I didnt like integration. She died in 2016 having won many awards and accolades for her work for the disadvantaged. When her job as a maid ended, she found herself living in a dilapidated house in North Durham on a I did lose my family and my home." Today, Margaret resides in California, and Martha relocated to Colorado. 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. It's just a strange thing, but it really happened. Durham's prosperous black business sector made the city a beacon of hope for African Americans seeking to rise through self-help. City council members would turn their chairs away when blacks spoke. 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. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. "I never did go back to the Klan after I left that school program," Ellis said. 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 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. When Michael Peterson and Patricia Sue lived in Germany, they befriended Elizabeth and George Ratliff and their two daughters, Margaret and Martha. 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. C.P. Tensions steadily rose, but near the end the two had a change of heart. However, more prominent members of the community felt that the issue was too hot to get involved in. So what I did, when he went to get up, I hit him over the head with the receiver of the telephone," Atwater recalled in a 2010 interview. Atwater told Dateline correspondent Dennis Murphy that she had lost "far more than just my mother. State Government websites value user privacy. 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. All rights reserved. Fuller was bankrolled by the North Caroline Fund to do some community organizing and soon drafted Atwater into the group. He was blind, deaf, and suffered from an intellectual disability. Ann Atwater, a black civil rights activist, talks about her friend. A friend talked her out of trying to stab C.P., telling her, "That's what they want you to do." He got up in the middle of their conversation, ignoring Atwater and the crowd of black parents behind her. 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. 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. Kathleen Peterson Dig deeper into The Best of Enemies true story by watching the Ann Atwater interview and documentary below. On the evening of her death, the Petersons had dinner with Ratliff and her daughters. She and her husband relocated to Durham soon after in the hopes of better opportunities, but things shifted for the worst. 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. Like all historical fiction, the 2019 film The Best of Enemies takes a bit of license with reality. "I haven't been the same since I left that school program," he said years later. As soon as he got close to me, I was going to grab his head from behind and cut him from ear to ear. She was born in Hallsboro, N.C., the daughter of sharecroppers. Moving past race, they began to focus on other issues, such as the academic quality of Durhams schools. For Ellis, it finally came to me that I had more in common with poor black people than I did with rich white ones., When the children got us together and said they wanted to go to school together. Ann Atwater is best known for her work in civil rights, and for her unlikely friendship with Ku Klux Klan leader C.P. Atwater quickly rose to become a formidable spokeswoman for the poor in Durham. During his father's trial and lengthy prison sentence, Clayton stood by his side. Civil-Rights Activist, Ex-Klansman C.P. Ellis : NPR 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. 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. She was not afraid of white school board members, nor white city council members nor the local Klan and its methods of intimidation. Ellis a couple of years before we worked together to integrate Durhams schools, Atwater wrote in a 2013 column in the Durham Herald-Sun titled What Forgiveness Costs., We were at a meeting downtown together, and he kept yelling n---- this and n---- that. He went on to organize labor unions for both blacks and whites. Up to that point, we didnt know each other. She was 80. He convinced her landlord to fix her house, helped pay back her debt, and helped her find her path. For example, when addressing a white person, the welfare worker would politely call the person over to the desk and there privately ask Your name? "She didn't particularly like the Klan," C.P. Is The Best of Enemies a True Story Then, when it was nearly over, Atwater and Ellis had a change of heart. 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. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. They hated each other. -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. But in the early 1970s, he had a remarkable change of heart and mind, and he became a civil rights advocate. Atwater had made Ellis begin to question his way of thinking toward blacks. I didnt like the demonstrations downtown, recalled Ellis some 30 years after the charrette. Ann Atwater and Claiborne P. Ellis had much in common, although it would take years of battling each other across the racial divide before they were able to see their similarities. But my pastor was sitting there and saw me holding the knife. BLOCK: Civil rights activist Ann Atwater in Durham, North Carolina. Ann Atwater was a pioneer of community organizing and black advocacy. WebEventually Atwater divorced him and raised their two daughters on her own as a single mother. VarietyThe Best of Enemies depicts the unexpected friendship between Ann Atwater and C.P. "All of this drastically changed my life, I mean, my thinking. Ellis and Atwater spoke together about their experience at events around the country, and at C.P. C.P. Atwater was an unlikely civil rights activist. -An Unlikely Friendship Documentary, Yes. Patrick Schwarzenegger and Dane DeHaan as Todd and Clayton Peterson in The Staircase on HBO Max. The other co-chair selected was C.P. She told Dateline: According to ABC News, that made Atwater view her stepfather in another light. [8][pageneeded]. She married Willie Pettiford in 1975, and became a deacon at the Mount Calvary United Church of Christ. Im not following you any further.. Through Operation Breakthrough, Atwater was selected for the 1971 charrette or series of planning meetings over the integration of Durhams schools. The other co-chair was C.P. Her father earned only five cents an hour; Ann and her siblings also worked on farms as children to help support the family. Atwater initially declined to serve as co-chair, but reluctantly agreed to work with Ellis. The Staircase on HBO Max delves deep into the story of Michael Peterson, who was convicted of killing his wife Kathleen Peterson on December 9, 2001. 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. [9] Atwater mobilized poor blacks in Durham to help them stand up for themselves. That was real, said Ann-Nakia Green, Atwaters 35-year-old granddaughter. As a result, there was no one to direct the Klan's Youth Corp and the program disbanded. Today, Caitlin is married and is now known as Caitlin Clark. was sitting there, and first he started clapping his hands. 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. "They said I sold out because I worked with a Klansman," recalled Atwater. People worked at job-training, took after-school tutoring, or became educated as to their rights. (modern). Today, Todd is believed to be living in Tennessee. She was also not afraid to tell anyone to go to hell if she felt like it. She said that after "all was said and done, I felt confident that I knew what happened. Bill Riddick, a professor and consultant, was contracted by union organizers to help solve the crisis. The circumstances in which their mother died would raise suspicions about Michael Peterson's role in Kathleen Peterson's murder ahead of his trial. She seems an unlikely activist and hero. Courtesy of STXfilmsAnn Atwater in an image from the 2002 documentary An Unlikely Friendship. The kids in some of the schools were also being taught material that was a year behind what kids their same age were being taught in other schools. She showed him her house and he invited her to his program. He was chosen to chair the meetings, along with his polar opposite, a militant African-American leader of Durham's civil rights movement, Ann Atwater. Ellis died in 2005 and Atwater was asked to deliver the eulogy. When Atwater had first met C. P. Ellis at a previous Durham city council meeting, she felt great resentment toward him. Because the white councilmen did not want to listen to a black woman talk, they turned their chairs away from her. Local leaders, in addition to the organizer of the charrette, Bill Riddick (portrayed by Babou Ceesay in the movie), decided that Ann Atwater and C.P. When Atwater discovered caseworkers kept key information from clients, she figured out how to get the information herself. I'm Michele Norris. Ellis. Ellis has died at age 78. Do you look back, and does it make sense to you? This is the story of Ann Atwater, political activist and desegregationist, the true story behind the 2019 film The Best of Enemies. But both Ann Atwater and C.P. It was funded by the North Carolina Fund, a statewide program to improve education. He moved to Richmond seeking better work and asked Atwater to join him there with their two daughters, she said no. He grabbed my hand and said, Dont give them the satisfaction. . They raised him until approximately age 11, when he was placed in an institution. Ellis quit the KKK. Revelations about Margaret and Martha's birth family also made Atwater doubt Michael's innocence, according to CBS News. Ms. ATWATER: No, it don't when you look back at it. That path involved a 17-week training course, where Ann Atwater learned the ropes of community organizing and the ins and outs of tenant rights along with the citys housing code. I pulled out the knife that I kept in my handbag and opened the blade. It met for ten sessions. 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. Ann Atwater was used to struggling, but she hit some truly hard times. Ellis discovered that their life experiences weren't all that different. Kathleen's body was found at the foot of the stairs, with trauma to her head that indicated she may have been struck. Civil rights crusader Fannie Lou Hamer defied men and presidents who tried to silence her. Ann Atwaters life didnt start off easy. Jeter Downs needs to play to develop. 