what happened to ann atwater daughters

Ellis has died at age 78. The two were fiercely dedicated to improving the prospects of their people, Atwater as a militant activist for housing reform, and Ellis as the Exalted Cyclops of Durhams Ku Klux Klan. Bill Riddick, a professor and consultant, was contracted by union organizers to help solve the crisis. She became an effective activist and leader when advocating for black rights, such as better private housing. On February 1, 2007, Caitlin Atwater and Michael Peterson settled the wrongful death claim for $25 million, which was finalized on February 1, 2008. [2] Riddick recruited participants from all sectors of Durham. Margaret Ratliff and her young sister Martha Ratliff were adopted by Michael Peterson after their parents, Elizabeth and George Ratliff, died. In the 1960s, eighty percent of black Durham residents lived in substandard housing, a figure which had remained unchanged since the 1920s. As far as he was concerned, it was the savior of the white people. But my pastor was sitting there and saw me holding the knife. Atwater married Willie Pettiford in 1975 and eventually had two daughters, the late Lydia Green and Marilynn Turner. Her goal was to teach the people the necessary skills to survive. 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. His action resulted in death threats and he was shunned by a significant portion of his community. At first, Caitlin supported her step-father and told the press after his arrest: "My mother and Mike had an absolutely loving relationship and there is no way that either of them would ever wish any sort of harm on the other one.". I didnt like Ann boycotting stores. C.P. Eventually Atwater divorced him and raised their two daughters on her own as a single mother. She grew to love fostering communities, teaching them how to take care of themselves, and not put up with the injustices they faced in their daily lives. 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. The other co-chair would be C.P. In 1967, Ann Atwater, a black civil rights advocate and community organizer, arrived for an appointment with a white school board member in Durham, N.C. As Atwater was making demands for improvements to the local schools, the white school board member made one very serious mistake. 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. From then on, she demanded to be heard. She was making progress. A fact-check of The Best of Enemies confirms that Atwater became involved in school desegregation in 1971 when she was asked to co-chair a special initiative to address the matter, which is when we catch up with her in the movie. According to C.P. Ann Atwater, interview by Sean Aery, Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture, February 1, 2006. She hit him over the head with a telephone receiver and he sat down to listen. Atwater changed history in Durham, refusing to be ignored as she demanded better schools and living conditions for black residents. Dig deeper into The Best of Enemies true story by watching the Ann Atwater interview and documentary below. "And we had to go up and knock them back around so that would let them know that we are human and well talk to them.. After their second daughter, Marilyn, was born, he left the family and moved to Richmond for a better job, according to Davidson. Ann Atwater was a woman to be reckoned with, a woman not to be ignored. Her husband was a drinker who often spent all his pay on homemade liquor. She turned those chairs back around to force them to face her. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Ann Atwater was a pioneer of community organizing and black advocacy. She died in 2016 having won many awards and accolades for her work for the disadvantaged. We were at a meeting downtown together, said Ann Atwater years later, and he kept yelling nigger this and nigger that. Throughout her career she helped improve the quality of life in Durham through programs such as Operation Breakthrough (Durham, North Carolina), a community organization dedicated to fight the War on Poverty. At one point, she said, "We went in the office and cried because we were doing things the wrong way just because one was black and one was white.. I didn't like them. She made dresses out of flour and rice bags for her daughters to wear. "[11] Atwater and Ellis came to realize some commonalities, among them that their children were ostracized because of the parents' working together. During his father's trial and lengthy prison sentence, Clayton stood by his side. "She didn't particularly like the Klan," C.P. Yes. He moved to Richmond seeking better work and asked Atwater to join him there with their two daughters, she said no. Im not following you any further. Soon, she divorced him. Ellis. Ignoring her and the parents with her was a mistake. "We went to the schoolhouse and we found out that the teachers there were out of their field," recalled Atwater. I didnt 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. Ellis lived across the tracks in a neighborhood nearly as destitute, but white. Ellis. BLOCK: You know, it seems like such an unlikely transformation. Because the white councilmen did not want to listen to a black woman talk, they turned their chairs away from her. They got all the good jobs and youre all sittin here letting em do it. He said that black people should stay on the other side