Ann Atwater, in an interview with the Carolina Times, expressed this sentiment: Mr. Ellis has the same problems with the schools and his children as I do with mine and we now have a chance to do something for them. Ellis stood up and ripped apart his Klan membership card. He got up in the middle of their conversation, ignoring Atwater and the crowd of black parents behind her. Born Ann George in the community of Hallsboro in Columbus County, North Carolina, she was pregnant and married at the age of 14. A friend talked her out of trying to stab C.P., telling her, "That's what they want you to do." Because the white councilmen did not want to listen to a black woman talk, they turned their chairs away from her. [8][pageneeded]. 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. As soon as he got close to me, I was going to grab his head from behind and cut him from ear to ear. However, her husband soon left her, and she was faced with raising their two children on her own. [8][pageneeded]. Ann Atwater, interview by Sean Aery, Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture, February 1, 2006. [14] She concluded that the most effective method of getting people to listen to her was to holler at them. When she called a meeting, she meant business. "So that's when me and him decided that we would work for the cause and stop fussin' and arguin' because one was black and one was white. Midnight Sun star Patrick Schwarzenegger portrays Todd Peterson in The Staircase on HBO Max. We were at a meeting downtown together, said Ann Atwater years later, and he kept yelling nigger this and nigger that. She said that after "all was said and done, I felt confident that I knew what happened. Her first baby died soon after birth. Her death was investigated by the U.S. military police in Germany at the time and an autopsy concluded she had died from an intracerebral hemorrhage. Ellis like an uncle and still keeps in touch with his family. 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. Ann Atwater in an image from the 2002 documentary. As far as he was concerned, it was the savior of the white people. She seems an unlikely activist and hero. Courtesy of STXfilmsAnn Atwater in an image from the 2002 documentary An Unlikely Friendship. Like Ann Atwater, Claiborne Paul Ellis was raised in a life of poverty. 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. He went on to organize labor unions for both blacks and whites. Atwater was an unlikely civil rights activist. The other co-chair was C.P. 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." BLOCK: Well, what happened in the course of this meeting over 10 days that turned things around in the way that it did? Welfare was only providing $57 a month, and she was leasing a dilapidated house where she was $100 behind her rent. C.P. Atwater found her niche. A lock icon or https:// means youve safely connected to the official website. Ellis, read about Malcolm Xs brutal assassination and Americas struggle for civil rights. On February 1, 2007, Caitlin Atwater and Michael Peterson settled the wrongful death claim for $25 million, which was finalized on February 1, 2008. On November 25, 1985 Elizabeth Ratliff was found dead at the bottom of her staircase with injuries to her head. 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. This will be the first time two completely different sets of philosophies have united to work for this goal of better schools. In researching The Best of Enemies' historical accuracy, we learned that C.P. I almost killed C.P. She made dresses out of flour and rice bags for her daughters to wear. -An Unlikely Friendship Documentary, Yes. Ellis did rip up his KKK card, swearing I never did go back to the Klan after I left that school program.. Today, Todd is believed to be living in Tennessee. She organized groups of women who had to visit the welfare offices frequently and had them push for change. ", Ann Atwater continued her work fighting for racial equality as a grass roots organizer, passing away in 2016. Ann Atwater was a pioneer of community organizing and black advocacy. She and Ellis continued their friendship to the end of their lives. NBC News reported that after seeing Kathleen's autopsy photos, Atwater called Margaret and said: The sisters stopped speaking after that. It wasnt until way down in the meeting," Atwater recalled in 2002 documentary film, Ann Atwater: Grassroots Organizer and Veteran of Americas Freedom Struggle, when the children got us together and said they wanted to go to school together. 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. Ann Atwater, interview by Sean Aery, Sallie Bingham Center for Womens History and Culture, February 1, 2006. He renounced his Klan membership, became lifelong friends with Atwater and went on to organize black and white labor unions. After their second daughter, Marilyn, was born, he left the family and moved to Richmond for a better job, according to Davidson. "The city council people didn't want to look at us because we were black," said Ann. Most of Michael Peterson's children stood by their father but stepdaughter Caitlin Atwater believed he was guilty of killing her mother, Kathleen Peterson. The experience inspired her to become involved in housing advocacy herself. In examining The Best of Enemies' historical accuracy, we learned that Ann Atwater was ridiculed by some in her community over the fact that she had worked with C.P. Ellis and his wife Mary had a son who they called Punkin'. Ellis' funeral on Saturday. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. The strikes left 34 people injured, including three children, and caused widespread damage. Ann Nakia Green, Atwater's granddaughter, now lives in Texas. "And then he sat down and I snatched the phone out the wall, and we sat down and we had a meeting.. I didnt like integration. The two realized they had been arguing about the wrong things, that they had the same hopes for their children and a lot in common as poor people. They wanted their children to attend schools free of violence. Ann Atwater, a black civil rights activist, talks about her friend. If I told him I needed some money, he told me he needed something, we looked after each other.

