In the 1960s, eighty percent of black Durham residents lived in substandard housing, a figure which had remained unchanged since the 1920s. The Best of Enemies true story reveals that Ann Atwater got married at the age of 14 and moved to Durham, NC in 1953. She was a member of several community groups and local Democratic Party vice president in 1968. 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. Atwater fought against the lack of respect that many whites showed blacks. I'm Michele Norris. "And then he sat down and I snatched the phone out the wall, and we sat down and we had a meeting.. Ellis' funeral on Saturday. She is best known as one of the co-chairs of a charrette in 1971 to reduce school violence and ensure peaceful school desegregation. Initially, they didn't even speak to one another. So, where are Michael Peterson's children now? Like in The Best of Enemies movie, examining the fact vs. fiction reveals that he did tear up his KKK membership card in public. Courtesy of STXfilmsAnn Atwater in an image from the 2002 documentary An Unlikely Friendship. Ann Atwaters life didnt start off easy. [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. That path involved a 17-week training course, where Ann Atwater learned the ropes of community organizing and the ins and outs of tenant rights along with the citys housing code. 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. 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. -An Unlikely Friendship Documentary, Yes. He was blind, deaf, and suffered from an intellectual disability. When approached by Howard Fuller to join Operation Breakthrough, a program to help people escape poverty, Atwater found her life purpose. Fuller looked at the house and asked Atwater if shed like help in fixing it. 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. I know if we weren't gonna look after our children, nobody else would. The enmity was mutual, and the charrette seemed stuck. It was funded by the North Carolina Fund, a statewide program to improve education. Ahead of a retrial in 2017, Michael Peterson entered an Alford plea to a manslaughter charge and was released from prison. Jeter Downs needs to play to develop. Ellis came to realize that blacks were not suppressing poor whites, and that the two groups shared problems. In 1967, Atwater took a 17-week training course where she learned about tenant rights, housing codes and how to organize community protests. Atwater lived in a dilapidated house on an unpaved street in Durhams Hayti district, where she struggled to support her two daughters. But Atwater's husband struggled financially, and became alcoholic and abusive. 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 and Atwater spoke together about their experience at events around the country, and at C.P. She organized protests for better housing, boycotts and educated citizens about their rights. After that, Atwater went door to door telling people how they could get their landlords to fix their houses. [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. C.P. Yes. was up raging and ranting, that's when I wanted to cut his head off. She was a poor black woman raising children alone in the South in the mid-20th century. 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. In front of a crowd, C.P. Instead, they spent the first bit of their married life sharing a single room with another man, with him in one bed while Atwater and Wilson shared the other with their baby. People worked at job-training, took after-school tutoring, or became educated as to their rights. Her parents were sharecroppers, and her father was also a deacon of the nearby church. 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. Ms. ATWATER: Yeah. The film tells the story of Ann Atwater (Taraji P. Henson) and Ku Klux Klan leader C.P. Ellis died in 2005 and Atwater was asked to deliver the eulogy. Today, Caitlin is married and is now known as Caitlin Clark. The pair weren't the first choices. She became an activist with Operation Breakthrough and would later work with the United Organizations for Community improvement. Functionality of the site should not be affected, but things may look different. 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. BLOCK: Why would C.P. As seen in The Staircase documentary on Netflix, Clayton's first son Dorian visits Michael Peterson in prison as a baby and towards the end of the documentary, his wife Becky is seen pregnant with their second child, Lucien. (Peterson maintains his innocence still to this day.) For instance, the film never mentions Ellis KKK-inspired hatred of Catholics. To learn more, view our full privacy policy. Because the white councilmen did not want to listen to a black woman talk, they turned their chairs away from her. 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. We didnt have to worry about any air, because the cracks were all along the house, Atwater later recalled, you could just stand on the outside and look on the inside, you didnt have to go to the window. The movie, which tells the story of the unlikely friendship that developed between Atwater and C.P. While Ratliff's murder remains unsolved, Michael was convicted of Kathleen's. Atwater also expressed her opinions at city council meetings, which had only white members. Throughout Michael Peterson's arrest, trial, and 17 years of appeals, the Peterson children remained divided over their father's innocence. "He didn't want [integration]," said Atwater of C.P. She became an effective activist and leader when advocating for black rights, such as better private housing. And she was an effective boycotter, too. Ellis Says Klan Days Have Been Over for Awhile,, This page was last edited on 1 February 2022, at 22:25. However, she says that they had to teach him how to clap his hands in rhythm and not on an odd beat. It was learning more during the trial that made Atwater believe that Michael could have been involved in Kathleen's death. Categories: Bill Riddick, a professor and consultant, was contracted by union organizers to help solve the crisis. His turnabout came through a 10-day community meeting on school desegregation in 1971. Ms. ANN ATWATER (Civil Rights Activist): Yes, he did, and I hated him just as hard as he hated me. Copyright 2005 NPR. Yes. Born Ann George in the community of Hallsboro in Columbus County, North Carolina, she was pregnant and married at the age of 14. I did lose my family and my home." In particular, Kathleen's daughter Caitlin Atwater disassociated herself from the family, believing her stepfather Michael Peterson played a role in her mother's death. However, her husband soon left her, and she was faced with raising their two children on her own. Her husband was a drinker who often spent all his pay on homemade liquor. Through Operation Breakthrough, Atwater was selected for the 1971 charrette or series of planning meetings over the integration of Durhams schools. Local leaders, in addition to the organizer of the charrette, Bill Riddick (portrayed by Babou Ceesay in the movie), decided that Ann Atwater and C.P. "I just lend whatever God gives me to give out. He grew up in the tobacco and textile town of Durham, North Carolina. She was not afraid of white school board members, nor white city council members nor the local Klan and its methods of intimidation. 