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North and South Carolina: |
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Shriners integrated their hospitals 27 years before the civil rights movement
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The national policy of the Shrine was, from the beginning, to treat black children equally with white in their 15 hospitals.
But a southern representative to the Imperial Council made a statement in 1927 that the Greenville, SC, hospital could not admit blacks. “White nurses wouldn’t wait on them,” he said by way of explanation.
When the first superintendent of that unit arrived that year to open the hospital, she heard about that remark and said, “This is ridiculous. Sometimes white nurses prefer to wait on colored patients because they are very grateful and uncomplaining.”
The Greenville Board of Governors met to face the question of integrating their patients. At first one or two members said they favored accepting black children, but deferred to Noble George T. Bryan. Bryan’s father was a brigade commander under General Robert E. Lee. As a small boy, he lived through the agonies of reconstruction. Would he now stand in opposition to the Imperial Board which was on record as calling for admission of children regardless of race, creed or color? Would this Past Potentate of both Omar and Hejaz Shrine temples stand for white-only patients in Greenville, SC?
“Of course take in Negro children!” Noble Bryan said firmly. “What appeals to your heart any more than a little colored child?” A vote was taken after that brief, tender commitment. It was unanimous. The Greenville unit maintained a policy of integration from its opening day, matching national policy.
Ten years later the first Shrine Bowl program contained a statement from W. Freeland Kendrick, Chairman of the Board of the Greenville hospital for crippled and burned children. “Our hospitals serve only the poor, regardless of race, creed or color. No child whose parents can pay for treatment elsewhere may become a patient in any of our units. Any boy or girl under 14 years of age, of normal mentality and in need of orthopedic treatment, may become a patient, provided applicants can be cured or materially benefitted.”
North and South Carolina high school football players in those days were all white. No blacks could break into high school sports competition. So it was that both all-star teams in the early years of the Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas were all white.
But in 1965 history began to catch up with the Shrine Bowl as it did with all public school athletic teams. It was time to integrate, and with integrity.
Stan Cropley was director of the Shrine Bowl athletic department. His upbringing gnawed at his reason. He allowed as he would have nothing to do with integrating his games. His fall from grace is identified with his failure to pick Jim Kirkpatrick of Charlotte’s Myers Park High School to play on the NC squad. Kirkpatrick was a popular student—and black. He had a statewide reputation as a fine player. The public knew if Jimmy Lee Kirkpatrick did not make the Shrine Bowl team, it was because of race. The controversy over Kirkpatrick was no longer just a sports matter but one of civil rights. The resignation of AD Stan Cropley was accepted.
The next year saw a black on a Shrine Bowl squad for the first time. In 1981 Virgil Wells of Darlington was the first black coach. The city of Darlington renamed a street in his honor. Claude Saunders of Charlotte was the first black official. By 1985 more than half the NC and SC Shrine Bowl teams were black.
Jimmy Lee Kirkpatrick went on to play football for three years at Purdue. He moved to California and didn’t come back.
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Produced by the public relations committee of the Grand Lodge AF&AM of Masons in North Carolina,
2921 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh, NC 27628 MMVIII
Author/editor: Walter J. Klein wklein(at)carolina.rr.com
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