For example, when addressing a white person, the welfare worker would politely call the person over to the desk and there privately ask Your name? He invited Atwater to a meeting and to join. "I never did go back to the Klan after I left that school program," Ellis said. [1] In the documentary An Unlikely Friendship, Atwater recalled that while working on a white owner's farm, she was given food only through the back door and after the white workers had eaten. Atwater, the daughter of sharecroppers and a single mother of two, moved to Durham when she was about 18 and spent most of her life fighting for the rights of black and impoverished citizens in Durham. She organized her community to rail against the citys repressive and reprehensible policies towards black housing, often peacefully in pickets and marches and city council meetings, but she was not averse to more violent tactics, as when she participated in the bombing of the Housing Authority. Her death was investigated by the U.S. military police in Germany at the time and an autopsy concluded she had died from an intracerebral hemorrhage. She was living in dilapidated house in North Durham on $57 a month when she became an activist. If the footage from the later episodes of Netflix's The Staircase from 2012 and 2016 are anything to go by, they are still close with Michael Peterson. [7][pageneeded] Afterward she attended the Operation Breakthrough meeting and discussed how the poor had to work together to get the government's attention in order to help solve poverty and what her concerns were. In examining The Best of Enemies' historical accuracy, we learned that Ann Atwater was ridiculed by some in her community over the fact that she had worked with C.P. He convinced her landlord to fix her house, helped pay back her debt, and helped her find her path. He still got my back and He always will have it as long as I keep trusting in him." When her job as a maid ended, she found herself living in a dilapidated house in North Durham on a I didn't like them. Ellis To Join Her In The Fight, A foodie, wanderlust victim, professional Francophile, and history nerd, Andrew Milne is a freelance writer who has worked at outlets like Bon Apptit and Food Network, and currently runs content at, The True Story Of Bathsheba Sherman, The Murderous Ghost From 'The Conjuring', The True Story Of Frank Lucas, The Harlem Drug Lord Who Built A Heroin Empire, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch, Jim Thornton/The Herald Sun Collections/University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries, Ann Atwater and C.P. She was a member of several community groups and local Democratic Party vice president in 1968. Ann actually gave Ellis' eulogy when he passed away. [2], After Atwater co-led the charrette, she continued to work with the poor and middle-class black community in Durham. Fuller was bankrolled by the North Caroline Fund to do some community organizing and soon drafted Atwater into the group. Operation Breakthrough helped people define and accomplish a series of tasks in order to build a pattern of achievement. It was funded by the North Carolina Fund, a statewide program to improve education. She was making progress. She was born in Hallsboro, N.C., the daughter of sharecroppers. Ellis, a local Klan leader, focuses on a 10-day charrette, a community meeting that was organized in 1971 to grapple with the issue of school desegregation. Yes. As seen in The Staircase on HBO Max, Todd Peterson was the first person to see his father in the immediate aftermath of Kathleen's body being discovered. Ann mar- The enmity was mutual, and the charrette seemed stuck. After the course, Atwater had found her lifes purpose. All rights reserved. Revelations about Margaret and Martha's birth family also made Atwater doubt Michael's innocence, according to CBS News. When her job as a maid ended, she found herself living in a dilapidated house in North Durham on a welfare check of $57 a month. They ended up living in one small bedroom shared with another man who slept in one bed while Atwater, her husband and the baby slept in another. She didn't feel that she could ever achieve true closure, but she could move forward. To learn more, view our full privacy policy. It was learning more during the trial that made Atwater believe that Michael could have been involved in Kathleen's death. He was blind, deaf, and suffered from an intellectual disability. was sitting there, and first he started clapping his hands. She showed that it was possible for whites and blacks, even with conflicting views, to negotiate and collaborate by establishing some common ground. -School for Conversion, Yes. Through Fuller, Ann Atwater was introduced to Operation Breakthrough. Diane Fanning in her book Written in Blood: A True Story of Murder and A Deadly 16-Year Old Secret That Tore a Family Apart, details how Todd Peterson allegedly told police officers that he believed Kathleen Peterson's death to be alcohol-related. Starting from the very beginning, Ann Atwater was born in Hallsboro as one of nine children and got married in her early teenage years. The real-life story of Atwater is featured in the movie The Best of Enemies, starring Taraji P. Henson and Sam