Dorothy Counts (1942- )

August 31, 2016 
/ Contributed By: Samuel Momodu

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Dorothy Counts

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Dorothy Counts was one of the first black students admitted to the Harry Harding High School in Charlotte, North Carolina, as part of the initial effort to desegregate schools in that city. After the four days of harassment by white students that she faced alone, her parents, Dr. and Mrs. Herbert Counts, withdrew her from the school over concern for her safety. When the other three black students withdrew as well, the attempt at desegregation failed.

In 1956 forty black students applied to transfer to white schools across the state, despite the implementation of the Pearsall Plan proposed by the North Carolina Advisory Committee on Education (The Pearsall Committee) to delay desegregation in the state in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling of racial segregation as unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Charlotte, North Carolina, since the beginning of the twentieth century, was completely segregated. That segregation included all of its public schools, public accommodations, and neighborhoods. During the summer of 1957, however, the Charlotte School Board agreed to voluntary desegregation to avoid federal- or state-ordered mandates.

On September 4, 1957, Counts, who was fifteen at the time, was one of the four black students who volunteered to be transferred to all-white schools in the district. She was the only black student assigned to Harry Harding High School. On the first day she was scheduled to attend, harassment began. Much of it was orchestrated by leaders of the segregationist White Citizens Council which urged the boys attending the school to block her entry and the girls of the school to spit on her.

Counts walked to the Harding High School through angry crowds who hurled insults, and some threw rocks and others spat on her. More abuse followed when she entered the school on her first day. Trash was thrown at her in the lunch room while teachers ignored the incident. On the second day, two white female students who had befriended her were now subject to harassment as well. Counts’s family also received threatening phone calls. After four days of harassment, her father decided to take her out of the school.

Unlike Little Rock High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, where nine black students integrated the school almost at the same time as Counts, they had entered under a court order and were protected for one year by hundreds of U.S. Army soldiers. Counts, who attended Harding High School alone, received no protection and very little media attention.

Counts’s parents sent her to Philadelphia to continue her education in an integrated school. In 1961 she returned to Charlotte to attend John C. Smith University from which she earned a degree in 1965. Counts then began her professional career in childcare services. She worked in church-based childcare centers that served low-income families. She was also part of a nonprofit organization in Charlotte called Child Care Resources Inc. which advocated for better child care.

In 2008 Harding High School awarded Counts an honorary diploma. In 2010 Counts received a public apology from one member of the crowd who had harassed her in 1957. Later in 2010, Harding High School renamed its library in honor of Dorothy Counts.

About the Author

Author Profile

Samuel Momodu, a native of Nashville, Tennessee, received his Associate of Arts Degree in History from Nashville State Community College in December 2014 and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History from Tennessee State University in May 2016. He received his Master of Arts Degree in history from Southern New Hampshire University in June 2019.

Momodu’s main areas of research interest are African and African American History. His passion for learning Black history led him to contribute numerous entries to BlackPast.org for the last few years. Momodu has also worked as a history tour guide at President Andrew Jackson’s plantation home near Nashville, the Hermitage. He is currently an instructor at Tennessee State University. His passion for history has also helped him continue his education. In 2024, he received his Ph.D. in History from Liberty University, writing a dissertation titled The Protestant Vatican: Black Churches Involvement in the Nashville Civil Rights Movement 1865-1972. He hopes to use his Ph.D. degree to become a university professor or professional historian.

CITE THIS ENTRY IN APA FORMAT:

Momodu, S. (2016, August 31). Dorothy Counts (1942- ). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/counts-dorothy-1942/

Source of the Author's Information:

“Dorothy Counts,” Charlotte Magazine,
http://www.charlottemagazine.com/Charlotte-Magazine/August-2010/Where-are-They-Now/Dorothy-Counts/;
“Dorothy Counts,” The Charlotte Observer,
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/latest-news/article10455449.html;
“Dorothy Counts” Beyond Black and White,
http://www.beyondblackwhite.com/dorothy-counts-brave-sense-duty/.

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