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Renowned Jazz Artist Has Ties to City
By Barbara Taylor, President of the High Point Museum
The High Point Museum has many stories to share with our community. One of these stories is of interest to the hundreds of thousands of people around the world who are fascinated with the jazz genius of composer and saxophonist John Coltrane.
Some local citizens are unaware, but those who follow jazz know that High Point was the place where Coltrane grew up.
Coltrane was born in Hamlet, N.C., on Sept. 23, 1926, and he was still an infant when his family moved to High Point. For most of his youth, Coltrane lived with extended family members in his grandparents’ house on Underhill Street. His father owned a dry cleaning and tailor shop. His grandfather was the Rev. William Wilson Blair, presiding elder of St. Stephen A.M.E. Zion Church.
Music filled the air in the house on Underhill. His father played the ukulele and violin. His mother was a trained singer and often played the piano. When he was about 12, Coltrane joined a community band started by his scout troop leader and played the clarinet and saxophone.
While at William Penn High School, he performed in the boys’ chorus and joined the newly formed school band.
Tragedy struck early in the young musician’s life. His father, grandfather and uncle died within a few years of one another. Coltrane found solace in his music. He graduated in 1943 at age 16. Shortly thereafter, he left High Point to study music.
Coltrane moved to Philadelphia. After a brief stint in the Navy, he met, performed and recorded with musicians Dizzy Gillespie, Johnny Hodges, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and other legends.
He faced troubles along the way. Coltrane, like other musicians of the time, became addicted to heroin and alcohol. In 1957, when Coltrane overcame his heroin addiction, his music took on a more spiritual aspect. Coltrane later wrote, "I experienced, by the grace of God, a spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life."
During the last 10 years of his life, Coltrane’s music reached new levels and emotional depth.
He also received his share of accolades. In 1965, he was named Down Beat magazine’s "Jazzman of the Year." Coltrane was just reaching his prime when he died of liver cancer on July 17, 1967, at the age of 40.
The High Point Museum has an exhibit that pays homage to this former resident. Several personal items, including a booklet on "Negro History" he produced as a fifth-grade student at Leonard Street Elementary, are on display. This booklet gives a glimpse of those who may have influenced Coltrane at an early age.
The museum also has on exhibit the player piano that was in the house on Underhill Street. Probably purchased by his grandparents in the early 1920s, this upright player piano was often played by his mother as she sang religious songs.
Coltrane later moved the piano to his home in Philadelphia, where he is known to have used it to compose and arrange music. He said of the instrument, "You have a whole band under your hands with a piano, and it’s the best thing for working on chord forms."
Several other items on exhibit include unpublished musical notations as well as a 1961 award from Down Beat magazine.
Students open doors to integration
(Go back to the previous article)
(On) Feb. 11, 1960, 26 black students, 24 from William Penn High School and two from High Point High School, began a sit-in at the F.W. Woolworth store on South Main Street in High Point. The sit-in was inspired by the Greensboro sit-in, which had begun Feb. 1. The High Point sit-in is believed to have been the only one planned and carried out by high school students. Mary Lou Andrews Blakeney was one of the organizers. She recounts those pivotal days in the city’s history.
It was two to three days after the first F.W. Woolworth sit-in staged by four N.C. A&T freshmen in Greensboro that four high school students sat talking about this historical event with two adults, the Rev. B. Elton Cox and Mrs. Miriam Fountain (a retired teacher).
Many questions were bandied about: How did they do it? Where did the courage come from? When was the decision made to do it? What would be the consequences/outcomes, and why were they the chosen ones?
Nevertheless, the four teens, Mary Lou Andrews, Brenda Jean Fountain, Miriam Lynn Fountain and Andrew Dennis McBride, spurred on by the courage of the "Greensboro Four," decided to do the same thing in High Point. Rev. Cox was asked to lead the effort and he agreed, after some persuasion. The next two people on board were Arlene Wilkes and Peter Mason. From there, a full-on recruitment of students ensued.
