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THE EVERETT ADVOCATE – Friday, February 21, 2020 Page 17 BLACK HISTORY HONOREES Rev. Dr. Albert R. Sampson “Civil Rights Warrior” There is a saying that “If you worry about who gets the credit, nothing will ever get done.” Rev. Dr. Albert R. Sampson has taken that motto almost to an extreme. While those “who were there” certainly recognize his role in the struggle for civil rights, history continues to slight his influence. Al Sampson grew up across the street from Baldwin Avenue Park. When his mother was “violated” by a doctor in Melrose, his family fell apart and he was sent to live with his mother’s brother Paul and his wife Mildred at 13 Baldwin Ave. The Baldwin Avenue Park area was a close-knit area filled with memories that still resonate with the people who grew up there. Eighty-year-old Stanley Ruggiero (Valley Street) still remembers the day that his father, Frank, bought a two-wheeled bike for him from the Pearsons (Baldwin Avenue), and no one can forget Frank’s not-so-secret Sunday morning bar in the cellar of their brick three-family house. Folks who grew up in that area still refer to the streets divided by Main Street as Upper and Lower Baldwin, Winslow and Clark Streets. Baldwin Park, officially named Lt. Harold Wasgatt Park after an Everett soldier killed in action during World War I, was a beehive of activity. The kids, most of whom had parents from Southern Italy, Newfoundland or Ireland or who were African-Americans who migrated from the South, spent their youthful hours there playing basketball, stickball and football or just running around being kids. It was at the Park that Al Sampson and Al Sciarappa became friends. People in the neighborhood seldom saw one without the other and referred to them as “Al and Al” or simply “the Als.” They would remain close friends until Sampson went off to college and Sciarappa became a fixture at Tony Ventura’s Everett Sporting Goods. The ethnically diverse neighborhood was a gastronomical delight as evidenced by the Sampsons’ house, alone. On any given day, the aromas emanating from the two-family house at 13 Baldwin Ave. could include Mildred’s southern fried chicken or Connie Frangello’s eggplant parmesan; both dishes they often shared with each other. Like this author, Al was a stutterer and longed to be able to express himself clearly and without the hampering stammer. As a student at the Parlin Junior High School, Al worked with the teachers there to conquer his stuttering, and an orator was born. Before leaving for the high school, Al would become the first African-American to win that school’s annual oratory award. Al continued to grow as an orator and jumped at every chance to display his newly developed talent. Those opportunities usually presented themselves at the Emmanuel Baptist Church in Malden, where Al would often be called on as a reader. It would also be there that he received his call to the ministry. Licensed as a minister by local legend Pastor Earl Lawson of Emmanuel Baptist, Al was encouraged to continue his education at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. While he was not naïve to the reality of race relations in America, the move from Baldwin Avenue to North Carolina was an epiphany for him, and Al decided he could not stand on the sidelines in this fight. Al became a leader and served as student body president at Shaw as well as leading the college’s chapter of the NAACP. He was also active in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which was founded at Shaw University. In April of 1960, Al and fellow student James A. Fox attempted to be served at the lunch counter at a McCrory-McLellan store in Raleigh. The two were arrested and charged with trespassing. They were found guilty in City Court and again on appeal before the Superior Court. Six years later the United States Supreme Court set aside those convictions. In 1961, a full four years prior to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, he managed the successful campaign of John Winters, who became the first African-American City Councilor in the City of Raleigh. After graduation from Shaw University, he attended the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta. While in Atlanta, he served as the executive vice-president of the Atlanta Chapter of the NAACP. It was in that capacity that Al would come into contact with one of the icons of the segregationist movement – Lester Maddox. Maddox owned a restaurant on Hemphill Avenue near the Georgia Tech campus called The Pickrick. Maddox made it clear that, despite President Johnson’s signing of the Civil Rights Act, he was not going to desegregate his restaurant. On August 11, 1964, Albert Sampson, Rev. Albert Dunn and Rev. Charles Wells arrived at The Pickrick and sought to enter and be served. Maddox ordered his African-American employees to block the entrance to the restaurant. Maddox then got into a verbal altercation with Sampson, calling him a Communist and clearly displaying, while never drawing, his holstered pistol. Maddox, who was ordered by the federal court to desegregate and had his stay of the order rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court, told the trio, “You dirty Communists will never get a piece of fried chicken here.” Through it all, Sampson and his associates maintained their decorum and commitment to nonviolence, and in deference to the precarious situation in which the African-American employees were placed, they did not push the issue and left the premises. The point was made for all to see as the incident was REV. DR. ALBERT R. SAMPSON widely covered by the media. Maddox would eventually sell the restaurant rather than desegregate. In 1966 while a member of the staff of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Sampson asked Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. if he would ordain him into the ministry. Dr. King agreed and now Rev. Albert Sampson became one of only three men so ordained by Dr. King. Rev. Sampson continued to work with Dr. King on initiatives throughout the nation. In Cleveland in 1967, he directed that city’s four-point program instituted by Dr. King to create jobs, improve police-community relations, organize tenants and encourage voter registration. As SCLC Project Director under Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he played an important role in the campaign for the election of Carl Stokes, the first black mayor of a major U.S. city, Cleveland, Ohio. The assassination of Dr. King in April of 1968 was a deep and personal blow to Rev. Sampson. He had lost a colleague, a friend, a mentor and a brother. He had been with him only 48 hours earlier. Even with the loss of Dr. King, Rev. Sampson knew that the struggle must continue. Within days, he was back to organizing the Poor People’s March on Washington, D.C. Then it was the garbage strike in Atlanta, where Rev. Sampson was left with the unenviable task of explaining the absence of Dr. King’s succesSAMPSON | SEE PAGE 20

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