Black Woman of the Day: Dorothy Counts (Bravery Personified)

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playahaitian

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On the morning of September 4, 1957, fifteen-year-old Dorothy Counts set out on a harrowing path toward Harding High, where-as the first African American to attend the all-white school – she was greeted by a jeering swarm of boys who spat, threw trash, and yelled epithets at her as she entered the building.

Charlotte Observer photographer Don Sturkey captured the ugly incident on film, and in the days that followed, the searing image appeared not just in the local paper but in newspapers around the world.

People everywhere were transfixed by the girl in the photograph who stood tall, her five-foot-ten-inch frame towering nobly above the mob that trailed her. There, in black and white, was evidence of the brutality of racism, a sinister force that had led children to torment another child while adults stood by. While the images display a lot of evils: prejudice, ignorance, racism, sexism, inequality, it also captures true strength, determination, courage and inspiration.

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In 1956, forty black students applied for transfers at a white school. At 15 years of age, on 4 September 1957, Dorothy Counts was one of the four black students enrolled at various all-white schools in the district; She was at Harry Harding High School, Charlotte, North Carolina. Three students were enrolled at other schools, including Central High School.

The harassment started when the wife of John Z. Warlick, the leader of the White Citizens Council, urged the boys to "keep her out" and at the same time, implored the girls to spit on her, saying, "spit on her, girls, spit on her." Dorothy walked by without reacting, but told the press that many people threw rocks at her—most of which landed in front of her feet—and that many spat on her back. Photographer Douglas Martin won the 1957 World Press Photo of the Year with an image of Counts being mocked by a crowd on her first day of school.

More abuse followed that day. She had trash thrown at her while eating her dinner and the teachers ignored her. The following day, she befriended two white girls, but they soon drew back because of harassment from other classmates.

Her family received threatening phone calls and after four days of extensive harassment—which included a smashed car and having her locker ransacked, her father decided to take his daughter out of the school.[1] At a press conference, he said:

It is with compassion for our native land and love for our daughter Dorothy that we withdraw her as a student at Harding High School. As long as we felt she could be protected from bodily injury and insults within the school’s walls and upon the school premises, we were willing to grant her desire to study at Harding.​

The family moved to Pennsylvania, where Counts attended an integrated school in Philadelphia, and later earned a degree from Johnson C. Smith University. She has spent her professional career in child care resources.

In 2008, Harding High School awarded Counts an honorary diploma.

In 2010, Counts received a public apology from a member of the crowd which harassed her in 1957.

In 2010, Harding High School renamed its library in honor of Counts-Scoggins, an honour rarely bestowed upon living persons​
 
Dorothy Counts-Scoggins to receive public apology

Nearly 53 years after she was heckled by a mob of white students while integrating Harding High School in 1957, Dorothy Counts-Scoggins next month will get a public apology from one of the people in the crowd that day.

Woody Cooper, who still lives in Charlotte, will join Counts-Scoggins June 10 for the public dedication of a “Garden of Forgiveness” inside Freedom Park.

The garden and dedication will mark the end of a three-year community engagement project known as the “Campaign for Love & Forgiveness.” Inside the garden will be a “Red Bench of Love.”

According to an announcement today, Counts-Scoggins and Cooper will be the first to “experience the bench” as he issues an apology.

Although Cooper admits to being in the crowd on Sept. 4, 1957, he said he did not shout any derogatory comments, spit on Counts or throw any objects, as some did.

Still, he has said in recent interviews, his presence in the mob has left him with feelings of guilt.
​
Beverly Dorn-Steele, community outreach director at WTVI, said the Garden of Forgiveness will be a “healing place.” The public television station is part of a group of community organizations known as the “Red Bench Ambassadors. Since January 2007 the Ambassadors have sponsored a series of community conversations around issues of love and reconciliation.

“Charlotte’s Garden of Forgiveness will be a place for our mothers to experience love instead of grief; our fathers to experience hope instead of anger, our teens to experience peace instead of violence, our leaders to experience reconciliation instead of payback, and our seniors to experience joy instead of bitterness,” Dorn-Steele said in a statement.

Earlier this month, Harding High School, now predominately black, renamed its library in honor of Counts-Scoggins.
 
Some of the most insecure pathetic ppl i have seen on planet earth are White males. :smh::smh::smh:

I can see the jealousy of the girls because she was obviously the most beautiful person in the building, but the guys...........just look at them.
 
