From Rory Ryan
The Highland County Press
Highland County’s Hall of Fame and respected civil rights activist, Elsie Annette Young passed away on Friday July 2nd at her Hillsboro home. She was 105.
Ms. Young was a longtime member and officer of the Magnolia Twig in support of the Highland District Hospital and a member of the Highland County African-American Awareness Research Council, where she served as treasurer and was honored for her efforts in 2006.
In October 2018, Ms. Young was honored as one of the women who marched in Hillsboro for School Integration in 1954. She received the Women Making a Difference Award from US Sen. Sherrod Brown. The award was received on behalf of the protesters by Ms. Young during the Women’s Leadership Summit at Xavier University in Cincinnati.
More than six decades ago, the seminal Brown v. Board of Education declared school segregation unconstitutional, but a group of mothers – the Lincoln Mothers – had to take matters into their own hands to fight for school integration in the town of Hillsboro. They decided to march – and marched on for two years.
By 1954 Hillsboro High School was integrated, but there were two all-white elementary schools, Webster and Washington, and one all-black school, Lincoln School. Lincoln School was then about 85 years old and in disrepair. A group of African American mothers decided not to send their children to Lincoln anymore.
On September 9, 1954, Ms. Young and other marching mothers took about 50 children to elementary schools, but were refused entry. Thus began a two-year ritual in which the “marching mothers” and their children go to school every day and are sent home.
With the assistance of the Dayton NAACP, the mothers filed an injunction against the Hillsboro School Board and Superintendent Paul Upp on September 22, 1954, on the grounds that they prevented their children from attending white schools. This started a long judicial integration struggle.
The integration struggle in Hillsboro caught the attention of Thurgood Marshall of the NAACP, who had successfully won the Brown vs Board of Education trial. Marshall sent New York NAACP attorney Constance Baker Motely to Hillsboro to take the Hillsboro case to court. This was the first northern test case of the Brown decision.
In the spring of 1956, the case went back and forth from the U.S. Court of Appeals, 6th District, and even the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court refused on April 2, 1956, Clemons v. Board of Education of Hillsboro and declined Hillsboro’s further attempt to block integration.
After the Ohio Board of Education threatened to withhold all state funds, a majority of the Hillsboro School Board voted in favor of integration. By April 17, 1956, 11 black students were attending Webster Elementary School. By the fall of 1957, nearly three years after the Marching Mothers began the fight for equal education, Hillsboro Elementary Schools were fully integrated.
In addition to her commitment to civil rights, Ms. Young has served in many other community organizations including Church Women United, WCTU, Cedar Grove Stars Chapter 18 in Greenfield, St. Elizabeth Stars Chapter 6 in Chillicothe, and the RV Summers Club. She had worked on the election for many years on election day and was a member of the Highland County Democratic Party.
Since joining the Church in 1948, she had also served in many different roles in the New Hope Baptist Church, including serving as Sunday school classes for women; as treasurer, member of the Hattie E. Jackson Mission Society, and delegate of the Eastern Union Association; Participation in the deaconess council; Work as guild girl leader and lady supervisor; and sing in a choir.
Among her many survivors are two sons, William Russell (Mary) Steward of Dayton and Ralph (Jennifer) Steward of Hillsboro; and three daughters, Virginia Harewood, Carolyn (Lewis) Goins, and Charlotte Harbut of Hillsboro.
The Turner & Son Funeral Home in Hillsboro serves the family.
Condolences can be expressed to the family at https://www.turnerfuneralhomes.cc/.
(Special thanks to Kati Burwinkel, Steve Roush, Susan Banyas, and the late Pamela Nickell.)
Comments are closed.