Lots and lots of students showed up at Pilgrim Congregational Church (Cox’s church), but not all were willing to follow the nonviolence doctrine of Mahatma Gandhi, which the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. strongly advocated. As students were quizzed, challenged and weeded out, the number dwindled to 26. The work began in earnest with the 26 students via lectures, role-playing, safety measures (i.e., girls on the inside during marches), and generalized non-retaliatory behavior. Preparing daily, the targeted date and time arrived — Feb. 11, 1960, 4 p.m.!
After school ended, 24 students from William Penn High and two students from then High Point High School (the Fountains) met at what was then the Fourth Street YMCA/YWCA for last-minute briefings and prayers. Streets were cleared of a recent snow, still piled on the sides of some streets.
At approximately 3:50 p.m., the 26 students, led by Cox and the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, began the march to Woolworth’s in downtown High Point. They entered Woolworth’s store from the rear Wrenn Street entrance at about 4:10 p.m., split into small groups, pretending to shop, while waiting for the signal from Cox (he would doff his hat) to make a break for the lunch counter and occupy the seats. A few seats that were empty were taken. Those occupied were very quickly vacated, except for one man who continued eating while listening to a transistor radio. Today, the Rev. Rufus Kenneth Newlin recalls that the song on the radio was "What In The World’s Come Over You." What irony!
With all seats occupied, some of the students began to study or to do homework. Education was paramount, always first! This was preached by parents, schools and Cox. If grades suffered, the student suffered (i.e., no extracurricular activities) until the grades were much improved. This applied to athletes, in particular. The schools didn’t have to do it, the parents did it — no exceptions — no excuses. The sit-in movement participation was also included in this practice.
The students were immediately asked to leave by a waitress, and were told they would not be served — they refused. Next, the manager told them to leave, was refused, and he called the police. A crowd of whites had gathered and the mood grew ugly.
Attempts to strike, kick, push or pull students began while the hate-filled crowd yelled racial slurs. Police looked on. The closed sign appeared on the lunch counter.
Intimidation changed to fear as the crowd became more like a mob, but the students remained calm and, most importantly, nonviolent.
The lights in the store were turned out and an announcement was made that the store was closed. A cheer went up from the students as they prepared to leave the store singing, "We Shall Overcome." Amid the verbal ugliness from the crowd (now outside), the students walked with heads high, filled with a sense of accomplishment and some fear. The sense of fear began to lessen as the students walked to Washington Street (the black neighborhood) followed by some of that ugly crowd who hurled snowballs along the way.
Back at the "Y" on Fourth Street, the excitement erupted among the students — hugs, tears, admissions of fear were shared. A vow to return the next day was made.
The next day the counter seats were roped off, so the students stood behind them and sang. After a time they left — only to return over and over again.
This movement expanded over the days, weeks and years to include other stores (S&H Kress, McLellan’s), movie theaters (Paramount, Center), High Point’s City Lake Park, fast food restaurants (McDonald’s, A&W Root Beer), and churches. It continued for eight years, at which time, in 1968, the Human Relations Commission was formed, made up of black and white citizens.
Yes, progress has been made in High Point, is still being made and must continue to be made. The Civil Rights Movement is a very important part of High Point’s history. I daresay it played a key role in helping to improve race relations in this city.
It took the children to start the move toward better race relations, and then the adults came to the realization that they had better get on board because progress would not be denied.
"And a little child shall lead them."
Mary Lou Blakeney was elected to the High Point City Council in November 2008 to represent High Point citizens at large.
Reprinted with permission from the High Point Enterprise, Feb. 10, 2008
High Point Police Wearing Commemorative Badges During 2009
(Go back to the previous article)
In December 2007, Chief Jim Fealy established a committee to design a commemorative badge for the 150 year anniversary of the High Point Police Department. The City of High Point was planning a sesquicentennial celebration for 2009, and police department employees wanted to research and honor the department’s rich history, as well.