of the railroad because they had no business in town. After the course, Atwater had found her lifes purpose. I didn't like integration. BLOCK: Why would C.P. Ellis, who died of Alzheimer's in 2005, became a champion of union and labor organizations, working as an AFL-CIO organizer. Some people may not have liked that she was demanding and outspoken, but those qualities enabled her to be a successful activist and organizer. By 1967 she was employed by the United Organization for Community Improvement and was chair of the Housing Committee. I didnt like integration. WebKathleen had one daughter named Caitlin from her first marriage to physicist Fred Atwater, per PopSugar. Do you look back, and does it make sense to you? (modern). "The city council people didn't want to look at us because we were black," said Ann. 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. 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. An Alford plea is one where the defendant admits that the evidence against them would likely lead to a finding of guilty, but the defendant asserts their innocence. Clayton Peterson is played by Dane DeHaan, who is best known for his role as Harry Osborn/Green Goblin in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The couple divorced, and Atwater supported herself and her two children as a maid for 30 cents an hour, before turning to Social Services for help. 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. Michael had adopted the girls after their mother (and his good friend), Elizabeth Ratliff, died in a fall down the stairs. Yes, The Best of Enemies is based on a true story. Ellis was a former grand exalted cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan in Durham, North Carolina. The experience inspired her to become involved in housing advocacy herself. 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. Ellis had a change of heart after a 10-day forum on integration of schools in Durham, N.C. She and Ellis continued their friendship to the end of their lives. Ellis had regularly been attending city council meetings, school board meetings, and county meetings to oppose civil rights changes and its activists. Students were getting into fights at schools over the issue. ", Ann Atwater continued her work fighting for racial equality as a grass roots organizer, passing away in 2016. She was 80. However, she says that they had to teach him how to clap his hands in rhythm and not on an odd beat. I went on back out the street and went on down, right back down the street to the office, and we Xeroxed the part that told the welfare recipients their rights.. Me and him was over there mad with each other, but we wasn't getting anything done that the children wanted. -School for Conversion Interview. Conservative town leaders were largely receptive to his message. 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 other co-chair selected was C.P. But Atwater's husband struggled financially, and became alcoholic and abusive. City council members would turn their chairs away when blacks spoke. 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.. She was a poor black woman raising children alone in the South in the mid-20th century. SCOTUS Now Just Another Congressional Committee, Trump Ramps up Attacks on DeSantis: 'Dropping Like a Rock', Russian Strikes on Pavlohrad Aim to Hamper Ukraine's Counteroffensive, Greg Abbott Criticized for Response to Texas Shooting: 'A New Low', Democrat Sold First Republic Stock, Bought JP Morgan Before Collapse, Conservative Influencers Struggle With Countering Biden's Messaging. He struggled to make ends meet and provide for his family. Colin Firth and Toni Colette star in HBO Max's latest true-crime drama, The Staircase, based on the 13-part documentary series of the same name by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade. C.P. They decided to integrate the schools. I pulled out the knife that I kept in my handbag and opened the blade. It was revealed over the course of the trial that Michael was bisexual and had been corresponding with a male sex worker, even making plans to meet up. I almost killed C.P. 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. Change did not come easily or suddenly, and the two faced ostracism, even death threats; C.P. As soon as he got close to me, I was going to grab his head from behind and cut him from ear to ear. To learn more, view our full privacy policy. She spoke at C.P. Ms. ANN ATWATER (Civil Rights Activist): Yes, he did, and I hated him just as hard as he hated me. When Atwater discovered caseworkers kept key information from clients, she figured out how to get the information herself. If we fail, at least no one can say we didnt try. When approached by Howard Fuller to join Operation Breakthrough, a program to help people escape poverty, Atwater found her life purpose. The only foods she could afford for her children were rice, cabbage, and fatback. I hated her guts. Durham schools suffered from increasing racial tensions among students anxious about the future. 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. Ms. ATWATER: Yeah. Ms. ATWATER: Well, in the first five days of the meetings, we had a choir come in, a gospel choir, a church choir--to come in and do some singing. C.P. The other was C.P. 