Rockwell, which opens in theaters Friday. From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. And the house was so poorly wired that when the man cut off my lights for nonpayment of [the] light bill, I could stomp on the floor and the lights would come on and Id stomp on the floor and theyd go off.. No. For more vivid tales of 20th-century race relations like the true story of The Best Of Enemies of Ann Atwater and C.P. They divorced. In July 1971, the public schools were still segregated, despite the 1954 US Supreme Court ruling that segregated schools were unconstitutional, and 1960s federal civil rights legislation about integration of public facilities. He got up in the middle of their conversation, ignoring Atwater and the crowd of black parents behind her. She was also not afraid to tell anyone to go to hell if she felt like it. When Atwater got pregnant at 14, her father a deacon in the church grabbed his shotgun and walked to the house of the man responsible, French Wilson. Tensions steadily rose, but near the end the two had a change of heart. Kevin Washington, C. Because the white councilmen did not want to listen to a black woman talk, they turned their chairs away from her. "We were chosen to be co-chairs to integrate the school system peacefully," said Atwater (School for Conversion). She wrote in a column that a couple of years before that committee she nearly slit his throat at a city meeting after he repeatedly used the n-word. BLOCK: Ann Atwater joins us from her home in Durham to share her memories of C.P. Ellis began to change. Patrick Schwarzenegger and Dane DeHaan as Todd and Clayton Peterson in The Staircase on HBO Max. Ellis were named co-chairs of the Durham, North Carolinas charrette S.O.S., Save Our Schools.. ELLIS (Civil Rights Advocate): I wanted to make them angry. Elliss position at the margins of white society frustrated him, and looking for a scapegoat, he turned to the target provided by the Klan, as he explained in a 1980 interview with oral historian Studs Terkel: I really began to get bitter. Michael and Kathleen Peterson raised a large, blended family with children from previous relationships. But Atwater's husband struggled financially, and became alcoholic and abusive. Hatin America is hard to do because you cant see it to hate it. [8], From 2006 until her death, Atwater worked with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove at the School for Conversion as a "freedom teacher," mentoring young people and activists in community organizing and fusion politics. By 1967 she was employed by the United Organization for Community Improvement and was chair of the Housing Committee. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. The two realized they had been arguing about the wrong things, that they had the same hopes for their children and a lot in common as poor people. Ellis formed a lifelong friendship. She survived on $57 a month from a welfare check, and struggled to pay rent, as she gained only occasional domestic work in white homes. Over 10 days, the opposing sides met and tension grew. Yes, The Best of Enemies is based on a true story. Civil rights activist and former Ku Klux Klansman C.P. She didnt know you could ask for repairs. He was chosen to chair the meetings, along with his polar opposite, a militant African-American leader of Durham's civil rights movement, Ann Atwater. Ms. ANN ATWATER (Civil Rights Activist): Yes, he did, and I hated him just as hard as he hated me. She attended a Durham premiere of the film in March 2019 and answered media questions on the red carpet. Ellis and his wife Mary had a son who they called Punkin'. Ann Nakia Green, Atwater's granddaughter, now lives in Texas. And me and him cried at that time, and we began to melt down towards one another. And the funny part about it, we stayed friends all these years. I didn't like the demonstrations downtown. -An Unlikely Friendship Documentary. During his father's trial and lengthy prison sentence, Clayton stood by his side. Her husband was a drinker who often spent all his pay on homemade liquor. VarietyThe Best of Enemies depicts the unexpected friendship between Ann Atwater and C.P. I didn't like Ann boycotting stores. According to PopSugar, she has twins and lives in northern Virginia. I know if we weren't gonna look after our children, nobody else would. Ellis was the Grand Cyclops of the Durham chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, raised in a poor white family that taught him to hate black people. ", Ann Atwater continued her work fighting for racial equality as a grass roots organizer, passing away in 2016. Ann Atwater in an image from the 2002 documentary. Gradually Atwater became a leader among the participants in Operation Breakthrough meetings. Then, when it was nearly over, Atwater and Ellis had a change of heart. The Best of Enemies true story reveals that Ann Atwater got married at the age of 14 and moved to Durham, NC in 1953. Sadly, Elizabeth would die soon after in 1985 and Michael Peterson became the guardian of her two children. Two years later, they had a daughter named Lydia. Ann Atwater was born in 1935 in Hallsboro, North Carolina as one of nine children to parents who were sharecroppers; her father was also