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. Ellis discovered that their life experiences weren't all that different. And the funny part about it, we stayed friends all these years. 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. Durham's prosperous black business sector made the city a beacon of hope for African Americans seeking to rise through self-help. Tensions steadily rose, but near the end the two had a change of heart. 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. She made dresses out of flour and rice bags for her daughters to wear. So I grabbed his hand and trying to show him how to clap along with us at the same time till we learned him how to clap. The only foods she could afford for her children were rice, cabbage, and fatback. She became an expert on housing policies; she copied and handed out welfare regulation manuals so that people could learn their rights, such as asking landlords to fix substandard conditions. She learned to take second place.[2]. Copyright 2023 HistoryvsHollywood.com, CTF Media. Ann's granddaughter says that she's always viewed C.P. But much rang true. Her bold actions so surprised the councilmen that they had to listen to her. By the end of the charrette, Ellis gave up his leadership in the KKK. 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.. The other co-chair selected was C.P. C.P. 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. 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. WebAtwater lived in a dilapidated house on an unpaved street in Durhams Hayti district, where she struggled to support her two daughters. Ellis, Ann Atwater's voice was deep and powerful, and she had the ability to energize her audience. WebKathleen had one daughter named Caitlin from her first marriage to physicist Fred Atwater, per PopSugar. One of the workers said, Maam, this is the service for Clayborn Ellis. Ann Atwater in an image from the 2002 documentary. Ellis lived across the tracks in a neighborhood nearly as destitute, but white. From then on, she demanded to be heard.

. In the early 1950s, Atwater and her daughter moved to Durham to join Wilson. Hatin America is hard to do because you cant see it to hate it. Patrick Schwarzenegger and Dane DeHaan as Todd and Clayton Peterson in The Staircase on HBO Max. Such a system is still in use today. 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. Caitlin Atwater was the daughter of Kathleen and her first husband, Fred Atwater, though she was very close with the entire Peterson family. When her job as a maid ended, she found herself living in a dilapidated house in North Durham on a When he requested that she and the two girls come, Atwater wrote a letter saying: I already followed you to Durham. Ellis, leader of the Durham Ku Klux Klan. BLOCK: Well, what happened in the course of this meeting over 10 days that turned things around in the way that it did? The Durham federal district court had just ordered desegregation of schools to comply with the Supreme Court ruling, an action which was still opposed by many residents. Students were getting into fights at schools over the issue. No. 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. Atwater told Dateline correspondent Dennis Murphy that she had lost "far more than just my mother. "I haven't been the same since I left that school program," he said years later. [8][pageneeded]. She showed that it was possible for whites and blacks, even with conflicting views, to negotiate and collaborate by establishing some common ground. had a machine gun, and he would show it to the city councilmen in the trunk of his car every morning. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. Two years later, they had a daughter named Lydia. She became an effective leader. 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. Ann Atwater was used to struggling, but she hit some truly hard times. WebEventually Atwater divorced him and raised their two daughters on her own as a single mother. They settled the suit for $25 million and Atwater said, according to WRAL: Atwater has suffered an unimaginable loss, but hopefully has been able to find peace in the intervening years. I knew what happened to my mom." When Michael Peterson and Patricia Sue lived in Germany, they befriended Elizabeth and George Ratliff and their two daughters, Margaret and Martha. Conservative town leaders were largely receptive to his message. "We were chosen to be co-chairs to integrate the school system peacefully," said Atwater (School for Conversion). When Atwater had first met C. P. Ellis at a previous Durham city council meeting, she felt great resentment toward him. -School for Conversion Interview. 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 had an especially difficult time returning to his life post-charrette, as he had lost his effectiveness in the conservative community, which he acknowledged in a toast on the last night of the charrette. 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. I didn't like Ann boycotting stores. They divorced. Ellis, an exalted cyclops of the local Ku Klux Klan in Durham. And I had my coat on, and I took the manual off the desk and put it under my coat while she was fussing about coming there and not getting any help. As seen in The Staircase on HBO Max, Caitlin's opinion changed after she saw autopsy pictures showcasing the severity of Kathleen Peterson's injuries and after learning of Michael Peterson's bisexuality. 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. Yes. 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. Her father earned only five cents an hour; Ann and her siblings also worked on farms as children to help support the family. When Ellis, who later became a labor rights activist, died in 2005, his family asked Atwater to give the eulogy. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

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