Ann Atwater was a woman to be reckoned with, a woman not to be ignored. 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. "We went to the schoolhouse and we found out that the teachers there were out of their field," recalled Atwater. They decided to integrate the schools. I didnt like Ann boycotting stores. Her parents were sharecroppers, and her father was also a deacon of the nearby church. "I just lend whatever God gives me to give out. He worked in the tobacco factory and she as a domestic, but he turned to drink. According to The Best of Enemies true story, Ann says that C.P. Ann Atwater and C.P. The two were thrown together in 1971 as co-chairs of a charrette, a series of long and intense meetings between a diverse group of people. They just have them. 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. Unlikely Friendship 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. Kathleen Peterson Patrick Schwarzenegger and Dane DeHaan as Todd and Clayton Peterson in The Staircase on HBO Max. Ann Atwater found her voice as a community activist to stand up to slumlords and bigots and yet, one of the most transformative relationships in her life was with a Klansman. To learn more, view our full privacy policy. And we showed that towards each other up until we went into the (unintelligible) a 10-day meeting. In October 2002, acting as administrator of her mother's estate, Caitlin Atwater filed a wrongful death claim in a civil case against Michael Peterson. Over the course of the 10 days that they co-chaired the committee on school desegregation, Ann Atwater and C.P. State Government websites value user privacy. The natural person for me to hate would be black people, because my father before me was a member of the Klan. But Atwater's husband struggled financially, and became alcoholic and abusive. Atwater, who died in 2016 at the age of 80, defied stereotypes. However, she says that they had to teach him how to clap his hands in rhythm and not on an odd beat. They would turn the chairs around and demand to be heard. Ahead of a retrial in 2017, Michael Peterson entered an Alford plea to a manslaughter charge and was released from prison. She survived on $57 a month from a welfare check, and struggled to pay rent, as she gained only occasional domestic work in white homes. Racism was instilled in Ellis from a young age. Ellis died in 2005 and Atwater was asked to deliver the eulogy. But my pastor was sitting there and saw me holding the knife. For more vivid tales of 20th-century race relations like the true story of The Best Of Enemies of Ann Atwater and C.P. She had little faith that hed be able to get her landlord to do anything, but she agreed to go with him to a meeting for his organization. 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. She learned to take second place.[2]. Im not following you any further. Soon, she divorced him. She died in 2016 having won many awards and accolades for her work for the disadvantaged. 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. -An Unlikely Friendship Documentary, Yes. The other was C.P. 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. She was a woman who found and used the power of her voice. Atwater said that she refused to go to the first meeting, but her boss in the housing authority told her she'd lose her job if she didn't show up. "We've made it through these years, together 30 years, and we're still friends," Ann said in the documentary. 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. She said, "I realized there was definitely another side to him.". She didn't feel that she could ever achieve true closure, but she could move forward. Ann Atwater She first became involved in activism after local housing advocates helped her be able to keep her home when she fell behind on rent. Ellis described the hatred he felt toward blacks going in. Some people may not have liked that she was demanding and outspoken, but those qualities enabled her to be a successful activist and organizer. I didn't like Ann boycotting stores. But then if I look back at it through my Bible, through God's work, God had a plan for both of us. But to see--as I tell everybody, God had a hand on that because in the meetings C.P. WebKathleen had one daughter named Caitlin from her first marriage to physicist Fred Atwater, per PopSugar. At this point, the couple had another daughter, Marilyn. However, the prosecution did not accuse Peterson of Elizabeth Ratliff's death at his trial. 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. C.P. I know if we weren't gonna look after our children, nobody else would. This wasnt actually true there was no house waiting for her when she arrived in Durham. Photo from the University of North CarolinaChapel Hill Libraries, North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, An official website of the State of North Carolina, Advisory Council on Film, Television, and Digital Streaming, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion, N.C. From then on, she demanded to be heard. The Best of Enemies She didnt know you could ask for repairs. "We were chosen to be co-chairs to integrate the school system peacefully," said Atwater (School for Conversion). [10][pageneeded]. -School for Conversion, Yes. One day when Atwater went to the welfare office to see if she could get $100 to pay her overdue rent and avoid eviction, she happened to meet Fuller. All rights reserved. Though going through the trial was unimaginably difficult, Atwater did tell IndyWeek that it gave her a measure of understanding. Like his older brother Clayton, Todd Peterson stood by his father's side during the trial and today. Ellis indeed started tapping his feet and then clapping his hands along with the others. In the early 1950s, Atwater and her daughter moved to Durham to join Wilson. 