad and buys your produce.

But that's exactly what happened Friday night when Ann Atwater, a key figure in local civil rights history, was escorted into the SEEDS building by a UNC Chapel Hill lecturer.

Atwater, a community organizer and black woman whose friendship with a Durham Ku Klux Klan leader in the early 1970s has been the subject of a book and movie, was treated as a celebrity by the seven high schoolers who watched and then participated in the interview.

 

"We watched the video on you and your friend," Tasha McMillan said when Atwater sat down in a back room of the building, where the youngsters were organizing produce to be sold Saturday morning at the Durham Farmers' Market.

 

"Can I have your autograph?" asked Damion Groves. He said his friends wouldn't otherwise believe he'd met Atwater.

 

Atwater's visit to SEEDS, a nonprofit community gardening organization, was about a lot more than fan worship, of course. The exercise was arranged by Jock Lauterer, a journalism lecturer and director of UNC's Carolina Community Media Project.

 

Lauterer is cultivating the teenage gardeners for a project called the Northeast Central Durham Community VOICE. The VOICE showcases stories by local teens at www.durhamvoice.org. The teens are mentored by journalism students and faculty from N.C. Central University and UNC; the journalism students themselves are also contributing stories.

 

The Daily Tar Heel, UNC's student newspaper, will print 2,000 copies of a monthly 24-page tabloid paper beginning in February. The Daily Tar Heel will cover all costs for the first year.

 

The VOICE will show up at schools, churches and businesses in North-East Central Durham, a 300-block area that is the focus of a variety of community improvement efforts.

 

Lauterer began teaching photography to the teenagers at SEEDS and other community organizations over the summer. "Once I had a relationship with these kids, I didn't want it to stop," he said.

 

So Lauterer decided to launch an oral history project for the teens called "Heroes in Our Midst: Our Village Elders."

 

"That's what we are about, is hearing those and getting those authentic voices," Lauterer said.

 

Now the lecturer is spending part of his fall Friday evenings speaking at SEEDS about journalism, interviewing and related topics.

 

The Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation has awarded the VOICE $25,000, which has gone to cameras, computers and other newsroom equipment. Lauterer and some collegians will be teaching computer skills to the teens on a future Friday night.

 

"The bottom line is let's get 'em off the corners and into newsrooms," Lauterer said. "And if we can't get 'em into newsrooms, then let's make a newsroom."

 

The Chapel Hill native said he knew firsthand the transformative effect working on a newspaper can have on a teenager from working on the Chapel Hill High's Proconian.

 

Two Fridays ago, Lauterer and the youngsters brainstormed questions for Atwater. Last Friday, the questions got asked.

McMillan asked about the turning point in Atwater's relationship with Klan leader -- and later close friend -- C.P. Ellis.

 

"We [were] arguing because one was white and one was black," Atwater said of a mutual realization the pair had. "But we should have been trying to make sure that our children would be taken care of once they went to school, getting the best treatment that they could get. And we found out that we were the ones that had to look after our children because nobody else would. And that's where the turning point came and we began to be friends."

 

Quentin Dorsey asked how Atwater felt when she heard about current-day racism.

"Once they get God in them, they will change," replied Atwater, a devout Christian.

She added: "God made all of us. He wanted a rainbow, so that's what he did. Nobody's blood is different."

 

McMillan asked Atwater about her romantic relationships. She was candid about various problems she had over the years.

 

Krystal Shelby asked about Atwater's favorite song. It was a 1912 hymn, "Love Lifted Me."

Atwater was also asked to assess the state of black people today, to discuss her children and grandchildren, how she became religious and what regrets she had, among other things.

 

The youngsters took notes and wielded cameras and video recorders as Atwater spoke.

Lauterer, who was thrilled by the interchange, expects articles from Friday's interview and other pieces of the oral history project to be posted at durhamvoice.org within a few weeks -- certainly no later than Thanksgiving.