It has been nearly 57 years since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on a balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.
Mary Mack was a young woman then, and learned about it on a spring day April 4, 1968.
“I can remember the people around me breaking down crying,” she said. “I had studied him in school. I knew a lot about him, and his assassination had a great impact on me.”
Mary says she was among the first Black teachers in a white school during Cumberland County’s efforts toward school desegregation, which was becoming widespread in North Carolina by 1971. She had previously taught third grade in Moore County and recalls joining Glendale Acres Elementary School in Fayetteville.
“Ms. McCutchen was my first principal, and she often referred to me as a pioneer,” she said. “It was challenging being among the first, but I believe I opened the doors for others that came along after me.”
Mary is retired from teaching now, but she continues to play an important role in the ongoing efforts toward social justice in Cumberland County, serving as treasurer of the local Fayetteville Cumberland County Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Committee.
The FCCMLK Committee, established as a nonprofit organization in 1995, is as much a nod to Fayetteville’s early Civil Rights Movement leaders as it is to King. It hosts community events that promote goodwill among people of all races and walks of life. The late Lula Crenshaw, a legend among local community leaders, was the committee’s first chair.
This year marks the 31st anniversary of the annual MLK parade in downtown Fayetteville, on Jan. 18, kicking off a year-long observance that includes an annual banquet, candlelight vigil, a food and clothing giveaway, and other activities.
The parade starts at the Judge E. Maurice Braswell Cumberland County Courthouse at 10 a.m. and winds its way through downtown. Local bands, floats, dancers, and area organizations are expected to participate, says Stanley Ford, the committee’s board of diretors chair.
Stanley, who has played a key role in the MLK observances since the committee was formed, is a career and technical education teacher at Alger B. Wilkins High School in Fayetteville.
“Our work represents an enormous effort, and I have been here long enough to see the progress we’ve made, but we still have a long way to go,” Stanley said.
Fayetteville’s rich history
You don’t have to walk far in Fayetteville to become immersed in the city’s rich African American history, much of it documented on historic markers situated around town.
The African American Heritage Trail offers 22 sites that provide a glimpse into the lives of those who lived in Fayetteville and Cumberland County. The sites tell stories of the hard labor forced on the enslaved people brought to Cumberland County in the 1700s, the growth of Black entrepreneurship, the important religious communities that sprang up, and the leaders who have contributed to Cumberland County’s important African American legacy.
Among these sites is the Evans Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church on Cool Spring Street, which was founded in 1801 by Henry Evans, a preacher and shoemaker. The church has played a significant role in the community and served as a meeting place during the Civil Rights Movement. Often referred to as the “freedom church,” it was one of several churches in Fayetteville that supported young protesters during the movement.
Past meets present
Nicholle Young St. Leone, archives technician and African American studies researcher at Fayetteville State University, says her interest in civil rights was sparked in part by the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013.
Nicholle was at the demonstration in Fayetteville on May 30, 2020, the night the Market House was set ablaze, and bore witness to the modern social justice movement. She says it gave her insight into how things might have been 60 years ago.
“I went out with my camera and tried to document as much as I could of the demonstrations,” she said. “I will say it was very tense, and I asked my grandmother if that was what it was like during the demonstrations back in the ‘60s, and she said it was just as tense and threatening.”
In his thesis “Countdown to Downtown,” Brian William Suttle chronicled the Civil Rights Movement in downtown Fayetteville.
In 1963, a year before the passage of the Civil Rights Act, a group of students from Fayetteville State Teachers College (now Fayetteville State University) formed a “Demonstration Committee” and began organizing to call for greater opportunities that would allow them to put their education to work. A wide swath of business and faith leaders, educators, and professionals supported them, and often bailed them out of jail when they got arrested, Suttle wrote in his thesis.
“There were arrests by the police, and tear gas,” Nicholle said. “Students were beaten with axe handles, and threatened, and some were expelled from school because of their activity.”
Other Fayetteville area residents used different strategies. Helen Sadler, a local waitress in downtown Fayetteville, cemented her place in local civil rights history when she used her pet king snake, named “Neil the Greek,” as a weapon to keep demonstrators out of her restaurant.
On the front page of the May 24, 1963 edition of The Fayetteville Observer, photographer Bill Shaw pictures her wielding Neil. The caption reads: “It would probably keep anybody, regardless of race, out of the place if they saw it in time.”
In the summer of 1963, Mayor Wilbur Clark formed the Mayor’s Bi-Racial Committee, which was a first step toward desegregation, according to Suttle’s research, and by the time the Civil Rights Act was enacted in 1964, Fayetteville’s businesses and restaurants were largely integrated.
Nicholle sees the parallels between her experiences with the Black Lives Matter and the Civil Rights movements, and with the benefit of hindsight can see how demonstrating can lead to positive change.
“I saw aspects of the modern protests that reminded me of what I read about civil rights, in terms of some of the local organizers trying to direct the anger into a more productive action,” she said.
The experience caused her to reflect on the Civil Rights Movement of the past, and the way it has also become a celebration of MLK’s life and work.
“It’s interesting to see that generation turn their experiences toward an observance and remembrance today,” she said.
Meaningful conversations
Francena Turner would love to see more young people spark that same curiosity and thoughtfulness.
Growing up just a few blocks from FSU’s campus, Francena has vivid memories of her community in action. Today, she is an adjunct assistant professor at FSU where she teaches African American History & Oral History.
Inspired by the role of women in the Civil Rights Movement, she authored the paper “Bone by Bone: Stories of Black Women at Fayetteville State, 1960-1972 Using Oral History Interviews.” She interviewed 18 women and men for the report, gaining keen insight into the roles they played in the movement, given the norms at the time.
She also found that many of the student activists of that time had already been junior members of the NAACP, and some were veterans of the social movement before they got to FSU.
Many of them went on to hold important positions in Fayetteville, in local government, business, and education. Notable among them are Willis McLeod, who rose from a student government leader to become chancellor of FSU, and Jeannette Council, who today serves on the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners.
“A historic marker downtown commemorates the protest, and I’m glad to have been alive to see us honoring our Civil Rights elders,” Francena said.
But she worries these voices will be lost to aging and time.
“They are leaving us at a rapid rate,” she said. “So, we must foster communication between the generations, with young people having genuine conversations with their elders.
The Black Lives Matter movement and activism around police shootings saw an increase in efforts toward building understanding about diversity, equity, and inclusion, she says. But those efforts are under threat.
“I’ve been thinking about what it must feel like to be one of the veterans of the Civil Rights Movement, and then to see voter suppression happening after they fought for that to end,” she said. “Now is the time to move forward with a new generation, and I’ve seen our elders get excited when they see teenagers come to events and start becoming aware of what’s happening around them.”
The FCCMLK Committee has been working for three decades to engage communities young and old and hopes that the parade and other events will inspire people of all ages to start participating. The committee has plans for the future, too.
In 1996, the City of Fayetteville allocated 13 acres of land along the Murchison Road Corridor to build a park memorializing MLK, whose statue has stood on a pedestal in the park since 2007. Plans are in the works to erect a 120-foot lighted spire in the park.
“This spire will serve as a beacon of hope to commemorate Martin Luther King’s legacy — a light for our communities,” Stanley Ford said.
Read CityView magazine’s “New Year New You” January 2025 e-edition here.