The Highland County Push
Highland County Women’s Hall of Fame member and distinguished civil legal rights champion Elsie Annette Younger handed absent Friday, July 2 at her home in Hillsboro. She was 105.
Mrs. Young had been a longtime member and officer of the Magnolia Twig in assistance of Highland District Clinic and a member of the Highland County African-American Consciousness Investigate Council, where she served as treasurer and was honored in 2006 for her initiatives.
In October 2018, Mrs. Youthful was honored as a person of the women of all ages who marched for faculty integration in Hillsboro in 1954. She gained the Women Creating a Variance Award by U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown. The award was been given on behalf of the marchers by Mrs. Youthful through the Women’s Management Summit at Xavier University in Cincinnati.
A lot more than 6 a long time back, the landmark Brown v. Board of Instruction circumstance declared school segregation unconstitutional, but a team of moms – the Lincoln Mothers – experienced to consider matters into their individual arms to combat for faculty integration in the town of Hillsboro. They determined to march – and continued to march for two years.
In 1954, Hillsboro High College had presently integrated, but there had been two all-white elementary educational institutions, Webster and Washington, and one all-black college, the Lincoln University. The Lincoln University was about 85 years previous at the time and in terrible shape. A team of African-American moms made the decision they no lengthier were being heading to deliver their children to Lincoln.
On Sept. 9, 1954, Mrs. Young and other Marching Mothers led about 50 small children to the elementary schools but were being denied entrance. Consequently started a two-year ritual, each and every day the “Marching Mothers” and their kids going for walks to faculty and becoming despatched property.
Aided by the Dayton NAACP, on Sept. 22, 1954, the moms filed accommodate from the Hillsboro College Board and Superintendent Paul Upp for an injunction against the rezoning, stating that it prevented their small children from attending a white faculty. This commenced a long court fight for integration.
The Hillsboro combat for integration caught the attention of the NAACP’s Thurgood Marshall, who had successfully received the Brown v. Board of Instruction suit. Marshall despatched New York NAACP attorney Constance Baker Motely to Hillsboro to argue the Hillsboro case in the courts. This was the initially northern exam situation of the Brown choice.
By the spring of 1956, the circumstance experienced gone back and forth from the U.S. Court docket of Appeals, 6th Circuit and even to the Supreme Court docket. The Supreme Courtroom refused to listen to Clemons v. Board of Schooling of Hillsboro on April 2, 1956 and turned down Hillsboro’s even further endeavor to block integration.
Just after the Ohio Board of Schooling threatened to withhold all condition funding, a bulk of the Hillsboro faculty board voted to combine. By April 17, 1956, 11 black learners attended Webster Elementary School. By the tumble of 1957, almost a few yrs following the Marching Moms commenced the combat for equivalent education, Hillsboro elementary educational institutions ended up entirely integrated.
In addition to her civil rights advocacy, Mrs. Young also served as a member of a lot of other local community businesses, like Church Females United, WCTU, Cedar Grove Stars Chapter 18 in Greenfield, St. Elizabeth Stars Chapter 6 in Chillicothe and the RV Summers Club. She had worked several yrs at the polls on Election Working day and was a member of the Highland County Democratic Occasion.
She had also served in quite a few diverse roles at the New Hope Baptist Church since becoming a member of the church in 1948, such as training Sunday university lessons for females serving as treasurer, as a member of the Hattie E. Jackson missionary modern society and as a delegate to the Japanese Union Affiliation serving on the Deaconess Board working as a Guild Women leader and Females Aide and singing in the choir.
Among her numerous survivors are two sons, William Russell (Mary) Steward of Dayton and Ralph (Jennifer) Steward of Hillsboro and 3 daughters, Virginia Harewood, Carolyn (Lewis) Goins and Charlotte Harbut of Hillsboro.
The Turner & Son Funeral Property in Hillsboro is serving the family.
Condolences may well be sent to the loved ones by viewing https://www.turnerfuneralhomes.cc/.
(Exclusive thanks to Kati Burwinkel, Steve Roush, Susan Banyas and the late Pamela Nickell.)