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. Activist Ann Atwater I pulled out the knife that I kept in my handbag and opened the blade. For instance, the film never mentions Ellis KKK-inspired hatred of Catholics. The Durham medical examiner concluded Ratliff's cause of death was "homicide". Hatin America is hard to do because you cant see it to hate 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. The children got them together and told them they wanted to go to school together. 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. Me and him was over there mad with each other, but we wasn't getting anything done that the children wanted. The other co-chair would be C.P. And she was an effective boycotter, too. BLOCK: Why would C.P. I hated her guts., BlacKkKlansman: How black detective Ron Stallworth infiltrated the Colorado Klan, Atwater countered: I hated him just as hard as he hated me. Like all historical fiction, the 2019 film The Best of Enemies takes a bit of license with reality. They presented ways to improve curriculum, in addition to making it easier for students' voices to be heard. I didnt like the demonstrations downtown, recalled Ellis some 30 years after the charrette. We are going to have to lay aside our differences and work together. She became an effective leader. She attended a Durham premiere of the film in March 2019 and answered media questions on the red carpet. (Romper reached out to Michael Peterson's representatives and Netflix for additional statements.). This is the story of Ann Atwater, political activist and desegregationist, the true story behind the 2019 film The Best of Enemies. They hated each other. In the end, Ellis repudiated racism and the Klan and they became lifelong friends. Civil rights activist and former Ku Klux Klansman C.P. When Atwater discovered caseworkers kept key information from clients, she figured out how to get the information herself. 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. www.schoolforconversion.orgAnn Atwater organizes neighbors after completing Community Action Training with the North Carolina Fund. 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. [9] Atwater mobilized poor blacks in Durham to help them stand up for themselves. 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. To her knowledge, making demands from a landlord was unheard of and she had no idea that she had the right to do so. Accuracy and availability may vary. Ellis came to realize that blacks were not suppressing poor whites, and that the two groups shared problems. One of the workers said, Maam, this is the service for Clayborn Ellis. Ellis were named co-chairs of the Durham, North Carolinas charrette S.O.S., Save Our Schools.. It helped participants gain confidence that they could achieve change and escape poverty. So I told C.P. 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. How in the hell does people get so screwed up mentally? Ellis, who died of Alzheimer's in 2005, became a champion of union and labor organizations, working as an AFL-CIO organizer. WebDid Ann Atwater's husband leave her to raise their children alone? 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. She began to represent poor people with housing problems, and would go door-to-door telling others of her own previous housing problems and how she was able to resolve them. I hated her guts.. That process has been portrayed in the movies, The Best of Enemies, and An Unlikely Friendship, and in the Studs Terkel book Race: How Blacks & Whites Think & Feel about the American Obsession.. Ann Atwater 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. Ignoring her and the parents with her was a mistake. She had already been friends with the girls when their parents met and connected. Kevin Washington, C.P. But much rang true. When approached by Howard Fuller to join Operation Breakthrough, a program to help people escape poverty, Atwater found her life purpose. They also proposed major changes in the school curriculum, such as more instruction on dealing with racial violence, creation of a group to discuss and resolve problems before they escalated, and expansion in choices of textbooks to include African-American authors. It met for ten sessions. 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. There certainly is no deep seated love between Mr. Ellis and myself but this school project brings out problems we all have. Ms. ATWATER: Well, thank you for talking to me. Ann Atwaters life didnt start off easy. I didnt like them. She spoke at C.P. Following his nearly two-week long meeting with Ann Atwater, C.P. A housing organizer came by one evening to ask if she needed help to get repairs. She said, 'Now, you ain't going to take over that thing.'" Ellis had a change of heart after a 10-day forum on integration of schools in Durham, N.C. She made no bones about taking them out if necessary. Ann Atwater Pushed To Integrate Her Citys Schools And Got A Klansman Named C.P. What happened At one school meeting, a school board member got up in the middle of a conversation as she was making demands for school improvements. What Happened To Ann Atwater Your address? When addressing black people, the workers would holler at them across the room, What you here for? This embarrassed the black client, who was forced to explain private issues in front of a room full of strangers. She turned those chairs back around to force them to face her. WebAtwater lived in a dilapidated house on an unpaved street in Durhams Hayti district, where she struggled to support her two daughters. Yes. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. She knew that some welfare workers were guilty of this. Atwater, the daughter of sharecroppers and a single mother of two, moved to Durham when she was about 18 and spent most of her life fighting for the rights of black and impoverished citizens in Durham. 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. Story of unlikely friendship in Durham hits Two years later, they had a daughter named Lydia. She survived on $57 a month from a welfare check, and struggled to pay rent, as she gained only occasional domestic work in white homes. Ellis found his voice in the Klan, and rising to become the its local leader, he began to take the Klan in a new public direction. In front of a crowd, 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.. She organized protests for better housing, boycotts and educated citizens about their rights. VarietyThe Best of Enemies depicts the unexpected friendship between Ann Atwater and C.P. The Housing Authority, part of an old boy network headed by autocratic cotton mill executive Carvie Oldham, failed to enforce housing codes. When Atwater got pregnant at 14, her father a deacon in the church grabbed his shotgun and walked to the house of the man responsible, French Wilson. She showed that it was possible for whites and blacks, even with conflicting views, to negotiate and collaborate by establishing some common ground. He grabbed my hand and said, Dont give them the satisfaction.'. 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. 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. is afraid that the black children will come to the white schools. Ann Atwater was used to struggling, but she hit some truly hard times. And she was an effective boycotter, too. She was living in dilapidated house in North Durham on $57 a month when she became an activist. Ellis, Ann Atwater's voice was deep and powerful, and she had the ability to energize her audience. The Society's Olivia DeJonge portrays Caitlin Atwater in HBO Max's The Staircase. Atwater had made Ellis begin to question his way of thinking toward blacks. Kathleen's body was found at the foot of the stairs, with trauma to her head that indicated she may have been struck. It seems an unlikely end for a sharecroppers daughter who had taken food from the farmers back door and who had internalized that she came second. And that plan was to put us there to make sure that this school integration would be done peacefully, and that's what happened. C.P. 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. In the 1960s, eighty percent of black Durham residents lived in substandard housing, a figure which had remained unchanged since the 1920s. Ellis have agreed to take part in these meetings, which were all about improving race relations and figuring out a way to integrate the schools? Tensions steadily rose, but near the end the two had a change of heart. Mr. C.P. We looked at each other like fools wed been arguing about the wrong things and hadnt been doing anything to make the school system better., They started talking. She organized her community to rail against the citys repressive and reprehensible policies towards black housing, often peacefully in pickets and marches and city council meetings, but she was not averse to more violent tactics, as when she participated in the bombing of the Housing Authority. Like fools wed been arguing about the wrong things and hadnt been doing anything to make the school system better.. He struggled to make ends meet and provide for his family. Clayton Peterson was sentenced to four years in prison for a failed attempt to firebomb the Duke University Administration Building, reports Metro.US. 2023 BDG Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Atwater had been an activist for quite some time before her role in helping to solve the problems related to the desegregation of schools, which is what's focused on in the movie. Copyright 2005 NPR. 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 later recalled. -The Best of Enemies book. Ann Atwater was a woman to be reckoned with, a woman not to be ignored. Born to sharecroppers on July 1, 1935, in Hillsboro, North Carolina, her meager beginnings were compounded when she found herself pregnant at age 14. According to PopSugar, she has twins and lives in northern Virginia. Ellis said of his wife, "but she endured it because I enjoyed it, see? She was making progress. Students were getting into fights at schools over the issue. I didn't like them. Ann Atwater: Grassroots Organizer and Veteran of Americas Freedom Struggle. Is The Best of Enemies a True Story Do you look back, and does it make sense to you? And she was an effective boycotter, too. They also raised Margaret and Martha Ratliff, the daughters of their friends George and Elizabeth Ratliff. Ellis discovered that their life experiences weren't all that different. And C.P. Today, Caitlin is married and is now known as Caitlin Clark. Ms. Atwater, Mr. Ellis there saying he hated your guts going into these meetings.

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