a deacon of the church. It wasnt until way down in the meeting," Atwater recalled in 2002 documentary film, Ann Atwater: Grassroots Organizer and Veteran of Americas Freedom Struggle, when the children got us together and said they wanted to go to school together. She married Willie Pettiford in 1975, and became a deacon at the Mount Calvary United Church of Christ. The marriage was unhappy, and when Wilson got a job in Richmond, Virginia and asked Atwater to uproot herself again, she countered: I already followed you to Durham. Her bold actions so surprised the councilmen that they had to listen to her. This article was published more than4 years ago. But my pastor was sitting there and saw me holding the knife. Ellis was the son of a millworker and was raised in poverty. Ultimately, the school board disregarded the proposals put forth by the charrette, but the friendship C.P. His father and local community blamed poor blacks for their problems, and reasoned that blacks were to blame for why they could never get ahead regardless of how hard they worked. [5][pageneeded] She joked in a later interview that the house didn't need windows because she could see everyone on the streets through the cracks in the wall.[6]. If I told him I needed some money, he told me he needed something, we looked after each other. For food, she and her daughters could only afford rice, cabbage, and gravy while she made her daughters clothes out of the bags the rice came in. She said that after "all was said and done, I felt confident that I knew what happened. The Housing Authority, part of an old boy network headed by autocratic cotton mill executive Carvie Oldham, failed to enforce housing codes. Atwater initially declined to serve as co-chair, but reluctantly agreed to work with Ellis. BLOCK: Why would C.P. He grabbed my hand and said, Dont give them the satisfaction.'. As the civil rights movement increased in urgency and militancy, he believed acting as a spokesman on behalf of the Klan was crucial to upholding the Southern way of life and its natural social hierarchy. Ann Atwater was a pioneer of community organizing and black advocacy. I had to hate somebody. Atwater promoted unity of the working-class African Americans through grassroots organizations. [10][pageneeded]. He renounced his Klan membership, became lifelong friends with Atwater and went on to organize black and white labor unions. WebKathleen had one daughter named Caitlin from her first marriage to physicist Fred Atwater, per PopSugar. However, they eventually joined their father in Durham, North Carolina, and spent the rest of their younger and adolescent years there. She was making progress. Poverty was still a problem in the segregated society; in 1950 28% of families lived below the designated poverty line of $3000. Ann Atwaters life didnt start off easy. Like his older brother Clayton, Todd Peterson stood by his father's side during the trial and today. She could also prevent Michael from ever profiting from the crime, which was one of the goals of the wrongful death lawsuit she filed against him. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. And C.P. Do you look back, and does it make sense to you? WebAtwater lived in a dilapidated house on an unpaved street in Durhams Hayti district, where she struggled to support her two daughters. Yes. [9] Atwater mobilized poor blacks in Durham to help them stand up for themselves. Caitlin Atwater is Kathleen Peterson's daughter with her first husband, Fred Atwater. The unlikely friendship is remarkable, but most of all, Ann Atwaters legacy is that of a fierce defender of integration to whom the word no meant nothing. Groups, Social Justice. Born Ann George in the community of Hallsboro in Columbus County, North Carolina, she was pregnant and married at the age of 14. Ellis and Atwater spoke together about their experience at events around the country, and at C.P. Atwater had made Ellis begin to question his way of thinking toward blacks. Ms. ATWATER: No, it don't when you look back at it. He went on to organize labor unions for both blacks and whites. Yes. I didnt know who to blame. So I began to admire the Klan. (Romper reached out to Michael Peterson's representatives and Netflix for additional statements.). [citation needed], One tactic Atwater used to tackle this problem was using the power of numbers. "They would turn their chairs around, and they were chairs that wheeled around. On the final night of the charrette, Ellis stood before the crowd and ripped up his Klan card. Mr. C.P. The circumstances in which their mother died would raise suspicions about Michael Peterson's role in Kathleen Peterson's murder ahead of his trial. At one school meeting, a school board member got up in the middle of a conversation as she was making demands for school improvements. And we showed that towards each other up until we went into the (unintelligible) a 10-day meeting. But when she arrived in Durham, with her baby girl on her hip, a small suitcase and a shopping bag full of the babys clothes, her husband was not at the bus station, and he did not have a place for the family to live. Ellis (portrayed by Sam Rockwell). Her parents were sharecroppers, and her father was also a deacon of the nearby