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Fast forward 50 plus years and you will find Dot Counts-Scoggins has not only forgiven but has also become friends with some of the very men in the background jeering her. Today, they are cheering Dot. Dot was busy running a faith based child care center right there in Charlotte as she returned to pursue a college education. She is frequently asked to speak about her experience and was eventually honored with a diploma from Harding High School where over 50 years ago, Dorothy Counts broke the color barrier and integrated an all white school. In 2010, Harding named a building in Dorothy’s Honor. What a courageous young lady Dot was, and what a brave soul she is today!

http://www.beyondblackwhite.com/dorothy-counts-brave-sense-duty/​
 
Where Are They Now?: Dorothy Counts

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http://www.charlottemagazine.com/Charlotte-Magazine/August-2010/Where-are-They-Now/Dorothy-Counts/

Dorothy CountsOn the morning of September 4, 1957, fifteen-year-old Dorothy Counts set out on a harrowing path toward Harding High, where-as the first African American to attend the all-white school -she was greeted by a jeering swarm of boys who spat, threw trash, and yelled epithets at her as she entered the building.

Charlotte Observer photographer Don Sturkey captured the ugly incident on film, and in the days that followed, the searing image appeared not just in the local paper but in newspapers around the world.

People everywhere were transfixed by the girl in the photograph who stood tall, her five-foot-ten-inch frame towering nobly above the mob that trailed her. There, in black and white, was evidence of the brutality of racism, a sinister force that had led children to torment another child while adults stood by.

A week later, the girl in the photograph was gone. Her parents -having been told by the school administrators and police officials that they could not guarantee her safety -sent her to live with a relative in suburban Philadelphia, where she could peacefully attend an integrated school.

Rather than permanently quitting the city that failed her, she moved back three years later to earn her degree from Johnson C. Smith University and, except for a couple early years spent living in New York City, she has lived here ever since.

Dorthy CountsShe has worked primarily with children, for twelve years heading up a churchbased child-care center that served low-income kids and
for the last twenty-two years at the local nonprofit Child Care Resources Inc. advocating for better child care. She's divorced, and the two children she adopted as babies are now grown (one lives in Charlotte).

"What happened on that day really set me on a path," says Dorothy Counts-Scoggins, a vibrant sixty-something grandmother. "I've always wanted to work to make sure that bad things don't happen to other children."

It also set Charlotte on a path, as it prompted local business leaders -- embarrassed by the negative publicity, if nothing else -- to urge racial tolerance. And in the years that followed, the process of integrating schools and other public facilities went relatively smoothly.

And yet, the girl in the photograph is worried that, fifty-three years later, we're headed backward. In the eleven years since a federal judge ordered an end to race-based busing in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, schools have largely resegregated, and Counts-Scoggins sees evidence of inequality.​

At West Charlotte High -- a predominantly African American school her granddaughter recently graduated from -- she says the lack of resources is disturbing.

"At the beginning of the school year, they would go for weeks without books, for weeks without enough chairs for everyone in the classroom," she says. "When I heard about that I thought, Lord, this brings back memories."

Since the fiftieth anniversary of the Harding High incident three years ago, Counts-Scoggins has been asked many times by journalists, historians, school groups, and others to recount her memories of September 4, 1957. She doesn't consider it a burden and is in fact thrilled that the library at Harding High was recently named for her -- a rare honor given that the school board has a policy of not naming buildings after living people.

"It gives me a chance to talk to kids about the importance of education, and to let them know that people have had to fight for them to have these opportunities," she says. "I can be a reminder to them."​
 
Fuzzy_McNut said:
Only am
Negros wi you be celebrated for integrating with people that hate your guts at all costs and be called brave.
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It wasn't about integrating to be WITH white folx. It was about integrating to have the freedom to go and move about with dignity and not being harassed. Not have to sit in the back of the bus. Not have second class accommodations. Have you ever seen pictures of segregated ball parks where white folx had comfortable stadium seating and black folx had old rickety wooden benches? It's about fair treatment, well paying jobs. Not being denied a job and kept at a level of poverty simply because you are black. Yes this still happens, but at least now there is recourse. You are short sighted if you think it was about being WITH white folx.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/...-no-idea-what-Martin-Luther-King-actually-did
 
Fuzzy_McNut said:
Only am
Negros wi you be celebrated for integrating with people that hate your guts at all costs and be called brave.
Click to expand...

But its not about wanting their acceptance..

Its her strength in saying THEY do not get to dictate what SHE & HER PEOPLE can and cannot do.

That we are human beings and Americans.

We have a rich and storied history.

We come from the birthplace of civilization.

We are not easily cowed and turned away.

THEY are the monsters, oppressors thieves and sub-humans.

She is not only showing strength but her SUPERIORITY.

Damn how many so-called men on the board won't even speak up for Black Women behind a screen name?

So what is your definition of brave?

