Two years later, she had another baby, whom she named Lydia, Davidson wrote. It was funded by the North Carolina Fund, a statewide program to improve education. By 1967 she was employed by the United Organization for Community Improvement and was chair of the Housing Committee. 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. Conservative town leaders were largely receptive to his message. Those collaborative processes involved ten days of town meetings among numerous residents, in order to hear as many voices as possible and to resolve issues related to implementation of the court order. Like all historical fiction, the 2019 film The Best of Enemies takes a bit of license with reality. WebEventually Atwater divorced him and raised their two daughters on her own as a single mother. WebAnn Atwater Born: July 1, 1935 Growing up as the youngest of nine children, Ann started working on the family farm in Columbus County, N.C., before she can remember. Yes, The Best of Enemies is based on a true story. 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. Dig deeper into The Best of Enemies true story by watching the Ann Atwater interview and documentary below. is the president of the KKK, and cares for his children. There were also unexpected revelations about Michael's sexuality and how he had come to adopt his daughters that raised questions about his supposedly happy marriage with Kathleen. Ann Atwater was used to struggling, but she hit some truly hard times. And we showed that towards each other up until we went into the (unintelligible) a 10-day meeting. Kathleen's body was found at the foot of the stairs, with trauma to her head that indicated she may have been struck. The film tells the story of Ann Atwater (Taraji P. Henson) and Ku Klux Klan leader 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. She married the babys father, French Wilson, but their baby died soon after birth. How in the hell does people get so screwed up mentally? She was not afraid of white school board members, nor white city council members nor the local Klan and its methods of intimidation. She said, "I realized there was definitely another side to him.". 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.. The Society's Olivia DeJonge portrays Caitlin Atwater in HBO Max's The Staircase. Ellis and Ann Atwater established during that time endured, as did Ellis change in attitude. 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. It was the only organization in the world that would take care of the white people. And me and him cried at that time, and we began to melt down towards one another. But the job didnt last, and Atwater went to the Department of Social Services to apply for help. C.P. However, the prosecution did not accuse Peterson of Elizabeth Ratliff's death at his trial. We looked at each other. 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.". Newsweek has everything you need to know. By the end of the charrette, Ellis gave up his leadership in the KKK. BLOCK: Ann Atwater joins us from her home in Durham to share her memories of C.P. She did. Me and him was over there mad with each other, but we wasn't getting anything done that the children wanted. 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. The two became lifelong friends, often appearing together in interviews and documentaries. The committee met for 12 hours daily over 10 days to find a solution for the Durham school desegregation problem, which would be binding on the city. -School for Conversion Interview. For more vivid tales of 20th-century race relations like the true story of The Best Of Enemies of Ann Atwater and C.P. Ignoring her and the parents with her was a mistake. Like in The Best of Enemies movie, examining the fact vs. fiction reveals that he did tear up his KKK membership card in public. Ann Atwater organizes neighbors after completing Community Action Training with the North Carolina Fund. Ahead of a retrial in 2017, Michael Peterson entered an Alford plea to a manslaughter charge and was released from prison. [13][pageneeded], Atwater and Ellis presented the School Board with a list of recommendations from the charrette, including giving students a larger say on education issues by expanding the board to include two students from each of the major racial groups. It helped participants gain confidence that they could achieve change and escape poverty. He moved to Richmond seeking better work and asked Atwater to join him there with their two daughters, she said no. Ann Atwater, a black civil rights activist, talks about her friend. After their second daughter, Marilyn, was born, he left the family and moved to Richmond for a better job, according to Davidson. It's just a strange thing, but it really happened. The strikes left 34 people injured, including three children, and caused widespread damage. www.schoolforconversion.orgAnn Atwater organizes neighbors after completing Community Action Training with the North Carolina Fund. The enmity was mutual, and the charrette seemed stuck. Following his nearly two-week long meeting with Ann Atwater, C.P. Caitlin Atwater would go on to become a key witness on the prosecution side during Michael Peterson's trial. 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. Im not following you any further. Soon, she divorced him. 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. When Ellis, who later became a labor rights activist, died in 2005, his family asked Atwater to give the eulogy. Yes. On February 1, 2007, Caitlin Atwater and Michael Peterson settled the wrongful death claim for $25 million, which was finalized on February 1, 2008. All rights reserved. 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. Copyright 2005 NPR. Ellis, leader of the Durham Ku Klux Klan. Game of Thrones alum Sophie Turner portrays Margaret Ratliff in HBO Max's The Staircase and The Stand's Odessa Young takes on the role of Martha Ratliff. I didn't like the demonstrations downtown. I began to blame it on black people. [9] Atwater mobilized poor blacks in Durham to help them stand up for themselves. 