Mural to honor pioneering civil rights movement in Old Fort

Project will commemorate 1955 school protest

Fred McCormick
The Valley Echo
August 31, 2020

Inspired by a 1955 attempt to enroll Black students in a segregated school in Old Fort, People On the Move for Old Fort are raising money to fund a mural in the center of the town. An artist’s depiction of the piece, which will be painted by Florida-based muralist Don Rimx, shows a colorful interpretation of the moment that Albert Joyner met with the McDowell County superintendent of schools on the steps of the school. Image courtesy of Lavita Logan

On a late summer morning in 1955, the normally quiet streets in the small town of Old Fort were filled with tension, anger and fear. Hundreds of local residents gathered around a group of African-American children who were marching to the local elementary school to enroll for the fall semester.

While that simple request would be denied on the front steps of their hometown school, as the superintendent of the McDowell County school system refused to enroll them, their heroic actions and the bravery of Albert Joyner, the local man who escorted them, will be memorialized by a mural in the town. 

People On the Move for Old Fort, an organization that works to engage and advocate for the local Black residents of the town, launched a GoFundMe campaign in August to raise $20,000 for the project. 

Work on the mural is set to begin in mid-September, according to Lavita Logan, the project consultant for People On the Move for Old Fort and organizer of the GoFundMe page supporting it. Florida-based muralist Don Rimx will interpret a photo of Joyner and the Black students that marched courageously to the school on that August day. 

“We’re here, we’ve just rarely been seen”

Logan represents the third generation of her family to live in Old Fort, and has long been asked about a perceived absence of Black residents. 

“I used to see a doctor, and he wasn’t from here but worked here for some time,” she recalled. “I remember one time he asked me, ‘where are all the Black people?’ I said, ‘oh, we’re here, we’ve just rarely been seen.’”

There are two predominately African-American communities in the town of roughly 1,000 residents. 

“One is Baptist Side and the other is Cemetery Street,” Logan said. “I live on Cemetery Street and my grandparents used to live on Baptist Side.” 

Those communities frequently interacted with each other, she continued, “we were all like family.”

While socialization between the communities was common for generations, Logan recalled, interaction with the predominantly white community was not. 

“We always pretty much stayed in our own neighborhoods,” she said. “We would go over to Baptist Side and they would come over here to Cemetery Street and we would stick together. But, rarely did you see a large group of Black people getting together in town.”

Ties between the communities have not been as strong in recent years, but the opportunity to reconnect presented itself in the form of the Old Fort Community Forum, which was established in 2018 to build relationships in the town. The Forum created working groups to focus on various issues in the region, including engagement of town leadership, strengthening the local economy, healthy eating and active living, youth empowerment, and other community engagement initiatives.

“We created People On the Move for Old Fort because there was a noticeable lack of participation from the local Black community in the Community Forum,” Logan said. “We wanted this to be a safe space for them to tell their truth and talk about things that are going on in their communities.”

A movement before the Movement 

A major topic of conversation in Black communities around the country by the mid-20th century centered around school segregation, and Old Fort was no exception. In 1950, African-American students marched in the streets to protest an order to close the Catawba View Grammar School. The local Black community reportedly paid for the land, and construction of the wooden facility that allowed African-American students to attend school near their homes. 

Despite the protest, the school was closed and demolished, forcing Black students from Old Fort to be bused to a segregated school in neighboring Marion. Colonel Dan Adams, a well-respected resident of the town, called the destruction of the school an act of aggression in an opinion piece published in the paper at the time. 

Black parents in Old Fort would spend the next several years petitioning the county to allow their children to attend the local elementary school, to no avail. 

While Jim Crow laws throughout the South would slowly crumble in the decades ahead, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education dealt a devastating blow against “separate but equal” laws that facilitated racial segregation. 

Less than a year later, at the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement and more than a decade before integration would come to schools in McDowell County, Black students in Old Fort were ready to demand a change. 

True bravery

Albert Joyner was getting ready to report to work at the VA Hospital in Oteen, where he was employed as a nurse. He was aware that a protest was planned that morning but when he looked out his window he saw a group of Black children, with no adult to escort them, surrounded by an angry mob that would grow to number in the hundreds. 

A photograph published in Look magazine in 1955, shows Albert Joyner, dressed in a suit, speaking to the superintendent of McDowell County Schools, Melvin Taylor, on the steps of the all-white school in Old Fort. Photo originally published in Look magazine

The World War II Veteran was not a native of Old Fort and had no children of his own at that time, but he would later say that he felt a call from God to join the students as they marched toward the all-white elementary school to enroll for the semester.

“He was a great man,” Logan said of Joyner, who remained in Old Fort until he passed away in 2011 at the age of 86. “He was always known as a kind and caring man who was very respected in the community when I was growing up. There is no doubt he showed remarkable bravery on that day in 1955.”

Joyner led the children to the front steps of the school and attempted to sign them up for class, as the loud, pro-segregation crowd surrounded them. He was met by the superintendent Melvin Taylor, who would deny his request.

A photo of Joyner and the children speaking to the superintendent at the door of the school, published by Look magazine, is the inspiration for the mural. 

Tensions remained high, and while no violent incidents were noted that morning, Jet magazine later reported that an Old Fort man would be fined for pushing Joyner into a fountain the following week.

An ally in Old Fort

George Sandlin was a prominent figure in Old Fort throughout the first half of the 20th century. He served as the mayor of the town near the turn of the century and the station master for the railroad depot in the town until his retirement in 1954. 

Sandlin, who also practiced law, represented the Black residents of Old Fort as they fought to save Catawba View Grammar School. His office was located in the building that was once known to locals as the Sandlin theatre. 

Kim Effler purchased the building at 37 East Main Street last year and learned the history of the structure while doing renovations. 

“She started doing a lot of research and found out that it was once owned by George Sandlin,” Logan said. “She was already interested in putting a mural on the side of the building, and when she found out the history of it, she wanted to recognize the work of George Sandlin and Albert Joyner for civil rights in Old Fort.”

Effler, Logan and other members of the community launched the mural project as a way to “bring visibility to the history and contributions of the Black community in Old Fort,” while recognizing the roles Joyner and Sandlin played in a pioneering civil rights movement. 

"Our souls are in the dirt here, but that is not reflected in the dominant historical narrative of Old Fort," said Tonia Plummer, a member of the planning team for People on the Move for Old Fort. “Our vision is for this mural to unify the community, build pride and lift up calls for racial justice and unity. Our hope is for this mural to spark discussions and help heal the community.”

The fundraiser has raised over $8,000 of its $20,000 goal in 11 days. 

“This would tell an important story that took place in our small town that a lot of kids today don’t know,” Logan said. “Albert Joyner and George Sandlin were brave men, and it would mean a whole lot to this community to tell this story through this mural.”