The Hillsboro Health Club and its community center, 1945–1947

In the chronology

Events in this storyline, in date order. See these 6 dated events in the chronology →

1. May 1, 1945 Black citizens of Hillsboro organize a health committee with Roosevelt Warner as chairman At a meeting with county health department leaders at the Hillsboro high school for Black students, local parents and teachers organized to improve health conditions, electing Roosevelt Warner chairman and Mrs. William Alston co-chairman and naming district leaders to help them. The effort grew out of a faculty health committee at the school. A News account that August, written up for visiting University of Virginia researchers, put the founding mass meeting of the Health Club in the first week of May 1944, and said its districts followed the ones laid out for Red Cross work.Search the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), May 10, 1945, p. 5 · Also: The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), August 2, 1945, p. 1
2. July 25, 1945 University of Virginia researchers study Hillsboro's Black health club for a book Dr. and Mrs. Jesse Ogden of the University of Virginia extension service spent July 25 in Hillsboro gathering material on its Black Health Club, one of some sixty community programs they were studying for a book to be published by Harpers. They toured the club's districts, talked with public health nurse Evelyn Burke and health educator Helen Wilson, and met the club's planning committee at the library for Black readers. Dr. Ogden said Hillsboro's was the only program they had seen in the region with such deep roots and long planning. People: Roosevelt Warner, A. L. StanbackSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), August 2, 1945, p. 1
3. November 1945 to February 1946 The Health Club of Hillsboro, led by Roosevelt Warner, turns the old Community Hall into a community center By November 1945 the Health Club of Hillsboro, under Roosevelt Warner, was restoring the old Odd Fellows Hall as a community center, and in February 1946 the News of Orange County reported the old Community Hall being made into a community center under the club's sponsorship. The Youth Club held a Valentine dance in the hall on February 14.Search the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), February 21, 1946, p. 3 · Also: The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), November 22, 1945, p. 5
4. March 22, 1946 Hillsboro's Health Club honors returning Black veterans with a banquet Roosevelt Warner's Health Club gave a banquet for returning Black servicemen and their mothers at the Odd Fellows Hall, decorated by its Youth Club and served by Boy Scouts under A. L. Stanback. Ticket sales, backed by Hillsboro merchants, doctors and the sheriff, went toward remodeling the old Odd Fellows Hall for supervised recreation. People: Roosevelt Warner, A. L. StanbackSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), March 28, 1946, p. 5
5. by April 11, 1946 Hillsboro's Black library moves into the Community Center The county library for Black readers in Hillsboro moved from the corner of Churton Street and Highway 70 into the Community Center, the old Odd Fellows Hall, where it would have more room for leisure reading. Its volunteer workers had brought back more than 200 juvenile books from the state library commission in February.The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), April 11, 1946, p. 5
6. by October 16, 1947 Agnes Johnson Whitted runs a kindergarten in Hillsborough's Black community center The paper's column on Hillsboro's Black community praised Mrs. Agnes Johnson Whitted for the kindergarten she taught in the Community Center building, with a dozen children enrolled. She had taught in Orange and Alamance counties and in Maryland.Search the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), October 16, 1947, p. 4