church. Atwater quickly rose to become a formidable spokeswoman for the poor in Durham. Ellis like an uncle and still keeps in touch with his family. Ellis. By the end of the charrette, Ellis gave up his leadership in the KKK. To manage the transition to racial integration, councilman Bill Riddick called a charrette. Before Peterson's trial, the Durham court ordered the exhumation of Ratliff's embalmed body, buried in Texas, for a second autopsy in April 2003. She was born in Hallsboro, N.C., the daughter of sharecroppers. She was making progress. When Michael Peterson and Patricia Sue lived in Germany, they befriended Elizabeth and George Ratliff and their two daughters, Margaret and Martha. Yes. They showed community members how to cultivate gardens or how to chip in and fundraise together to improve their neighborhoods. Some people may not have liked that she was demanding and outspoken, but those qualities enabled her to be a successful activist and organizer. Fuller looked at the house and asked Atwater if shed like help in fixing it. Atwater went to work as a maid, making 30 cents an hour. They don't have any evidence to some of the things that they do and some of the opinions they make. Following his nearly two-week long meeting with Ann Atwater, C.P. I knew what happened to my mom." She had already been friends with the girls when their parents met and connected. Atwater, who died in 2016 at the age of 80, defied stereotypes. Caitlin Atwater was the daughter of Kathleen and her first husband, Fred Atwater, though she was very close with the entire Peterson family. We looked at each other. Atwater also expressed her opinions at city council meetings, which had only white members. He organized a federally-funded sit-down which would rule on the issue one way or another, held for 10 days from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Atwater was chosen as one of the charrettes leaders. Her mother died when she was 6. Like fools wed been arguing about the wrong things and hadnt been doing anything to make the school system better.. While Ratliff's murder remains unsolved, Michael was convicted of Kathleen's. She moved to Durham in 1953, where her husband, William French, had relocated. We looked at each other like fools wed been arguing about the wrong things and hadnt been doing anything to make the school system better., They started talking. is afraid that the black children will come to the white schools. She became an effective leader. Sitting down with his nemesis, he realized that his struggles were her struggles too, and that they shared a fundamental commonality of experience. Secure websites use HTTPS certificates. The poor blacks of Durham had to fight both racial and class divisions: one against the whites who claimed superiority and another against the wealthier blacks who did not want to associate themselves with the lower class. Today, Caitlin is married and is now known as Caitlin Clark. Caitlin Atwater's quotes on Michael Peterson's involvement in Kathleen's death explain what eventually made her question what happened the night her mother died. In 1971 Atwater was asked to co-chair a group looking for answers for the problems of desegregation of Durham Schools. Ann's dad had encouraged her baby's father to marry her. This will be the first time two completely different sets of philosophies have united to work for this goal of better schools. Elliss funeral in 2005, Ann Atwater delivered his eulogy. One evening a housing organizer came by and asked whether she needed help to get repairs made to the house and invited her to a community meeting. -The Best of Enemies book. Ellis was a former grand exalted cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan in Durham, North Carolina. Clayton Peterson is the oldest son of Michael Peterson from his first marriage to Patricia Sue, an elementary school teacher at the Rhein-Main Air Base in Grfenhausen, Germany. Ann's dad had encouraged her baby's father to marry her. She and Ellis continued their friendship to the end of their lives. It was at this house in Durhams Hayti District where she met Howard Fuller, the man that would help her reach her destiny as a pioneering advocate. On the evening of her death, the Petersons had dinner with Ratliff and her daughters. Ann Atwater, interview by Jennifer Fiumara and Mary Cleary, The Southern Oral History Program at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, December 7, 1995. His relationship with Ann Atwater, who attended his funeral, became the subject of a book and a documentary film, and was the favourite of all the interviews conducted by Studs Terkel. He moved to Richmond seeking better work and asked Atwater to join him there with their two daughters, she said no. Ellis were named co-chairs of the Durham, North Carolinas charrette S.O.S., Save Our Schools.. Atwater was an unlikely civil rights activist. Like all historical fiction, the 2019 film The Best of Enemies takes a bit of license with reality. Ann Atwater: Grassroots Organizer and Veteran of Americas Freedom Struggle. Breakthrough was a project designed to alleviate poverty by teaching residents how to address its root causes, and by organizing the community to create a social security