By Betsy Brewer Brantner
Contributing Writer

When we hear stories of racial inequality, many of us think it took place hundreds of years ago.  But people like Connie Winchester know it happened in her lifetime. It was still happening in Oxford, and in many other places, in the summer of 1961.

Both Connie and her late husband, Dick Winchester, are well-known to this day as advocates of racial equality. 

Connie remembered, “In Dick’s first year of teaching as a new professor at Lincoln University in 1961, he was visited by some of his students, who enlisted him to test the Oxford Hotel that year.”

As the story goes, the Black students asked for a room at the hotel and were told the hotel was full. 

Then, Dick Winchester, a white professor at the local university, walked in right behind them and was told there was a room available. The Lincoln University students, along with Dick Winchester, protested segregation at the Oxford Hotel.

The Winchesters also confirmed that Black people working at Lincoln University couldn’t eat lunch at some restaurants in Oxford, or visit some businesses in Oxford. However, the Red Rose Inn in Jennersville did accommodate them.

Nearly six decades later, many Oxford residents walked to protest the murder of a Black man, George Floyd, in Minneapolis by a police officer. It was one of the first times that I remember watching the murder of a Black man on my television screen. But racial murders did happen and are still happening in large cities and small towns across the United States.

On May 25, 2020 a neighborhood in Minneapolis was the site of Floyd’s murder. Residents of the neighborhood were afraid to call the police, for fear of retribution. Derek Chauvin was one of four officers of the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) involved in the arrest of George Floyd on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill at a market. While Floyd was handcuffed and laying face-down on the street, Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds. During the final two minutes, Floyd was motionless and had no pulse.

The initial police report showed no mention of Floyd’s treatment when he was arrested. Many believe Chauvin would never have been convicted if the mobile phone video taken by a witness, Darnell Frazier, had not surfaced.

In 1961, I was 11 years old. It took me many years later and that walk to realize that I had grown up in a segregated town.

Years later, as I covered a Borough Council meeting, the Met Theater was discussed. Oxford Mainstreet, Inc. had received a grant to revive that local theatre. It was the same theater where my mother had made her stand for equality.

I remember my mother talking about her experience when she moved to Oxford to work as a “defense woman.” She told us the story of her attending a local movie theater and finding out she could not sit in the balcony to see a movie.  She was white and the balcony was where the Black population was relegated to. She argued with the ticket lady at the theater and, as she explained, she was eventually turned away from the theater. My mother simply couldn’t understand why she couldn’t sit with the Black people in the balcony.

I remember shaking my head in disbelief at the thought that in my lifetime, my hometown was segregated.

How did I not know that? The phrase, “in my lifetime” kept turning over and over in my head. I had written about the town of Oxford for years, but I didn’t know that the town that I treasured, the town my parents grew to love had a dark past.

If I had any misgivings about that, they were confirmed when I did a story on former Oxford Mayor Harold Gray when he passed away a couple years ago. 

The Oxford Area Historical Association allowed me to listen to an oral history of the mayor. In his own words, Harold Gray spoke of his storied life, serving in Korea and serving in the Oxford Police Department as an officer before he became mayor.

Harold Gray explained, “I remember waiting outside a local soda fountain for my white friends to come out. I wasn’t allowed in. And yet when I became a police officer I had to serve and protect those same businesses that wouldn’t serve me. And I did.”

The fact that Harold Gray was elected Mayor said to me that at least something had changed in Oxford. However, I think most of that was just because of the man that Harold Gray was.

Now, Oxford Borough Council openly seeks people of all races and ethnic backgrounds to serve on the council. And rightly so. The council should be representative of the people it serves. 

Oh, there are still racist people, in Oxford and other places large and small. But hopefully there are more who are not racist. The town has changed considerably and Dick Winchester actually sat on council before he passed away. I know he was still advocating for equality.

I guess by writing this, I am too, which was passed on to me by my mother. I hope all parents raise our children to advocate for equality for all.