Hell yes she is my definition of brave...

most Black women surviving TODAY are equally as brave in their own right concerning the obstacles and lack of support they receive in the MODERN world.
 
Camille said:
It wasn't about integrating to be WITH white folx. It was about integrating to have the freedom to go and move about with dignity and not being harassed. Not have to sit in the back of the bus. Not have second class accommodations. Have you ever seen pictures of segregated ball parks where white folx had comfortable stadium seating and black folx had old rickety wooden benches? It's about fair treatment, well paying jobs. Not being denied a job and kept at a level of poverty simply because you are black. Yes this still happens, but at least now there is recourse. You are short sighted if you think it was about being WITH white folx.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/...-no-idea-what-Martin-Luther-King-actually-did
Click to expand...

You are a woman.

You trying to piss on me and call it rain......why wont you go integrate to the hilly billy section of west virgina seeing you want to have freedom to go every fucking where.....there is a right and wrong way to go about doing things. You are using a shotgun to kill a fly.bb on the wall.

Shit is stupid no matter how you cut it. You will never see a black man leave his, people to integrate with whites. And 2014 and that has failed.

Hanging around racist whites is supposed to make them accept us? Kinda backward ass thinking is that
 
playahaitian said:
But its not about wanting their acceptance..

Its her strength in saying THEY do not get to dictate what SHE & HER PEOPLE can and cannot do.

That we are human beings and Americans.

We have a rich and storied history.

We come from the birthplace of civilization.

We are not easily cowed and turned away.

THEY are the monsters, oppressors thieves and sub-humans.

She is not only showing strength but her SUPERIORITY.

Damn how many so-called men on the board won't even speak up for Black Women behind a screen name?

So what is your definition of brave?

Hell yes she is my definition of brave...

most Black women surviving TODAY are equally as brave in their own right concerning the obstacles and lack of support they receive in the MODERN world.
Click to expand...
There are certian places a black man has no business in. The military, in cac universities and in cac neighborhoods.

I dont want the freedom to go to a cac neighborhood if i am not gonna go their. Thats the problem with nigga logic. I mean do you want the freedom to walk on a light pole to?

Part of segregation is meaning you can not fight to be around those who you are segregating from.

We all agree slintegration hurt us well she is it.....integration has a face.
 
Fuzzy_McNut said:
You are a woman.

You trying to piss on me and call it rain......why wont you go integrate to the hilly billy section of west virgina seeing you want to have freedom to go every fucking where.....there is a right and wrong way to go about doing things. You are using a shotgun to kill a fly.bb on the wall.

Shit is stupid no matter how you cut it. You will never see a black man leave his, people to integrate with whites. And 2014 and that has failed.

Hanging around racist whites is supposed to make them accept us? Kinda backward ass thinking is that
Click to expand...

Ok...which of the rights that were fought and won for us would you like to give up? What would you like to go back to?

Having a white person be able to beat your ass at anytime without recourse?

From the diary I linked to:



It wasn't that black people had to use a separate drinking fountain or couldn't sit at lunch counters, or had to sit in the back of the bus.

You really must disabuse yourself of this idea. Lunch counters and buses were crucial symbolic planes of struggle that the civil rights movement used to dramatize the issue, but the main suffering in the south did not come from our inability to drink from the same fountain, ride in the front of the bus or eat lunch at Woolworth's.

It was that white people, mostly white men, occasionally went berserk, and grabbed random black people, usually men, and lynched them. You all know about lynching. But you may forget or not know that white people also randomly beat black people, and the black people could not fight back, for fear of even worse punishment.

This constant low level dread of atavistic violence is what kept the system running.

It made life miserable, stressful and terrifying for black people.

This is going to sound awful and perhaps a stain on my late father's memory, but when I was little, before the civil rights movement, my father taught me many, many humiliating practices in order to prevent the random, terroristic, berserk behavior of white people. The one I remember most is that when walking down the street in New York City side by side, hand in hand with my hero-father, if a white woman approached on the same sidewalk, I was to take off my hat and walk behind my father, because he had been taught in the south that black males for some reason were supposed to walk single file in the presence of any white lady.

This was just one of many humiliating practices we were taught to prevent white people from going berserk.

I remember a huge family reunion one August with my aunts and uncles and cousins gathered around my grandparents' vast breakfast table laden with food from the farm, and the state troopers drove up to the house with a car full of rifles and shotguns, and everyone went kind of weirdly blank. They put on the masks that black people used back then to not provoke white berserkness. My strong, valiant, self-educated, articulate uncles, whom I adored, became shuffling, Step-N-Fetchits to avoid provoking the white men. Fortunately the troopers were only looking for an escaped convict. Afterward, the women, my aunts, were furious at the humiliating performance of the men, and said so, something that even a child could understand

Even when we had examples of black folx who went off on their own to become successful (Black wallstreet: Tulsa OK) we were not safe. That town got burned to the ground. My being a woman has nothing to do with it. You are being short sighted and are not able to comprehend the living conditions of black folx back then.
 
