Tracing their steps

The students of Adkin High School’s Class of 1952 studied peaceful protests before they took one step in their walkout on Nov. 20, 1951, but for them the demonstration had an impact far greater than their textbook examples.

“The greatest impact was on us as a class because we had been studying about peaceful movements and how to fight injustice and at that time we were putting it into practice,” Class of 1952’s Edwina Battle Vold said at the Adkin Alumni and Friends reunion banquet Sunday. “We were a little afraid, but we were ready to do the things we knew we had to do.”

The students put their research into action when they felt the Kinston City Board of Education didn’t satisfy their requests for better facilities at its meeting on Nov. 19.

As planned a week earlier in a meeting of students, the entire student body of 720 marched out of the school at 1216 Tower Hill Road after a senior, John Dudley, gave the coded signal over the school’s PA system: “Carolyn Coefield has lost her red pocketbook. If anyone has found it, please return it to the office.”

“The attitude was that we could do what anyone else could do if we had the opportunity and there were things that we thought were not available to us that were available to other students,” said Class of 1953’s Leroy Canady, who travelled from Plainfield, N.J., to attend the reunion.

Within 18 months, after the class had graduated, the school board fulfilled all eight requests the students had marched for, which included a new vocational building, a state-of-the-art gymnasium — the largest for a black school in North Carolina at the time — and work on the school grounds to protect the area from flooding.

Although the class had moved on, they inspired classes attending Adkin in the following years, which reaped the benefits of their actions.

“They had no idea what the results of the walkout would be,” said Felix Coward, of the Class of 1956 and president of the board of directors for Adkin Alumni and Friends. “These young students saw the future and did what they had to do to make it better for us and to them I am truly grateful.”

The peaceful protest played a significant role in the upbringing of Edwin Jones, who graduated in 1963 from Adkin and had a big hand in coordinating the reunion and reenactment this weekend.

Jones said the Class of 1952’s efforts protected the school from being torn apart.

“In the 1960s, when everybody was tearing up all the other places, it wasn’t happening here and I couldn’t figure out why,” he said. “The reason was what they did.”

Jones said he and other classmates modeled themselves after their departed peers to continue their mission.

“They have been my role models for a long time and we have tried to model ourselves after them so that people behind us will able to go forward in a very positive light,” Jones said.

The mindset remains the goal of the class now.

“Even before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we were basically saying to others who were around us that you as an individual and we as a group can make a difference in discrimination and prejudice,” Vold said.

And it remains the goal for years to come.

“If you look at the youth of today, they can make a change for the positive or the negative,” Canady said. “If they remember and realize they have the power to do things that can make life better for everybody for today and in the future, they can do great things.”

Wesley Brown can be reached at 252-559-1075 or wbrown@freedomenc.com.