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. I pulled out the knife that I kept in my hand bag and opened the blade. Ellis came to realize that blacks were not suppressing poor whites, and that the two groups shared problems. Today, Caitlin is married and is now known as Caitlin Clark. Some people may not have liked that she was demanding and outspoken, but those qualities enabled her to be a successful activist and organizer. In the early 1950s, Atwater and her daughter moved to Durham to join Wilson. He stayed in touch with me; I'd call him. Ellis has died at age 78. Accuracy and availability may vary. She first became involved in activism after local housing advocates helped her be able to keep her home when she fell behind on rent. 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. 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. And the funny part about it, we stayed friends all these years. Atwater was an unlikely civil rights activist. And that plan was to put us there to make sure that this school integration would be done peacefully, and that's what happened. He worked multiple jobs to support his family, but like Atwater, he barely found the funds to make ends meet. She had already been friends with the girls when their parents met and connected. Todd Peterson is the second son of Michael Peterson, from his first marriage to Patricia Sue. 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 was selected as co-chair. Ann Atwater, interview by Jennifer Fiumara and Mary Cleary, The Southern Oral History Program at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, December 7, 1995. She was also not afraid to tell anyone to go to hell if she felt like it. Atwater went to work as a maid, making 30 cents an hour. Ann Atwater was used to struggling, but she hit some truly hard times. 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. The Housing Authority, part of an old boy network headed by autocratic cotton mill executive Carvie Oldham, failed to enforce housing codes. She was living in dilapidated house in North Durham on $57 a month when she became an activist. I feel that when somebody calls me for some help, God wants me to go on record sayin' I tried. Ellis was known for making provocative and inaccurate remarks expressing his fears and resentments of blacks, such as: Blacks are taking over the city. Durham schools suffered from increasing racial tensions among students anxious about the future. [8][pageneeded]. 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. And when I'd walk up to the school building, I had my white Bible in my hand. C.P. 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. Ms. Atwater, Mr. Ellis there saying he hated your guts going into these meetings. was sitting there, and first he started clapping his hands. 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. She was 80. In 1971 Atwater was asked to co-chair a group looking for answers for the problems of desegregation of Durham Schools. 2023 BDG Media, Inc. All rights reserved. I didn't like the demonstrations downtown, Ellis told NPR in a 1996 interview. 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. "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.. When Kathleen Peterson was found dead in her home on December 9, 2001, suspicions naturally turned to the only other person in the house at the time: her husband Michael Peterson. The funeral homes were still segregated, said Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, director of the School for Conversion, a community program in Durham. Mr. C.P. Today, he lives in Maryland with his two children, according to The News and Observer. From then on, she demanded to be heard.

. He credited his meetings with Ann Atwater as being the reason he was able to shed his racism. Over the course of the 10 days that they co-chaired the committee on school desegregation, Ann Atwater and C.P. I didnt know who to blame. During his father's trial and lengthy prison sentence, Clayton stood by his side. She was taught that whites were better and that their needs came before hers. They showed community members how to cultivate gardens or how to chip in and fundraise together to improve their neighborhoods. 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. 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. I didnt like the demonstrations downtown, recalled Ellis some 30 years after the charrette. 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. We saw that each other, you know, was making it. In an NPR interview in 1996, C.P. Aiden Shaw Makes His Return In 'And Just Like That' Season 2, 15 Movies On Netflix About Mothers & Daughters Thatll Make You Emotional, Beef Captures Our Toxic Tendency To Confuse Love With Sacrifice, What Parents Are Talking About Delivered Straight To Your Inbox, By subscribing to this BDG newsletter, you agree to our. Historical Commission Votes to Study Relocation of Confederate Monuments, Summary of Public Hearings by the State Capitol African American Memorial Committee. In the end, Ellis repudiated racism and the Klan and they became lifelong friends. 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. Ellis had regularly been attending city council meetings, school board meetings, and county meetings to oppose civil rights changes and its activists. Civil rights activist and former Ku Klux Klansman C.P. [2], After Atwater co-led the charrette, she continued to work with the poor and middle-class black community in Durham. I didn't like Ann boycotting stores. 