38 Years Ago: Calvin P. Allmond
31 May
A few days ago I was looking at my RSS feeds in Google Reader. I have feeds for local news, tech news, blogs and so on. I have one particular feed that consists of search results for the name “Allmond” in recent news so I can post tidbits on my Allmond Family Online website. I tend to look at the ones that are from the Hampton Roads area of Virginia first because I know that it’s almost 100% likely that it will be about one of my relatives. I saw one from Suffolk, Virginia, so I clicked on it. I can’t explain what went through my mind when I saw my grandfather’s (who passed away in 1978) name in the feed. “Wow” is all I can say.
Anyway, here’s what I found:
If you can’t see the text clearly it reads:
Negroes ordered not to fill out forms Calvin P. Allmond, Negro civil rights spokesman, said the Isle Of Wight County Citizen’s League voted at a meeting Sunday to ask Negroes not to fill out freedom of-choice registration forms being distributed by the School Board for 1969-70.
The action followed a school board decision made the previous Thursday to proceed with the freedom-of-choice plan, in the event the pending legal action by the NAACP should hold up plans for total integration next fall.
Allmond, head of the local NAACP chapter and a frequent spokesman for the Citizens League, pointed out that freedom-of-choice registration period fixed by the school board begins this week and ends in mid-June. For Negroes to cooperate with the freedom-of-choice program of school assignment, he said, “would go against what we’re advocating – total integration.” Then too, he added, it would to help the cause of the Citizens for Freedom of Choice. “It’s true that some colored people are in favor of freedom of choice, but they don’t understand the quality of education they get if the two races were fully integrated.
Having a legacy is a great. Having one in print is greater and having one online beats all as today’s generation of young people can see that it wasn’t just the Martins and the Malcolms that worked hard to give us the opportunities we deserved, but also the everyday citizens who gave of themselves for the greater good.