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. "And then he sat down and I snatched the phone out the wall, and we sat down and we had a meeting.. -An Unlikely Friendship Documentary, Yes. When Michael Peterson and Patricia Sue lived in Germany, they befriended Elizabeth and George Ratliff and their two daughters, Margaret and Martha. Ellis said of his wife, "but she endured it because I enjoyed it, see? Yes. Fuller was bankrolled by the North Caroline Fund to do some community organizing and soon drafted Atwater into the group. She was a member of several community groups and local Democratic Party vice president in 1968. For Ellis, it finally came to me that I had more in common with poor black people than I did with rich white ones., When the children got us together and said they wanted to go to school together. He worked multiple jobs to support his family, but like Atwater, he barely found the funds to make ends meet. If I told him I needed some money, he told me he needed something, we looked after each other. Fuller met with each resident enrolled in Operation Breakthrough, getting to know them personally and helping identify issues to be fixed. I didnt like the demonstrations downtown, recalled Ellis some 30 years after the charrette. She had already been friends with the girls when their parents met and connected. She moved to Durham in 1953. My husband was already here, and he sent back for me and my oldest child, and he told me he had a place for us to live, Atwater explained during the oral history interview. 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. Following his nearly two-week long meeting with Ann Atwater, C.P. "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. City council people, would, they was in those chairs you know they wheel around, and they would turn their backs to us and didnt wanna hear us," Atwater said in the 2010 interview with Duke University historian Robert Korstad. Im not following you any further.. All rights reserved. And she was an effective boycotter, too. Fuller looked at the house and asked Atwater if shed like help in fixing it. The children got them together and told them they wanted to go to school together. That was real, said Ann-Nakia Green, Atwaters 35-year-old granddaughter. From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. 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. Seeing photographs of that convinced Atwater that her mother's death was not just an accident. So, where are Michael Peterson's children now? He got up in the middle of their conversation, ignoring Atwater and the crowd of black parents behind her. She is best known as one of the co-chairs of a charrette in 1971 to reduce school violence and ensure peaceful school desegregation. Atwater promoted unity of the working-class African Americans through grassroots organizations. Ellis Says Klan Days Have Been Over for Awhile,, This page was last edited on 1 February 2022, at 22:25. However, Yes, this comes straight from Diane Bloom's 2002 documentary, No. With her persistence, the office set up private booths for meetings with each client. In 1967, Atwater took a 17-week training course where she learned about tenant rights, housing codes and how to organize community protests. He renounced his Klan membership, became lifelong friends with Atwater and went on to organize black and white labor unions. At the time, Durham had a fairly large black population, with a considerable portion of educated, middle-class blacks, in addition to white residents and poor blacks. The Best of Enemies true story reveals that Ann Atwater got married at the age of 14 and moved to Durham, NC in 1953. Ellis was the son of a millworker and was raised in poverty. They wanted their children to attend schools free of violence. She was born in Hallsboro, N.C., the daughter of sharecroppers. She was a woman who found and used the power of her voice. Durham Civil Rights activist Ann Atwater best known for the relationship she forged with her biggest enemy, a member of the Ku Klux Klan has died. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. They presented ways to improve curriculum, in addition to making it easier for students' voices to be heard. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. And the funny part about it, we stayed friends all these years. Ms. ATWATER: Well, some of the people in City Hall was Klansmen as well, and they had him put out there so he could disrupt everything that everybody was trying to do. According to NBC News, Atwater called Kathleen and Michael "the most ideal parents" and she was thrilled by their marriage because it meant "a permanent sleepover" with Michael's adopted daughters, Margaret and Martha. We didnt know we had things in common., They talked about the hardships of raising children in poverty, and their efforts to emphasize that their children's potential was equal to that of middle-class children. The Housing Authority, part of an old boy network headed by autocratic cotton mill executive Carvie Oldham, failed to enforce housing codes. She was also not afraid to tell anyone to go to hell if she felt like it. 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. Though going through the trial was unimaginably difficult, Atwater did tell IndyWeek that it gave her a measure of understanding. -School for Conversion. Yes. Ann Nakia Green, Atwater's granddaughter, now lives in Texas. So I told C.P. Ellis indeed started tapping his feet and then clapping his hands along with the others. He still got my back and He always will have it as long as I keep trusting in him." we would see whose God would be the strongest, my God or his God. But in the early 1970s, he had a remarkable change of heart and mind, and he became a civil rights advocate. 