net. Ellis' funeral on Saturday. Caitlin Atwater's quotes on Michael Peterson's, Caitlin Atwater was the daughter of Kathleen, Michael could have been involved in Kathleen's death, Atwater view her stepfather in another light. She organized protests for better housing, boycotts and educated citizens about their rights. Racism was instilled in Ellis from a young age. Ann Atwater and Claiborne P. Ellis had much in common, although it would take years of battling each other across the racial divide before they were able to see their similarities. The other co-chair was C.P. He grabbed my hand and said, Dont give them the satisfaction. . P. Ellis Says Klan Days Have Been Over for Awhile,, Cliff Bellarny, Bold Measure for Difficult Times,, Operation Breakthrough (Durham, North Carolina), Maegan Lobo-Berg, "The Reality of Self-Help in Durhams Operation Breakthrough", "Durham civil rights leader Ann Atwater honored with Freedom Library", "Durham civil rights activist Ann Atwater dies at 80", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ann_Atwater&oldid=1069357903, Activists for African-American civil rights, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Pages using infobox person with multiple spouses, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from April 2019, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2019, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. But then if I look back at it through my Bible, through God's work, God had a plan for both of us. -School for Conversion. She said, I know. He said, It is private. She said, I know. He said, Family only. She said, He was my brother. ", The last survivor of a slave ship has been identified, and her story is remarkable, Missouri v. Celia, a Slave: She killed the white master raping her, then claimed self-defense, Harriet Tubman made men pay for underestimating her, When Portland banned blacks: Oregons shameful history as an all-white state, Local news, weather, sports, events, restaurants and more, Ann Atwaters amazing rise from advocate for the poor to Best of Enemies stardom. I tried to find somebody. Ann Atwater was a woman to be reckoned with, a woman not to be ignored. Ann Atwater Pushed To Integrate Her Citys Schools And Got A Klansman Named C.P. In 1971, as tensions rose over school integration, union organizers in Durham called in Bill Riddick, a professor and consultant, to lead the effort to resolve the issue. "We've made it through these years, together 30 years, and we're still friends," Ann said in the documentary. had a machine gun, and he would show it to the city councilmen in the trunk of his car every morning. Those collaborative processes involved ten days of town meetings among numerous residents, in order to hear as many voices as possible and to resolve issues related to implementation of the court order. The film tells the story of Ann Atwater (Taraji P. Henson) and Ku Klux Klan leader C.P. The defense team claimed Kathleen was aware of Michael's sexuality and was fine with it, but Atwater did not believe her mother would have been accepting. As an adult, he worked as a service station attendant before saving up enough money to buy a small service station in a factory town. They became particularly close following George's death. If we fail, at least no one can say we didnt try. Ellis was known for making provocative and inaccurate remarks expressing his fears and resentments of blacks, such as: Blacks are taking over the city. Ellis said of his wife, "but she endured it because I enjoyed it, see? After their second daughter, Marilyn, was born, he left the family and moved to Richmond for a better job, according to Davidson. Considering their history of mutual animosity, Atwater and Ellis were reluctant to work with the other, but both knew that to have their opinion represented, they must participate. The Best of Enemies true story reveals that Ann Atwater got married at the age of 14 and moved to Durham, NC in 1953. At this point, the couple had another daughter, Marilyn. Ellis a couple of years before we worked together to integrate Durhams schools, Atwater wrote in a 2013 column in the Durham Herald-Sun titled What Forgiveness Costs., We were at a meeting downtown together, and he kept yelling n---- this and n---- that. In one meeting with a councilman, Atwater recalls that when he was not taking her seriously as she was trying to make her points, she would hit him on the head, surprising him so much that he would listen to her afterwards. It helped participants gain confidence that they could achieve change and escape poverty. Even though the Supreme Court had ruled in the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Educationcase that schools had to be desegregated, this by no means meant that there wasn't a great deal of resistance in some communities, especially in the South. However, Yes, this comes straight from Diane Bloom's 2002 documentary, No. Ellis has died at age 78. Ellis had a change of heart after a 10-day forum on integration of schools in Durham, N.C. In real life, the labor union (AFL-CIO) in Durham was given a grant to help mediate the problem, after which a 10-day public meeting, or charrette, was held.
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