The badge committee, including Lt. Rick Dietz, Lt. Al Ferguson, Officer Chris Fox, Officer Randy Knight, Mrs. Laverne Pike, and Capt. Cherie Maness, decided to incorporate the past and present in this special project. They chose three previous badges and used parts of each for the commemorative edition. Each layer has a distinct meaning, which represents an era of the department’s past.
The committee received input from fellow employees and worked on several graphic designs until the final version was selected. Blackinton Badge Company manufactured the badges, and Kokopelli Traders completed the artwork and design. Production started in October 2008, after several revisions to the original prototype.
The department is fortunate to have the support and equal dedication of civilian employees, and it would be more difficult without the assistance of support staff. This includes Records, Crime Lab, Police Information Techs, Animal Control, Staff Duty Officers, Crimestoppers, Crime Analysts, Reserve Officers, Chaplains and many others.
Alternate badges were also designed for uniformed civilian employees. Lucite Displays with the embedded anniversary badges were given to other civilian employees in grateful recognition of their service.
Chief Fealy directed that no taxpayer dollars be used to produce the badges, since these items would eventually be given to employees as gifts.
Funding was primarily donated by High Point University and backed by individual contributors. Thanks to High Point University, Nido Qubein, Coy Williard, and the HPPD Citizens’ Academy Alumni Association.
Due to their generosity, current HPPD employees received the items as gifts for the department’s special 150 year anniversary.
“High Point and Transportation”
a talk given by Barbara E. Taylor, President
at the 1st N. C. Transportation Hall of Fame Luncheon
High Point Museum
November 9, 2004
(Go back to the previous article)
Transportation is integral to the formation of almost every town. Many of the first towns in our country were located on water – whether they were on the coast and had a port that allowed commerce to flow in and out, or on a river that facilitated the transfer of goods.
High Point is not on the coast, does not have a port, nor is it founded on a river. Yet, one of the most important recurring themes in the development of High Point is transportation. From buses and buggies, trolleys and trains, to working boats and pleasure boats, High Point has had it all. What better place to hold the first meeting of the N. C. Transportation Hall of Fame?
Before High Point was founded, Native Americans walked the land by foot and on horseback. Many of these routes became trading paths for the Indians.
As Europeans migrated to this area, they came by horse and wagon down the Great Wagon Road. Travel in the “backcountry,” as this area was known, was often on the paths carved out by the Native Americans. Travel was slow and uncomfortable. Wagon wheels churned up dust in dry weather. During rainy periods, travelers faced muddy roads that sometimes mired wagons and carts completely, making travel impossible.
Though many individuals had begun settling in the area in the mid 18th century, traveling from Virginia and Pennsylvania, they generally settled around a church, or in this area around “Quaker meetings.” Their farms were spread throughout the area. The land supported them. It wasn’t until the mid 19th century, almost 100 years after the first European arrived, that the town of High Point would be established.
As many of you know, High Point was founded at the crossroads of the two major arteries: the Plank Road and the Railroad.
In the early decades of the 1800s, people began to search for ways to improve travel. A farmer was dependent on the weather to bring goods to market. If the weather was inclement, roads often became impassible. The idea of surfaced roads was something many farmers throughout the country began to call for.
The Fayetteville and Western Plank Road was one of several surfaced roads built in North Carolina between 1830 and 1860, along pre-existing unpaved routes. It ran from Fayetteville via High Point and Salem to Bethania. This was the longest plank road ever built anywhere in the world, and certainly the most important in North Carolina. It was aptly called the ”Appian Way of North Carolina.”
This new type of road assisted farmers and merchants to convey their goods to market. The farms around what would become High Point now had a way to get to the inland port of Fayetteville and to outside markets.
Plank roads were made of a first layer of stringers, or large timbers. They were approximately 12” x 12” square and laid end-to-end, with a width of 10 feet across. The stringers were surfaced with rough-cut timber or planks, placed crosswise. The cracks were filled with sand. The High Point Museum has an original stringer on display.