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. A friend talked her out of trying to stab C.P., telling her, "That's what they want you to do." Atwater married Willie Pettiford in 1975 and eventually had two daughters, the late Lydia Green and Marilynn Turner. She was the star of her class, Davidson wrote, and when the training was over, she could [as she herself put it] kill anybody that wasnt already dead.. But to see--as I tell everybody, God had a hand on that because in the meetings C.P. Michael and Kathleen Peterson raised a large, blended family with children from previous relationships. Copyright 2023 HistoryvsHollywood.com, CTF Media. For food, she and her daughters could only afford rice, cabbage, and gravy while she made her daughters clothes out of the bags the rice came in. She could also prevent Michael from ever profiting from the crime, which was one of the goals of the wrongful death lawsuit she filed against him. His relationship with Ann Atwater, who attended his funeral, became the subject of a book and a documentary film, and was the favourite of all the interviews conducted by Studs Terkel. [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. Her mother died when she was 6. Ms. ATWATER: No, it don't when you look back at it. 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. 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. I didn't like them. Despite the suspicions surrounding their mother's death, Margaret and Martha Ratliff continued to support Michael Peterson, believing he did not kill Kathleen. Ellis and his wife Mary had a son who they called Punkin'. Ellis died last week in Durham at the age of 78. -School for Conversion, Yes. They would turn their back to us, and I would walk up and knock 'em back around, you know, let them know that we were talking to them." Ann's dad had encouraged her baby's father to marry her. 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. [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. From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. As a chair of a housing committee, Atwater organized protests and rallies calling for better housing conditions for the poor. Her goal was to teach the people the necessary skills to survive. Yes. She didn't feel that she could ever achieve true closure, but she could move forward. is afraid that the black children will come to the white schools. I hated her guts. [4] The roof of her house was full of holes, the bathtub had fallen through the floor, and the house was so poorly wired that when the man cut off [her] lights for nonpayment, [she] could stomp on the floor and the lights would come on and [shed] stomp on the floor and theyd go off. Ellis formed a lifelong friendship. 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. The only foods she could afford for her children were rice, cabbage, and fatback. 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. And then starting into the next week, we talked to the youth, and we found out that the children was the ones suffering. 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. Ellis. C.P. had a machine gun, and he would show it to the city councilmen in the trunk of his car every morning. Ellis. -An Unlikely Friendship Documentary, Yes. Caitlin Atwater was the daughter of Kathleen and her first husband, Fred Atwater, though she was very close with the entire Peterson family. She was making progress. Ellis discovered that their life experiences weren't all that different. It was at this house in Durhams Hayti District where she met Howard Fuller, the man that would help her reach her destiny as a pioneering advocate. If we fail, at least no one can say we didnt try. On the final night of the charrette, Ellis stood before the crowd and ripped up his Klan card. Yes. "I just lend whatever God gives me to give out. 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.. She even experienced racism in that moment, when a funeral home worker doubted she knew the deceased. 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. In front of a crowd, C.P. Ellis, whos played by Sam Rockwell. 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 Best of Enemies fact-check revealed that Ann credited God with giving her the strength to help so many people. She and Ellis continued their friendship to the end of their lives. 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. Atwater changed history in Durham, refusing to be ignored as she demanded better schools and living conditions for black residents. She married Willie Pettiford in 1975, and became a deacon at the Mount Calvary United Church of Christ. Im not following you any further.. The pair weren't the first choices. 25 Of Our Favorite Mothers Day Episodes From 'The Golden Girls' to 'Rugrats', It's Official! She was a member of several community groups and local Democratic Party vice president in 1968. 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. Ellis quit the KKK. Ellis were the best choices to present a variety of viewpoints from opposing sides, so they had them chair the meeting together. We are going to have to lay aside our differences and work together. 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.. 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. Atwater, who died in 2016 at the age of 80, defied stereotypes. Welfare was only providing $57 a month, and she was leasing a dilapidated house where she was $100 behind her rent. Ellis, read about Malcolm Xs brutal assassination and Americas struggle for civil rights. Ann mar- He convinced her landlord to fix her house, helped pay back her debt, and helped her find her path. ELLIS (Civil Rights Advocate): I wanted to make them angry. They raised him until approximately age 11, when he was placed in an institution. 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. 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. (Romper reached out to Michael Peterson's representatives and Netflix for additional statements.). Ellis and Atwater spoke together about their experience at events around the country, and at C.P. [10][pageneeded]. Fuller looked at the house and asked Atwater if shed like help in fixing it.
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