Blount County Black History Project -Then and Now as Told by Those Who Lived It

Charles Pride, Dorothy Kincaid, and Jo Davenport formed CDJ Media Productions to conduct and record interviews with black Blount County residents who helped shape the community during and after the integration of the schools in 1969. Their idea for collecting interviews was formed in 2007 when they identified an urgency to preserve, in an accurate and positive way, Blount County’s rich black history. Their work resulted in “Blount County’s Black History — As Told by Those Who Lived It — Then and Now.”

Among the interviews making up the collection are interviews of: Ronald S. Coffin, a native of Blount County (born Aug. 23, 1947) who was reared in Maryville and educated until 1963 at the W. J. Hale School, a segregated school for “colored students.”  Coffin is one of the first four students to integrate Maryville High School on Sept. 3, 1963--six days after the March on Washington led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Tanya Darlene Martin (née Henderson) is the first of five children of Cecil and Freddie Mae Henderson and the fourth generation of her family to live in Alcoa.  She attended Charles M. Hall School, a segregated school, from the first through tenth grade. In September 1963 she was among the first fifteen African-Americans to attend Alcoa High School. In 1965, Martin became one of the first four African-Americans to ever graduate from Alcoa City Schools.

Constance “Connie” Hooper Scott was born on Feb. 22, 1948, in Maryville.  She attended W. J. Hale School until June 1963 and on Sept. 3, 1963 she became one of the first four students to integrate Maryville High School. Scott was the first African American to be inducted into the National Honor Society at Maryville High School. After graduating from Maryville High School in 1966, she attended Knoxville Business College where she received an associate’s degree.

Sylvia Y. Porter, is one of the first four students to integrate Maryville High School in September 1963.  She was born in Maryville on Sept. 23, 1947 and attended W. J. Hale School until 1963.

Dexter and Marjorie Stewart, Sharon Ferguson, Bill Murrah, Garry Hill, Stone Carr, Judy Knight, Sylvia Porter, Felicia Samuels, Cora Goss, Kaye Tate, Mary Scott, Geraldine Upton, Dan McCord, R.J. Miller, Jr., Paulette Pace, Juanita Usher, Thelma Brown, Dorothy Mynatt, Richard Turney, Charles McNear, Larry Brown, Robert and Alma Davis, Clara Stevens and Darlene Sudderth.