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 one of those legendary black women in the South who was simply fearless when facing white oppression. She made no bones about taking them out if necessary. As seen in The Staircase documentary on Netflix, Clayton's first son Dorian visits Michael Peterson in prison as a baby and towards the end of the documentary, his wife Becky is seen pregnant with their second child, Lucien. When approached by Howard Fuller to join Operation Breakthrough, a program to help people escape poverty, Atwater found her life purpose. Ellis died last week in Durham at the age of 78. I pulled out, I had a little small knife, pocket knife." They presented ways to improve curriculum, in addition to making it easier for students' voices to be heard. Ellis began to change. Ellis, Ann Atwater's voice was deep and powerful, and she had the ability to energize her audience. C.P. Ellis remained close until his death in 2005, and Ellis family asked Atwater to give the eulogy. She spoke at C.P. But Atwater's husband struggled financially, and became alcoholic and abusive. 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.. She grew to love fostering communities, teaching them how to take care of themselves, and not put up with the injustices they faced in their daily lives. -School for Conversion. "This particular night C.P. 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. The Society's Olivia DeJonge portrays Caitlin Atwater in HBO Max's The Staircase. Following his nearly two-week long meeting with Ann Atwater, C.P. Durham Civil Rights activist Ann Atwater best known for the relationship she forged with her biggest enemy, a member of the Ku Klux Klan has died. He worked in the tobacco factory and she as a domestic, but he turned to drink. The only foods she could afford for her children were rice, cabbage, and fatback. 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. She didn't feel that she could ever achieve true closure, but she could move forward. Ann Atwater Caitlin Atwater would go on to become a key witness on the prosecution side during Michael Peterson's trial. After that, Atwater went door to door telling people how they could get their landlords to fix their houses. Peterson was the last person to see her alive. 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.. is afraid that the black children will come to the white schools. Atwater was an unlikely civil rights activist. "[11] Atwater and Ellis came to realize some commonalities, among them that their children were ostracized because of the parents' working together. To manage the transition to racial integration, councilman Bill Riddick called a charrette. This will be the first time two completely different sets of philosophies have united to work for this goal of better schools. In 1971 Atwater was asked to co-chair a group looking for answers for the problems of desegregation of Durham Schools. Yes. Ann Atwater Pushed To Integrate Her Citys Schools And Got A Klansman Named C.P. ", Ann Atwater continued her work fighting for racial equality as a grass roots organizer, passing away in 2016. 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. 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." "The city council people didn't want to look at us because we were black," said Ann. When asked if she believed Michael killed her mother, she said: When prompted for a possible reason why, Atwater called it "truly a culmination of a storm," that might have come from financial issues and secrets within the marriage. I began to blame it on black people. Ann Atwater, Durham Civil Rights Activist, Dies ELLIS (Civil Rights Advocate): I wanted to make them angry. She made dresses out of flour and rice bags for her daughters to wear. Yes. BLOCK: Ann Atwater joins us from her home in Durham to share her memories of C.P. [3] The faucets in the bathroom were faulty, shooting out water so intensely that her kids nicknamed it Niagara Falls. Over 10 days, the opposing sides met and tension grew. It was revealed over the course of the trial that Michael was bisexual and had been corresponding with a male sex worker, even making plans to meet up. Such struggles helped shape Atwater as an activist. One day we were working with a welfare problem, people werent getting the type help that they were supposed to get from the welfare department, so I took one of the ladies and went down to the Department of Social Services, Atwater recalled in a 2010 interview. Ignoring her and the parents with her was a mistake. Ellis, leader of the Durham Ku Klux Klan. The couple divorced, and Atwater supported herself and her two children as a maid for 30 cents an hour, before turning to Social Services for help. P. Ellis Says Klan Days Have Been Over for Awhile,, Cliff Bellarny, Bold Measure for Difficult Times,, Operation Breakthrough (Durham, North Carolina), Maegan Lobo-Berg, "The Reality of Self-Help in Durhams Operation Breakthrough", "Durham civil rights leader Ann Atwater honored with Freedom Library", "Durham civil rights activist Ann Atwater dies at 80", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ann_Atwater&oldid=1069357903, Activists for African-American civil rights, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Pages using infobox person with multiple spouses, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from April 2019, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2019, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. Ms. Atwater, Mr. Ellis