DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Sunlight Girls Club of Calhoun County. Now, there are stories about clubs, and then there are stories about what a club can mean when the world around it is shifting under everybody's feet. This is one of the second kind.
The year was 1955, and desegregation had come to Calhoun County. For the African American students who'd been attending the all-black Alice O. Wilkins school, that meant something bigger than a new classroom — it meant educational and cultural adjustments that nobody had a handbook for.
That summer, the summer before the 1955-56 school year, a long-time educator named Naomi B. Chase took a group of those students on a picnic. Out to Indianola, to the La Salle Monument.
A little breathing room. A little horizon before the hard work began. Mrs.
Chase, she kept watching. Kept thinking. And five years later, on January 19, 1960, she did something about it.
She founded the Sunlight Girls Club — and she started it right there in her garage. Now, I want you to sit with that a moment. Not a school gymnasium.
Not a community center. A garage. Because when you're building something from concern and conviction, you start where you stand.
The first club formed with fourteen girls, ages nine through sixteen. The objectives weren't small, either. Bridge the gap of integration.
Instill and promote finer womanhood. Build principles of honesty, fair play, and justice. Develop good character through precepts and examples.
Promote leadership. Complete high school. Strive for higher education.
And provide scholarships so that striving had somewhere to go. That's not a club charter — that's a blueprint for getting through a difficult world with your dignity intact. Regular attendance at school and church was mandatory.
Music was an integral part of the organization. And those girls were given instruction in religious studies, music, typing, first aid, cooking, sewing, and ceramics. You want to talk about preparing somebody — that's preparing somebody.
Then 1964 rolls around, and a woman named Edna Brown organized a band. Instruments donated by the community, every one of them. Because a community that believed in these girls kept showing up to prove it.
By 1966, the Calhoun County School District stepped in and provided the Wilkins School cafeteria as the Sunlight Girls Club's official clubhouse. That same year, the group obtained their charter. Mrs.
Chase's garage had become something the whole county recognized. And it kept going. Forty years.
Across those four decades, approximately 312 girls were members of the Sunlight Girls Club. Three hundred and twelve young women who walked through doors that — and the marker says this plainly and I think it deserves to be said plainly — that their parents could only dream of opening for them. That's what Naomi B.
Chase built, starting in her garage, on a January day in 1960. A little sunlight, aimed in exactly the right direction.
What the marker says
When desegregation began in Calhoun County in 1955, many African American students made educational and cultural adjustments. The summer before the 1955-56 school year, long-time educator Naomi B. Chase took a group of students from the all black Alice O. Wilkins school on a picnic to Indianola at the La Salle Monument. With concern for students adjusting to the changes brought on by integration, Mrs. Chase founded the Sunlight Girls Club on January 19, 1960 in her garage. In 1966, the Calhoun County School District provided the Wilkins School cafeteria as the Sunlight Girls" clubhouse, and the group obtained their charter. The objectives of the club were to bridge the gap of integration, to instill and promote finer womanhood, to instill principles of honesty, fair play, and justice, to develop good character through precepts and examples, to promote leadership, complete high school, strive for higher education, and to provide scholarships for furtherance of education. The first Sunlight Girls Club formed with fourteen girls, ages nine through sixteen. Regular attendance at school and church were mandatory, and music was an integral part of the organization. To promote growth and achievement, the girls were provided instruction in religious studies, music, typing, first aid, cooking, sewing, and ceramics. In 1964, to continue with the girls" growth and exposure, Edna Brown organized a band with instruments donated by the community. Approximately 312 girls were members of the Sunlight Girls Club during its 40 years of existence. Both sponsors and directors helped open the doors that parents could only dream for their children.