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Nathaniel White, key figure in Durham integration, dead at 94(Herald-Sun, The (Durham, NC) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Feb. 26--DURHAM -- Nathaniel B. White Sr., 94, a business owner and instrumental figure in several firsts for Durham's black community, died Sunday at his son's home in Atlanta. Mr. White was the first black board member at Durham Technical Community College. He also served on an advisory committee to WTVD that in 1973 convinced the TV station to hire its first minority co-anchor. One of the founding members of the first black Boy Scout troop in his boyhood home of Norfolk, Va., Mr. White continued his interest in scouting when he moved to Durham, serving as Scoutmaster of Troop 55 at White Rock Baptist Church from 1942 to 1968, during which time he successfully pushed for the integration of the racially segregated scouting system in Durham. Until 1964, white and black troops were in separate districts and attended segregated camps, said Mr. White's friend since college and fellow Scoutmaster, R. Kelly Bryant. Mr. White also worked with the Durham Committee for the Affairs of Black People and the Durham Human Relations Commission and was a member of White Rock Baptist for 50 years. "He would make it clear that there two sides to [an issue] or that one side was not being represented," Bryant said. Joe Becton, who considered Mr. White a mentor after participating in Boy Scouts at White Rock and working at White's printing shop as a teenager, grew up to serve with White on the Durham Human Relations Commission. "He was eager to communicate across party lines and racial lines for the betterment of the community," Becton said. Mr. White was born in Hertford, N.C., in 1914 and moved with his siblings and father to Norfolk, Va., after his mother died in the 1919 Spanish flu epidemic. He attended college at nearby Hampton (Va.) Institute, where he studied printing. After working at the black newspaper the Carolina Tribune in Raleigh for two years, he purchased Service Printing Company on Fayetteville Street in the historic Hayti business district of Durham. The print shop stayed open as one of the last remnants of the Hayti district until 1985, when a fire, its second, put it out of business. Lavonia Allison, longtime leader of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People remembers when Mr. White's printing company used to print ballots showing the Committee's endorsements each year. Mr. White convinced the Committee to endorse the formation of Durham Tech even though it was segregated at the time, Allison said. "We supported it even though it was still segregated because Nat supported it and saw that vocational education was instrumental for African-Americans," Allison said. In 1999, after showing signs of dementia, Mr. White moved to Atlanta to live with his son, Nathaniel B. White Jr., who was in the first Duke University graduating class that included black students, according to Duke's Web site. To see more of The Herald-Sun, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.herald-sun.com. Copyright (c) 2009, The Herald-Sun, Durham, N.C. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |