INC NEWS - Editorial: Bravery, now marked (News & Observer, Herald-Sun)

[John Schelp]

Editorial: Bravery, now marked
24 Dec 2007, News & Observer

For African-Americans oppressed by a century of Jim
Crow, just when the first sit-in took place during the
long struggle for civil rights isn't nearly as
important as the fact that it did. Yet for North
Carolinians, and particularly for seven Durham
residents, the when has plenty of meaning.

A panel of history professors who make up the state's
historical marker advisory committee voted last week
to erect an official highway marker in Durham near
where the now-demolished Royal Ice Cream Co. shop once
sat. On June 23, 1957, almost three years before the
noted sit-in at a Woolworth's lunch counter in
Greensboro, seven young Durhamites entered the
whites-only section of the ice cream parlor and sought
to be served.

They weren't served, but instead were arrested and
later fined. Among them was Virginia Williams, now 70,
who attended the advisory committee meeting. It was
the third time Durham residents had pushed for
official recognition of the landmark.

The marker amounts to another fitting acknowledgment
of Durham's culturally rich and activist
African-American community. For decades, segregation
notwithstanding, blacks in Durham boasted vibrant
academic and economic sectors. It now seems
inevitable, but no less remarkable, that Durham
residents would have helped lead the way in
confronting the suffocating policies of racial
discrimination.

The Royal Ice Cream marker of course subtracts nothing
from the bravery of those in Greensboro and other
communities across the South, borne out in many cases
by the violence that those protesters endured and the
upheaval that followed their actions. But the seven
Durham residents who defied the racial code -- seeking
only to transact business in a public establishment --
were among the first to face the anger whose full fury
was yet unknown. That ought to be remembered. 

****

Column: Royal to join more than 1,500 state markers 
By Bob Ashley, editor, Herald-Sun, 23 Dec 2007 
 
The state's decision to erect a highway historical
marker denoting the 1957 Royal Ice Cream Parlor sit-in
was, as we've noted editorially, overdue and most
appropriate. 

Eddie Davis, R. Kelly Bryant, John Schelp and many
others worked diligently to persuade the N.C. Highway
Historical Marker Advisory Committee to approve the
marker. 

If their efforts and the publicity surrounding them
piqued your interest in the highway-marker program,
you may be interested in a new book. The 10th edition
of the "Guide to North Carolina Highway Historical
Markers" is just out. 

The 265-page paperback details the location and the
word-for-word inscription of each of the state's 1,513
markers. 

It's a fascinating and imminently browsable sketch of
North Carolina history. It ranges over events and
places any Tar Heel would recognize to items that
would stump the most versatile "Trivial Pursuit: North
Carolina History" player. 

The marker program itself is of historical note.
Established in 1935, it is, the guide notes, "one of
the oldest such programs in continuous operation in
the United States." 

While we're about to get one of the program's newest
markers at the site of the now-demolished Royal Ice
Cream shop, it's coincidental that the first marker
went up only a few miles from Durham. 

Dignitaries from the state and from Granville County
dedicated marker G-1 on Jan. 10, 1936, in the Stovall
Community. It highlighted the site, three miles
northeast of the marker on U.S. 15, of the home of
John Penn, "one of North Carolina's three signers of
the Declaration of Independence." 

Many signs point motorists toward sites sometimes
yards and sometimes miles away, since by law the signs
must be on state or federal numbered highways. 

Between that first marker in Stovall and the
soon-to-be-newest in Durham, a lot of North Carolina
history has been commemorated. 

While the program has found historic landmarks worth
noting in each of the state's 100 counties, some have
more history than others. 

Wake County has the most markers, 77, a reflection
perhaps that many notable events have occurred and
noteworthy folks have lived in the state's capital. 

On the other hand, Tyrrell and Pamlico counties may
think history has passed them by. Tyrrell may think
the present has passed it by, too. With more than one
out of five of its 4,100 residents living in poverty,
it is one of the poorest counties in North Carolina. 

But it was the birthplace in 1828 of Edward Warren,
"Surgeon General of N.C., 1862-65, Professor of
Surgery in Maryland, Chief Surgeon of Egypt." The
globe-trotting Warren died far from his coastal-plain
roots, in Paris. 

Pamlico was the site of the "First Motorized School
Bus," put in service Sept. 5, 1917, by the county
school system. 

Durham and Orange counties are well represented with
markers -- 26 in Orange, 21 in Durham. And not
surprisingly, our major universities figured heavily
in the startup of the program. Of the five members of
the first advisory committee, two were affiliated with
UNC Chapel Hill and one taught at Duke. 

As with the state as a whole, some local markers are
easily predictable - Duke, UNC, the Duke Homestead,
Julian Carr. Some of Durham's reflect the
distinguished and distinctive African-American history
in the city, with markers for N. C. Central
University; its founder, James E. Shepard; John
Merrick and Black Wall Street. 

Orange County has one of the oldest markers, one
erected shortly after that first one in Stovall and,
like it, honoring one of the state's three signers of
the Declaration of Independence, William Hooper. 

The Bingham School has scored an unusual trifecta,
with markers noting its three sites as it moved around
Orange from 1827 until it decamped for Asheville in
1891. 

Flipping through the guide, you'll encounter lots of
firsts, from the first ABC store (in Wilson) to the
first woman to parachute from an airplane (in
Henderson). 

If you're doing last-minute shopping for a history
buff, you couldn't go wrong with this trove
 
****