Instead of bone-shaking travel on dirt roads, the plank road gave vehicles a smooth surface with good traction. Speed on a plank road was much greater than on a dirt road. And crops could be taken to market in bad weather, when ordinary farm work was prevented.
To get onto the road, a person drove onto the planks at a point near his home and headed for the nearest tollhouse. Anyone who was caught trying to avoid the tolls paid a fine.
Traveling was not a solitary activity on the Plank Road. At peak use, about 60 vehicles a day rolled along the road. The busy road was only wide enough for one wagon to pass at a time. When wagons met on the road, the wagon bound for market had the right of way. Stagecoaches had the right of way over slower moving vehicles.
An alternate means of transportation was also being considered. Railroads were being built as early as the 1840s. This area was affected by the construction of the North Carolina Railroad, which crossed the state from Goldsboro to Charlotte in the 1850s. The railroad could move goods at an even more rapid pace. The rails were stronger and lasted longer than the wooden planks of the Plank Road.
These two major arteries, the plank road and the railroad, crossed at the “highest point” along the surveyed rail line. This “crossing” would develop into the town of High Point.
While there was a small settlement along the plank road, it wasn’t until the arrival of the train that real development was begun. On November 22, 1855, the first train pulled into the High Point station. Most of the people who had gathered for their own barbecue celebration had never seen a train before. It was quite a show. As the Greensboro Patriot reported, “Just before the train came within sight of the station, where the great mass of spectators had congregated, the engineer, with a stagecoach whip in his hand, climbed upon the engine and sat astride it. As the train rounded the curve in sight of the expectant crowd, he began lashing the sides of the engine with all his might, thus ushering into High Point its first train.” The “iron horse” had arrived.
By 1859, the total population of the little crossroads town was 596, including free whites, slaves and free persons of color. Town leaders decided the time had come to incorporate. The state granted a charter on May 26, 1859. The city limits were “one mile North, South, East, and West from the crossing where the Fayetteville and Western Plank Road crosses the North Carolina Rail Road in said town making a square of two miles.”
Quickly, the High Point station became a popular destination for farm goods from Forsyth and Surry counties. For the next 50 years, High Point flourished because goods brought by wagon for distances of up to 125 miles from Virginia and the counties of North Carolina had a way to northern and southern markets via the railroad.
Thomas Sechrest, an early settler, noted that, “This Depot being the nearest point to the mountain counties, and by Plank Road making it of easy access to them, must if capital should concentrate at it, make it one of the most important Depots on the N.C. Railroad.”
Of course, the railroad soon would be used to transport soldiers during the Civil War and passengers to many distant destinations. At the turn of the century, wealthy industrialists with the Eastern Field Trials Club came to High Point via train for hunting and recreation.
The train depot built in 1907 was recently restored, saving a small portion of our past. It is a landmark in High Point.
Yet this was only the beginning of High Point’s link to transportation.
By the turn of the century, buggies were one of the modes of transportation for families. High Point was soon the home of the High Point Buggy Company. The company was founded by three brothers A.M., H.C. and J.R. Briggs. They opened their business in Florence in 1881. The company was enticed here from Florence in 1901, and continued making buggies until 1922.
The High Point Museum has a standard two-person buggy with fold back top built by the High Point Buggy Company on display. The Company produced over 30,000 vehicles in the 20 years of production in High Point. With the coming of the automobile, the company began making upholstered furniture, surviving as a business for another three decades.
Less than a decade later, public transportation came to High Point. In 1906, the North Carolina Public Service Company began a trolley system. Much of High Point’s residential development between 1910 and 1925 happened near the trolley routes. The Southern Car Company in High Point first made trolley cars. Its chief engineer was Perley A. Thomas, a native of Canada, with experience building streetcars in Detroit. He came to High Point in 1910. When the Southern Car Company closed in 1916, Thomas started his own trolley car works. The famous “Streetcar Named Desire” in New Orleans, immortalized in the Tennessee Williams drama of the same name, was a Thomas car! Trolleys were used for approximately 30 years until the mid-1930s.