Camille said:
Ok...which of the rights that were fought and won for us would you like to give up? What would you like to go back to?

Having a white person be able to beat your ass at anytime without recourse?

From the diary I linked to:



It wasn't that black people had to use a separate drinking fountain or couldn't sit at lunch counters, or had to sit in the back of the bus.

You really must disabuse yourself of this idea. Lunch counters and buses were crucial symbolic planes of struggle that the civil rights movement used to dramatize the issue, but the main suffering in the south did not come from our inability to drink from the same fountain, ride in the front of the bus or eat lunch at Woolworth's.

It was that white people, mostly white men, occasionally went berserk, and grabbed random black people, usually men, and lynched them. You all know about lynching. But you may forget or not know that white people also randomly beat black people, and the black people could not fight back, for fear of even worse punishment.

This constant low level dread of atavistic violence is what kept the system running.

It made life miserable, stressful and terrifying for black people.

This is going to sound awful and perhaps a stain on my late father's memory, but when I was little, before the civil rights movement, my father taught me many, many humiliating practices in order to prevent the random, terroristic, berserk behavior of white people. The one I remember most is that when walking down the street in New York City side by side, hand in hand with my hero-father, if a white woman approached on the same sidewalk, I was to take off my hat and walk behind my father, because he had been taught in the south that black males for some reason were supposed to walk single file in the presence of any white lady.

This was just one of many humiliating practices we were taught to prevent white people from going berserk.

I remember a huge family reunion one August with my aunts and uncles and cousins gathered around my grandparents' vast breakfast table laden with food from the farm, and the state troopers drove up to the house with a car full of rifles and shotguns, and everyone went kind of weirdly blank. They put on the masks that black people used back then to not provoke white berserkness. My strong, valiant, self-educated, articulate uncles, whom I adored, became shuffling, Step-N-Fetchits to avoid provoking the white men. Fortunately the troopers were only looking for an escaped convict. Afterward, the women, my aunts, were furious at the humiliating performance of the men, and said so, something that even a child could understand

Even when we had examples of black folx who went off on their own to become successful (Black wallstreet: Tulsa OK) we were not safe. That town got burned to the ground. My being a woman has nothing to do with it. You are being short sighted and are not able to comprehend the living conditions of black folx back then.
Click to expand...

This says it all...you think the right to do things you should not do is progression.

Perhaps we should fight for the right to patronize white businesses that hate us....oh wait we did do that. And it was a stupid idea.

Ya know what maybe we should fight for the right to smoke crack rocks.....

It is pathetic your love for crackers is borderline assanine.

Blacks only want to integrate with whites......you never see blacks fighting for the right to go live in the native american reservation.

You will never see blacks fight for right to live in arab neighborhood. Or right to live next to some mexican towns in Arizona.

Maybe if we had spent less time trying to ingerate and more time trying to segregate then it would be good
 
This is disturbing.....hate integration but love the people that helped to usher in integration.

I would much rather struggle with my people and make less th


Why cant she be with her own?

It doesnt help tye cause at all.

en struggle with cacs, make possibly more, and get spat on.
 
Fuzzy_McNut said:
This says it all...you think the right to do things you should not do is progression.

Perhaps we should fight for the right to patronize white businesses that hate us....oh wait we did do that. And it was a stupid idea.

Ya know what maybe we should fight for the right to smoke crack rocks.....

It is pathetic your love for crackers is borderline assanine.

Blacks only want to integrate with whites......you never see blacks fighting for the right to go live in the native american reservation.

You will never see blacks fight for right to live in arab neighborhood. Or right to live next to some mexican towns in Arizona.

Maybe if we had spent less time trying to ingerate and more time trying to segregate then it would be good
Click to expand...


Ok so what about places like Tulsa which wanted to be segregated, built their own businesses, owned their own land, etc and still had everything burned to the ground at the whim of jealous white folx who decided they were doing "too well"? Going off and having and building their own with their own was something they were "not supposed to do"? I thought that was what you were advocating?
 
Fuzzy_McNut said:
There are certian places a black man has no business in. The military, in cac universities and in cac neighborhoods.

I dont want the freedom to go to a cac neighborhood if i am not gonna go their. Thats the problem with nigga logic. I mean do you want the freedom to walk on a light pole to?