there saying he hated your guts going into these meetings. She was making progress. It helped participants gain confidence that they could achieve change and escape poverty. Durham schools suffered from increasing racial tensions among students anxious about the future. According to PopSugar, she has twins and lives in northern Virginia. He was to tear it apart. Sadly, Elizabeth would die soon after in 1985 and Michael Peterson became the guardian of her two children. Before the trial, Ratliff's body was exhumed and autopsied, at which point a second autopsy suggested that she, too, had suffered head trauma, according to CNN. Ann Atwater was a woman to be reckoned with, a woman not to be ignored. Newsweek BLOCK: You know, it seems like such an unlikely transformation. She attended a Durham premiere of the film in March 2019 and answered media questions on the red carpet. 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. Today, he lives in Maryland with his two children, according to The News and Observer. Ann's dad had encouraged her baby's father to marry her. By 1967 she was employed by the United Organization for Community Improvement and was chair of the Housing Committee. Ellis was a former grand exalted cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan in Durham, North Carolina. 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. Ellis indeed started tapping his feet and then clapping his hands along with the others. She did. Ann actually gave Ellis' eulogy when he passed away. Gradually Atwater became a leader among the participants in Operation Breakthrough meetings. [12][pageneeded], The two antagonists eventually learned to work together and, to everyones astonishment, became good friends. She had already been friends with the girls when their parents met and connected. [8], From 2006 until her death, Atwater worked with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove at the School for Conversion as a "freedom teacher," mentoring young people and activists in community organizing and fusion politics. Atwater also expressed her opinions at city council meetings, which had only white members. Atwater found her niche. Secure websites use HTTPS certificates. Her first baby died soon after birth. In 1967, Atwater took a 17-week training course where she learned about tenant rights, housing codes and how to organize community protests. Ann G. Atwater was born on July 1, 1935, in Hillsboro, North Carolina. 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. Atwater married Willie Pettiford in 1975 and eventually had two daughters, the late Lydia Green and Marilynn Turner. Ellis had a change of heart after a 10-day forum on integration of schools in Durham, N.C. I didnt like Ann boycotting stores. 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. Atwater changed history in Durham, refusing to be ignored as she demanded better schools and living conditions for black residents. However, she says that they had to teach him how to clap his hands in rhythm and not on an odd beat. Yes. She hit him over the head with a telephone receiver and he sat down to listen. The Durham medical examiner concluded Ratliff's cause of death was "homicide". [8][pageneeded]. Im not following you any further. Soon, she divorced him. Ellis was known for making provocative and inaccurate remarks expressing his fears and resentments of blacks, such as: Blacks are taking over the city. 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. Ann Atwater Margaret Ratliff and her young sister Martha Ratliff were adopted by Michael Peterson after their parents, Elizabeth and George Ratliff, died. His father and local community blamed poor blacks for their problems, and reasoned that blacks were to blame for why they could never get ahead regardless of how hard they worked. Ellis stood up and ripped apart his Klan membership card. Jim Thornton/The Herald Sun Collections/University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill LibrariesAnn Atwater and C.P. 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. Her mother died when she was 6. She was born in Hallsboro, N.C., the daughter of sharecroppers. This website is undergoing design changes. So I told C.P. After the course, Atwater had found her lifes purpose. 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.. The Best of Enemies true story reveals that Ann Atwater got married at the age of 14 and moved to Durham, NC in 1953. According to C.P. 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. [citation needed], One tactic Atwater used to tackle this problem was using the power of numbers. 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 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. He moved to Richmond seeking better work and asked Atwater to join him there with their two daughters, she said no. Ann Atwater, interview by Sean Aery, Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture, February 1, 2006. ", Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. Ellis formed a lifelong friendship. She turned those chairs back around to force them to face her. The two were fiercely dedicated to improving the prospects of their people, Atwater as a militant activist for housing reform, and Ellis as the Exalted Cyclops of Durhams Ku Klux Klan.

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