At the turn of the century, the automobile was becoming a favorite for private transportation. Unfortunately, High Point cannot claim to be the home of any car manufacturer!
As the community grew, cars and the trains began to clash … and crash! Today, we know that our train tracks run beneath Main Street. However, this was not the case for the first several decades of the 20th century. In 1928, a plan was adopted to lower the train tracks. Because of the Depression, lowering of the tracks was not accomplished until 1938.
With the decline of the trolley, the Perley Thomas Company adapted with the times. The first Thomas Built bus rolled off the assembly line in 1936. Today, they manufacture a full line of buses for the commercial transit, school bus and specialty vehicle markets. It is a leading business in High Point. The museum’s “front end of the bus” is one of the most popular exhibits.
High Point manufacturers aided the country during World War I and World War II by adapting certain businesses to the building of transportation items. The Giant Furniture Co. switched from production of furniture to the production of wooden airplane propellers during the First World War (The High Point Museum has a wooden propeller from Giant Furniture on display). Similarly, Thomas Built Buses supported the war efforts in the ‘40s by providing the military with truck bodies.
Other companies, such as Mickey Truck Bodies, have been mainstays of the community and provided businesses with the means to transport their goods.
High Point’s entrepreneurship soon led to the founding of yet another company dealing with another form of transportation. With no large body of water nearby, High Point became the home of Hatteras Yachts in 1959, when Willis Slane took on the challenge of designing a boat of fiberglass. It wasn’t too long before Hatteras Yachts became the fourth largest boat builder in the country. The High Point Museum has the rudder and compass from his first boat, The Knit Wit, on display.
In early 1965, Hatteras Yachts also served the U.S. war effort by designing specialized boats for use on the rivers of South Vietnam. The company’s Patrol Boat Riverine (PBR) was in use during much of the Vietnam War and was considered the “workhorse” of the war.
(Now that) the new U. S. Highway 311 (has opened), assisting traffic to quickly bypass High Point, how will High Point’s future be affected? Both Interstates 85 and 40 bring distant visitors to our door. Soon Interstates 73 and 74 will do the same. High Point, founded at a crossroads, continues as a crossroads, and remains viable through transportation.
(Thanks to Barbara Taylor, president of the High Point Museum, who contributed the text of a speech, “High Point and Transportation” (Nov. 9, 2004), for this section.)
HISTORY OF THE CITY SEAL
adopted by the High Point City Council in August 1969
(Back to the previous article)
According to Harold Craven, who was mayor pro tem in 1969, he suggested to Council that a new city seal be designed. Council agreed and launched a citywide contest. An employee of Bennett Advertising submitted the winning design.
According to the February 4, 1969, HIGH POINT ENTERPRISE, this description of the new city flag was given to the City Council that morning.
“In its colors, the flag begins with red, white and blue of the national standard; to them are added gold, for commerce, and brown, for one of the city’s major industries.
In the central design, a circle of carved wood, symbolizing the furniture industry, is intertwined with a red ribbon symbolizing textiles. Thus the city’s two major industries, historically, are symbolically represented, but while they provide the framework for the city’s growth, they are not the core of the city’s being. Within them burns a blue flame, which represents the life of the spirit – religion, and the city’s churches; knowledge, and the College, the city’s schools, its libraries and other repositories of knowledge; and ------------------- (A portion of the clipping is missing. The clipping is in a scrapbook maintained in the N. C. Collection at the High Point Public Library.)
“Around this central design is a symbolic representation of the Old Plank Road, around which first a town and then a city grew; the planks on the flag are arranged in a sunburst, radiating power. In its colors and symbols, this flag carries on the classic tradition; in its design it is contemporary without being extreme; it represents both history and hopes; it is essentially timeless.”
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