Part of segregation is meaning you can not fight to be around those who you are segregating from.

We all agree slintegration hurt us well she is it.....integration has a face.
Click to expand...

Yet if one of our children's cars breaks down in this unsegregated white territories you are speaking of we at least want a chance that they might get out alive. How about you live the way you want to live (delusional and spouting nonsense on the internet) and let the rest of us live the way we want to to live?
 
Camille said:
Ok...which of the rights that were fought and won for us would you like to give up? What would you like to go back to?

Having a white person be able to beat your ass at anytime without recourse?

From the diary I linked to:



It wasn't that black people had to use a separate drinking fountain or couldn't sit at lunch counters, or had to sit in the back of the bus.

You really must disabuse yourself of this idea. Lunch counters and buses were crucial symbolic planes of struggle that the civil rights movement used to dramatize the issue, but the main suffering in the south did not come from our inability to drink from the same fountain, ride in the front of the bus or eat lunch at Woolworth's.

It was that white people, mostly white men, occasionally went berserk, and grabbed random black people, usually men, and lynched them. You all know about lynching. But you may forget or not know that white people also randomly beat black people, and the black people could not fight back, for fear of even worse punishment.

This constant low level dread of atavistic violence is what kept the system running.

It made life miserable, stressful and terrifying for black people.

This is going to sound awful and perhaps a stain on my late father's memory, but when I was little, before the civil rights movement, my father taught me many, many humiliating practices in order to prevent the random, terroristic, berserk behavior of white people. The one I remember most is that when walking down the street in New York City side by side, hand in hand with my hero-father, if a white woman approached on the same sidewalk, I was to take off my hat and walk behind my father, because he had been taught in the south that black males for some reason were supposed to walk single file in the presence of any white lady.

This was just one of many humiliating practices we were taught to prevent white people from going berserk.

I remember a huge family reunion one August with my aunts and uncles and cousins gathered around my grandparents' vast breakfast table laden with food from the farm, and the state troopers drove up to the house with a car full of rifles and shotguns, and everyone went kind of weirdly blank. They put on the masks that black people used back then to not provoke white berserkness. My strong, valiant, self-educated, articulate uncles, whom I adored, became shuffling, Step-N-Fetchits to avoid provoking the white men. Fortunately the troopers were only looking for an escaped convict. Afterward, the women, my aunts, were furious at the humiliating performance of the men, and said so, something that even a child could understand

Even when we had examples of black folx who went off on their own to become successful (Black wallstreet: Tulsa OK) we were not safe. That town got burned to the ground. My being a woman has nothing to do with it. You are being short sighted and are not able to comprehend the living conditions of black folx back then.
Click to expand...

This says it all...you think the right to do things you should not do is progression.

Perhaps we should fight for the right to patronize white businesses that hate us....oh wait we did do that. And it was a stupid idea.

Ya know what maybe we should fight for the right to smoke crack rocks.....

It is pathetic your love for crackers is borderline assanine.

Blacks only want to integrate with whites......you never see blacks fighting for the right to go live in the native american reservation.

You will never see blacks fight for right to live in arab neighborhood. Or right to live next to some mexican towns in Arizona.

Maybe if we had spent less time trying to ingerate and more time trying to segregate then it would be good
 
Camille said:
Ok so what about places like Tulsa which wanted to be segregated, built their own businesses, owned their own land, etc and still had everything burned to the ground at the whim of jealous white folx who decided they were doing "too well"? Going off and having and building their own with their own was something they were "not supposed to do"? I thought that was what you were advocating?
Click to expand...

No im for tulsa ok. Cuz the didnt try to integrate with cacs
 
Fuzzy_McNut said:
There are certian places a black man has no business in. The military, in cac universities and in cac neighborhoods.

I dont want the freedom to go to a cac neighborhood if i am not gonna go their. Thats the problem with nigga logic. I mean do you want the freedom to walk on a light pole to?

Part of segregation is meaning you can not fight to be around those who you are segregating from.

We all agree slintegration hurt us well she is it.....integration has a face.
Click to expand...

Cac universities? R u high? Black people need to learn wherever they can and at the very highest levels. Is there an HBCU equivalent to MIT? Ur a damn fool.
 
Black Radical said:
Cac universities? R u high? Black people need to learn wherever they can and at the very highest levels. Is there an HBCU equivalent to MIT? Ur a damn fool.
Click to expand...

You are the poster child for coon niggas. So what if there isnt a mit equivalent. And there never will be if niggas keep the attitude.

As long as we would rather work for a white man who pays more then build on ourselves we will be part of this ghetto. You are scum to me
 
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