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Mae Bertha Carter\u2019s high-profile battle to end school segregation in the Mississippi Delta in the 1960s led to her home being sprayed with bullets, but, ultimately, eight of her children graduated from the previously all-white Drew High School. Seven of her children went on to earn degrees from the University of Mississippi. <\/p>\n
The Carter family\u2019s lawsuit filed against Drew, Mississippi, schools in 1967, with the help of an NAACP legal team, struck final blows to segregation in Mississippi. The family\u2019s story was chronicled in national news reports and is also the focus of the book Silver Rights<\/em> by Constance Curry.<\/p>\n Mae Bertha Carter died in 1999 after a long life of community activism. The New York Times<\/em> opted to write an obituary on the important civil rights movement figure. Today, a red maple tree named for her stands in the Lyceum Circle near Carrier Hall at Ole Miss. It\u2019s appropriate because the matriarch was adamant she wanted all of her children to get their degrees from the university, her daughter, Deborah Carter Smith, said.<\/p>\n \u201cShe knew the University of Mississippi was the best university in the state and that\u2019s where she wanted us to go,\u201d she said. \u201cI think about her all the time. She was proud of us, and she would let us know that we did well.\u201d<\/p>\n Smith, who works as a senior accountant in the Ole Miss bursar\u2019s office, is a 1981 graduate of the university who has worked at Ole Miss for 36 years. Her siblings Larry Carter, Stanley Carter, Gloria Carter Dickerson, Pearl Carter Green Owens, Beverly Carter and Carl Carter all attended Ole Miss.<\/p>\n Mae Bertha married Matthew Carter in 1939 and raised 13 children. The couple sharecropped on a plantation in Sunflower County.<\/p>\n The Civil Rights Act in 1964 effectively desegregated schools, but Mississippi enacted a \u201cfreedom of choice\u201d law, which allowed black parents to be intimidated into keeping their kids from the white schools. It didn\u2019t work on Mae Bertha Carter. In 1965, she and Matthew Carter enrolled their children in the local schools. The Carter kids became the only black students there.<\/p>\n After they broke the racial barrier, the owner of the plantation where the family lived and farmed cotton told the Carters they\u2019d get a better education at then all-black schools. He asked them to withdraw. Mae Bertha Carter\u2019s response was to put a record player out on her porch. She played one of President John F. Kennedy\u2019s speeches on civil rights loud enough so the plantation owner could hear it while he spoke to Matthew Carter in the yard. She later referred to the plantation owner\u2019s advice when talking to her husband, saying, \u201cI birthed those children and bore the pain. He cannot tell me what to do about my children.\u201d<\/p>\n The couple faced much opposition not just from the plantation owner but also from the community. Their home was shot up in the middle of the night. Eventually, they were even kicked off the plantation.<\/p>\n While the Carter kids were attending Drew schools, NAACP attorney Marian Wright Edelman represented the family in its challenge to the \u201cfreedom of choice\u201d law, and they won the suit in 1969. This knocked down the final barrier to ending school segregation in Mississippi.<\/p>\n Their struggle to get an education and eventually overturn laws that allowed segregation created a tight bond between the Carters.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter sharing that experience, we all became really, really close,\u201d Deborah Carter Smith said. \u201cWe are still really close.\u201d<\/p>\n Gloria Carter Dickerson enrolled in the Drew schools when she was in seventh grade. The Carter children had many bad days at school, but their mother would sing them \u201cfreedom songs\u201d to lift their spirits. Pep talks were also common in the Carter home.<\/p>\n \u201cWe would hear all this bad talk,\u201d Dickerson said. \u201cWe would hear them say how stupid we were. We didn\u2019t fall for that because Mama would tell just us, \u2018You are a great person.\u2019 She let us know how special we were. Her words were powerful enough that we didn\u2019t listen to the others.\u201d<\/p>\n After five years, she graduated and enrolled in Ole Miss and earned a bachelor\u2019s degree in business administration. She became a certified public accountant. After a career with businesses and nonprofits, she retired in 2010 and moved back to Drew.<\/p>\n Gloria Carter Dickerson now runs the Mae Bertha Carter Learning Center in Drew and also the nonprofit We2gether Creating Change, which helps local students with the skills they need to attend college. Her conviction comes from the understanding that her mother was right about the importance of an education.<\/p>\n \u201cShe always said education is the key to a good quality of life,\u201d Dickerson said. \u201cMy mother rubbed off on me. I believe what she said. Education helped me improve my life. We don\u2019t live in poverty anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n Pearl Carter Owens said receiving her Ole Miss degree allowed her to work for Energy Transfer Partners, which is a Fortune 500 natural gas and propane company, right out of college. She\u2019s grateful her mother was adamant that she attend the university.<\/p>\n \u201cI was recommended to this company by a friend,\u201d Pearl Carter Owens said. \u201cThey asked me to come in for an interview. After I arrived, the manager took one look at me and said, \u2018If you can get a degree from Ole Miss, I know you can do this job. The job is yours if you want it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n This May, she will have been with the company 40 years. She said she believes her mom\u2019s pep talks played a big role in her success.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mother always told me how great I am,\u201d she said. \u201cShe said when you begin to feel different, look in the mirror and say, \u2018I am great.\u2019 She was an amazing mom.\u201d<\/p>\n She said she has always strived to be a supportive parent like her mother was.<\/p>\n Pearl Carter Owens\u2019 daughter, Latoya Green, is an Oxford native, who earned a management information systems degree from Ole Miss in 2002. After college, she went to work in tech for Walmart and designed software for their checkout systems, and maintained it. Today, she works for Amazon.com, where she is responsible for performance of its global retail systems. She is based in Seattle.<\/p>\n She marvels at how much easier getting an education was for her when compared to her mother and the other Carter children in Drew. Latoya Green grew up admiring her grandmother and what she accomplished.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was one of the biggest role models in my life,\u201d Green said. \u201cShe did so much for us to get here.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"