I began my detailed investigation of the life and works of Mary Christine De Bardeleben in 2018, almost fifty years after her death in 1970. First there was conversations with family members. The family vaguely remembered of hearing that from time to time late in her life, an important person from Tuskegee Institute—now Tuskegee University—would visit her at her little retirement home in Shorter. They thought that she had taught him at some time in her career; that perhaps it was even the president of Tuskegee Institute. Investigation immediately showed that the visitor could not have been the president—none of the presidents had gone to school at any place Miss Dee had taught.
Then as I painstakingly examined the contents of the box, I found an important clue. There was an empty envelope in the box, in which Miss Dee had received a letter from Dr. C. G. Gomillion. But the letter itself was not there. The envelope was dated May 1, 1969. Miss ee was 88 years old at the time.
The envelope itself had inconsequential notes (on the other side) that Miss Dee had scribbled about problems with feet and nails and apparently a reminder to ask “Philip” (probably her relative Philip Sellers) if she didn’t have some money in First National. But the envelope was in the box, after all those years. So, I could begin my search.
I quickly confirmed that C. G. Gomillion had attended Paine College. Although I knew by the time that I learned that important fact that Miss Dee had been sent to Augusta as a missionary, that was my first clue that she actually taught at Paine College while she was there. And of course, I was able to quickly confirm that fact as well. So, I knew that she had taught him and that he was in touch with her near the time of her death.
In my ongoing investigations, I visited Paine College, and examined archives there. Of course, the archives confirmed the Miss Dee had been a faculty member, and that C. G Gomillion had been a student while she was teaching there, but over a hundred years had elapsed, and the records at Paine shed little light on their relationship. You might wonder why I was so interested in that relationship. I will explain.
In the 1950’s and 1960’s Tuskegee and Macon County were at the forefront of the Civil Rights movement in Alabama. The courage of Rosa parks sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott at the end of 1955. But other important aspects of the movement began with actions of the Tuskegee Civic Association (TCA) in Macon County, beginning in the spring of 1957. State Senator Sam Engelhardt, of Shorter, introduced legislation that would remove Tuskegee Institute from the city limits of Tuskegee. At that crucial time, C. G. Gomillion was president of TCA. With support from Martin Luther King, Jr., he led what amounted to a boycott of most of the white merchants in Tuskegee, to protest a gerrymandering effort, so that the students and employees of the Institute could not vote in city elections. The effort for voting rights did not end with social and economic pressure. The gerrymandering effort passed in the State of Alabama, and C.G. Gomillion became the named plaintiff in Gomillion v. Lightfoot, a lawsuit that was ultimately decided in Gomillion’s favor the Supreme Court of the United States. That case and its facts influenced passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
The decision by the Supreme Court of the United States etched the gerrymandering case in historic memory. Less well remembered than Senator Engelhardt’s efforts to completely dismantle Macon County, and divide it, with its large Black population among adjoining counties. Unlike the gerrymandering effort, the effort to divide the county among adjoining Counties was not successful at the local level. A footnote in a paper about the racial/political issues in Macon County published by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith in 1958 that I found on the internet had this to say about the effort at that time:
“The Legislative Committee composed of state representatives and senators from Macon County and the adjoining five counties that would receive territory in the event of dismemberment of Macon County has been holding hearings in the several counties. A scheduled hearing in Macon County was cancelled. Only one Negro has appeared before the Committee , and that was Charles G. Gomillion, who was heard at his request at the State Capitol. Opinions expressed in the hearings have by no means been enthusiastic about receiving territory from a dismembered Macon County.”
In the Civil Rights struggle, Macon County public schools, including the little Shorter School where Miss Dee had taught late in her career became the focal point of the integration of schools in the State of Alabama. Civil rights attorney Fred Gray, who represented Ms. Parks in Montgomery file the case of Lee v. Macon to force integration of the Macon County Schools. When George Wallace directed State School Superintendent Austin Meadows not to submit to the federal court orders, Judge Frank Johnson found that the school system was controlled at the state level and extended the Macon County litigation, Lee v. Macon to include almost the entire state school system. That case became the legal instrument for the enforcement of School integration in Alabama. Ultimately, the conflicts about integration brought the demise of two of the three white public schools in overwhelmingly Black Macon County, including the Shorter public school that I had attended. Macon Academy, that can fairly be called a segregation academy, sprang up to provide education for many of the white students residing in the County, but many whites fled the county.
To my knowledge, Dr. Gomillion had nothing to do with the school litigation, but he was clearly a leader in the over-all Civil Rights Movement, and in the voting rights effort, including the pivotal litigation. Many whites who were very close to Miss Dee were deeply affected by these issues. But despite the deep-seated, divisive racial conflict, the friendship of C. G. Gomillion with his former teacher continued through it all until her death in 1970. I found among the papers of C. G. Gomillion at Tuskegee University his unpublished autobiography. In it, he described the circumstances that led him to Paine College, and described his experiences there. He recalled taking English from a white lady, Mary De Bardeleben, at age 16, in 1916. He stated that she taught him English, “My teacher of English was white, a Miss Mary De Bardeleben, a Deaconess in the Methodist Episcopal Church South…” And he went on to say that she was his favorite teacher, “My favorite teacher was Miss De Bardeleben, who seemed to have taken a great interest in my effort to learn.” He said that he and Miss Dee had stayed in touch through the years, and that they visited each other from time to time after she returned to Macon County, only 20 miles from where he was located!
In describing his relationship to Miss Dee in his autobiography, Dr. Gomillion said nothing about how their friendship had managed to weather the social turmoil in Macon County. They actually found common cause to work together after she returned to Macon County: “During these few years, Miss De Bardeleben worked diligently in the Alabama Council on Human Relations, which I was first secretary, and then president.”
Miss Dee was not the only Paine teacher associated with the MECS to whom Dr. Gomillion related well. He reports that in his third year he was in a literature course taught by Miss Louse Young. “As with Miss De Bardeleben, Miss Young and I maintained friendly relations until her death a few years ago. It was she who arranged for me to study a year, 1933-34, at Fisk University, under the direction of Dr. Charles S. Johnson, Dr. E. Franklin Frazier, and Dr. Bertram W. Doyle, all three of who had studied at the University of Chicago in the famous Department of Sociology.” Clearly, MECS had a wholesome influence in the education and development of Dr. Gomillion.
During the time that I served as Judge in the circuit that included Macon County, it was my privilege to attend a celebration of Dr. Gomillion’s birthday at a church in Tuskegee. The speaker for the occasion was then recently appointed United States District Court Judge Myron Thompson, the first Black Judge appointed in the Middle District of Alabama. He speech focused on the vigilance that Blacks should maintain to protect their rights. He pointed to the initial presence, but eventual loss of Black rights during the reconstruction era following the Civil War. Dr. Gomillion gave a brief, not more than two-minute acceptance. In it he said that he heard young people talking a lot about rights, but did not hear them talking about responsibilities.
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