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. 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? This will be the first time two completely different sets of philosophies have united to work for this goal of better schools. Despite that, the couple's five children (four of whom were Michael's, all from previous relationships) stood by their dad until some information came to light that changed Kathleen's daughter's mind. She was not afraid to voice her opinions loudly and proudly. Ellis like an uncle and still keeps in touch with his family. The purpose of this charrette was to discuss school desegregation, a still contentious issue, and to draw up a series of recommendations to present to the school board. Ellis' funeral on Saturday. Ann's granddaughter says that she's always viewed C.P. Caitlin Atwater was the daughter of Kathleen and her first husband, Fred Atwater, though she was very close with the entire Peterson family. Trump's latest attack addresses DeSantis' overseas trips to the U.K., Israel, Florida's Covid-19 record, and polling support for the 2024 Presidential race. 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. 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. Ann Atwater, a black civil rights activist, talks about her friend. The first three episodes of The Staircase premiere on Thursday, May 5, and the remaining episodes drop weekly on HBO Max. 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. They hated each other. It was learning more during the trial that made Atwater believe that Michael could have been involved in Kathleen's death. This is the story of Ann Atwater, political activist and desegregationist, the true story behind the 2019 film The Best of Enemies. 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. The strikes left 34 people injured, including three children, and caused widespread damage. C.P. I know if we weren't gonna look after our children, nobody else would. 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. 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. Ellis were named co-chairs of the Durham, North Carolinas charrette S.O.S., Save Our Schools.. But to see--as I tell everybody, God had a hand on that because in the meetings C.P. How could I work with her? Ann Atwater and C.P. BLOCK: Civil rights activist Ann Atwater in Durham, North Carolina. Revelations about Margaret and Martha's birth family also made Atwater doubt Michael's innocence, according to CBS News. He invited Atwater to co-lead the charrette with C. P. Ellis, who was then the Exalted Grand Cyclops of the Durham Ku Klux Klan. Both Atwater and Ellis have since passed away, but their legacies live today through their family members. Ellis were the best choices to present a variety of viewpoints from opposing sides, so they had them chair the meeting together. Poverty was still a problem in the segregated society; in 1950 28% of families lived below the designated poverty line of $3000. One day we were working with a welfare problem, people werent getting the type help that they were supposed to get from the welfare department, so I took one of the ladies and went down to the Department of Social Services, Atwater recalled in a 2010 interview. Over 10 days, the opposing sides met and tension grew. 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. Atwater also expressed her opinions at city council meetings, which had only white members. Ellis told an NPR interviewer that Atwater was an effective boycotter, making progress and he hated her guts. She and her husband relocated to Durham soon after in the hopes of better opportunities, but things shifted for the worst. Ellis did rip up his KKK card, swearing I never did go back to the Klan after I left that school program.. Here we are, two people from the far end of the fence, having identical problems, except her being black and me being whiteThe amazing thing about it, her and I, up to that point, [had] cussed each other, bawled each other, we hated each other. She knew that some welfare workers were guilty of this. Atwater lived in a dilapidated house on an unpaved street in Durhams Hayti district, where she struggled to support her two daughters. 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. This website is undergoing design changes. I began to blame it on black people. Copyright 2005 NPR. I didn't like the demonstrations downtown, Ellis told NPR in a 1996 interview. After marrying at the age of thirteen to French Wilson, Ann moved with him from the countryside to Durham in hopes of better job opportunities, as the city had large tobacco and textile industries. Ellis remained close until his death in 2005, and Ellis family asked Atwater to give the eulogy. WebDid Ann Atwater's husband leave her to raise their children alone? Ellis and Atwater spoke together about their experience at events around the country, and at C.P. He moved to Richmond seeking better work and asked Atwater to join him there with their two daughters, she said no. 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. 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