Meet the woman who was among the first to integrate Charlotte schools 60 years ago
February is Black History Month, but how much do you actually know about Charlotte’s African-American history?
This month on the CharlotteFive Podcast, we hope to educate you on Charlotte’s history and introduce you to important figures in Charlotte’s Civil Rights Movement. You’ll hear their stories, their thoughts on how Charlotte has changed over the years and what they think about the issues currently facing the city. You can find the first episode here and the second one here.
On this week’s episode of the CharlotteFive Podcast, we talked to Dorothy Counts-Scoggins, who was one of the first black students to integrate Charlotte schools in 1957.
The picture above was taken the morning of Sept. 4, 1957. That’s Counts-Scoggins in the middle, 15 years old, with a crowd of people around her as she made her way to Harding High as one of the first four black students integrated into Charlotte schools. The picture became famous. It ran on the front page of the Observer and was published around the world.
“The dress has spit on it,” wrote Observer columnist Tommy Tomlinson in 2007, 50 years after the photo was taken. (You should go read the whole article right now.)
“The crowd has followed her all the way down the block. Every so often, something flies toward her: a stick, a chunk of ice, a balled-up milk carton. The students scream at her to go back home.”
Counts-Scoggins told us what she remembered about that day, what Charlotte was like at the time and how her experiences at Harding shaped the rest of her life.
“It’s hard for people to believe this, but I said then at 15 years old, the kinds of things that happened to me I would make sure didn’t happen to another child,” she said on the podcast. “So that sort of charted my course.”
Also on this week’s podcast, Producer Richard and I broke down the latest House Bill 2 repeal proposal and we each shared what we love about Charlotte.
The CharlotteFive Podcast — presented by The Charlotte Observer and powered by OrthoCarolina — is a weekly podcast that aims to get you Charlotte Smart, Fast with fun, interesting and useful news about the city. It’s hosted by Corey Inscoe and Sarah Crosland.
You can find The CharlotteFive Podcast on Soundcloud, iTunes, Google Play and Stitcher. You can follow us on Twitter @Charlotte_Five, on Instagram @cltfive, and on Facebook, and you can shoot us an email to charlottefive@charlottefive.com.
Photos: Charlotte Observer file
This story was originally published February 14, 2017 at 10:19 PM with the headline "Meet the woman who was among the first to integrate Charlotte schools 60 years ago."