Racism was instilled in Ellis from a young age. People worked at job-training, took after-school tutoring, or became educated as to their rights. Change did not come easily or suddenly, and the two faced ostracism, even death threats; 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. 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. The next day Atwater and Fuller went to Atwater's landlord to demand repairs for her house and, to Atwater's surprise, her landlord agreed to fix some of the problems. 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. Ann G. Atwater The Staircase on HBO Max delves deep into the story of Michael Peterson, who was convicted of killing his wife Kathleen Peterson on December 9, 2001. Ann Atwater As a chair of a housing committee, Atwater organized protests and rallies calling for better housing conditions for the poor. Ahead of a retrial in 2017, Michael Peterson entered an Alford plea to a manslaughter charge and was released from prison. However, they eventually joined their father in Durham, North Carolina, and spent the rest of their younger and adolescent years there. Jim Thornton/The Herald Sun Collections/University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill LibrariesAnn Atwater and C.P. Ellis stood up and ripped apart his Klan membership card. 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. It was during this series of meetings in the summer of 1971 that C.P. At this point, the couple had another daughter, Marilyn. Her mother died when she was 6. He was upset and I was upset, and he was cussin' and callin' all black folks n**gers and I was callin' all white folks crackers, and I couldn't stand white folks anyway." She credits her parents for teaching her the value of discipline and hard work, which has been the foundation for her success as a community activist. Yes. Ellis were the best choices to present a variety of viewpoints from opposing sides, so they had them chair the meeting together. On November 25, 1985 Elizabeth Ratliff was found dead at the bottom of her staircase with injuries to her head. She was one of those legendary black women in the South who was simply fearless when facing white oppression. Ellis was known for making provocative and inaccurate remarks expressing his fears and resentments of blacks, such as: Blacks are taking over the city. Before the trial, Ratliff's body was exhumed and autopsied, at which point a second autopsy suggested that she, too, had suffered head trauma, according to CNN. 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. 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 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. Atwater promoted unity of the working-class African Americans through grassroots organizations. To her knowledge, making demands from a landlord was unheard of and she had no idea that she had the right to do so. And C.P. 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. According to PopSugar, she has twins and lives in northern Virginia. Ellis began to change. You gotta have somethin to look at to hate. I knew what happened to my mom." is afraid that the black children will come to the white schools. She seems an unlikely activist and hero. Do you look back, and does it make sense to you? She was a poor black woman raising children alone in the South in the mid-20th century. Copyright 2023 HistoryvsHollywood.com, CTF Media. 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. "He changed from a Klansman to a Christian, and they said I had sold out, that he was a n**ger lover." We are going to have to lay aside our differences and work together. Like his older brother Clayton, Todd Peterson stood by his father's side during the trial and today. 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. Ann Atwater and C.P. 2023 BDG Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Her husband was a drinker who often spent all his pay on homemade liquor. Ellis had regularly been attending city council meetings, school board meetings, and county meetings to oppose civil rights changes and its activists. [8][pageneeded]. Ann's daughter's school catches on fire, and C.P. Ellis. Ellis died in 2005 and Atwater was asked to deliver the eulogy. She was living in dilapidated house in North Durham on $57 a month when she became an activist. With her persistence, the office set up private booths for meetings with each client. In an NPR interview in 1996, C.P. 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.. Ultimately, the school board disregarded the proposals put forth by the charrette, but the friendship C.P. I tried to find somebody. She learned to take second place.[2]. He got up in the middle of their conversation, ignoring Atwater and the crowd of black parents behind her. 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. It was funded by the North Carolina Fund, a statewide program to improve education. 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. In the 1960s, eighty percent of black Durham residents lived in substandard housing, a figure which had remained unchanged since the 1920s. Like fools wed been arguing about the wrong things and hadnt been doing anything to make the school system better.. The children got them together and told them they wanted to go to school together. 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. WebIn 1971 in Durham, North Carolina, Ann Atwater tries to get better housing conditions for poor black people, and is ignored by the all-white judge panel. He convinced her landlord to fix her house, helped pay back her debt, and helped her find her path. Because the white councilmen did not want to listen to a black woman talk, they turned their chairs away from her. I didn't like the demonstrations downtown, Ellis told NPR in a 1996 interview. 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. I almost killed C.P. Both Atwater and Ellis have since passed away, but their legacies live today through their family members. Activist Ann Atwater Ellis discovered that their life experiences weren't all that different. Atwater disliked the lack of respect many whites showed for blacks. He goes from being a leader of the Ku Klux Klan to being a union organizer for both blacks and whites, a civil right advocate. According to C.P. I pulled out the knife that I kept in my hand bag and opened the blade. Ellis was a former grand exalted cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan in Durham, North Carolina. The Housing Authority, part of an old boy network headed by autocratic cotton mill executive Carvie Oldham, failed to enforce housing codes. She made no bones about taking them out if necessary. The real Todd Peterson, Martha Ratliff,, Michael Peterson, Caitlin Atwater and Margaret (Ratliff) Blakemore. Welfare was only providing $57 a month, and she was leasing a dilapidated house where she was $100 behind her rent. I didn't like integration. Ellis were named co-chairs of the Durham, North Carolinas charrette S.O.S., Save Our Schools.. Ann Atwater was used to struggling, but she hit some truly hard times. Jeter Downs needs to play to develop. The charrette was held for 10 days from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m. Whatever the leaders chose on school integration would become a binding decision that Durhams City Council would have to follow. 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. Ann Atwater was a pioneer of community organizing and black advocacy. He moved to Richmond seeking better work and asked Atwater to join him there with their two daughters, she said no. By the end of the charrette, Ellis gave up his leadership in the KKK. She was making progress. The kids in some of the schools were also being taught material that was a year behind what kids their same age were being taught in other schools. Atwater, who died in 2016 at the age of 80, defied stereotypes. And she was an effective boycotter, too. There certainly is no deep seated love between Mr. Ellis and myself but this school project brings out problems we all have. 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.