Homegrown scholarship program
MADISON — It started 36 years ago with a conversation at a church social over fried chicken and made-from-scratch homemade cakes.It has turned into partial college scholarships for more than 130 needy students from McMichael High School.
In 1970, Roman and Annie Martin’s 14 children created a scholarship as a way to honor their parents, poor African American tobacco farmers who lived east of Madison near Ball Hill Road. After their deaths, all 14 grown children — most of them with successful careers — opened a bank account with only $400, but each sibling vowed to contribute more.
Eight months later, the family gave out its first scholarship, $250 to a Gail Crutchfield, who graduated from what is now McMichael High School. Thirty-five years later, more than $47,000 has flowed to deserving students from that same bank account.
And it still comes almost entirely out of the pockets of the family, which has grown to include nearly two dozen grandchildren.The family awards four to six scholarships each year. Scholarship amounts range from $250 to $500.
For some, the money has meant they would be the first in their family to get a higher education. But for the Martin family, it has meant something else — a legacy.
“That’s uncommon for it to be awarded that long, especially since it is not endowed,” said Mike Magoon, associate vice-chancellor for development at N.C. A&T. Magoon handles fund raising for the college.
And now, the family is trying to do just that. Last weekend, family members started making plans for an endowment to raise even more money.
Six of the 14 children are still living. All six are women in their 70s, 80s and 90s. And they are looking at the endowment as a way to make sure the scholarship will exist long after they are gone.
During a five-hour meeting at the home of one of the grandchildren, each sister brought with her a three-ring notebook that serves as a sort of portable library of the family’s achievements.
In those black binders — some almost too full to close — the sisters have placed certificates, newspaper clippings, photos and papers containing the names and achievements of people their parents have helped — people their mom and dad never knew.
“If our parents were alive, I think they would be ecstatic,” said Lois Fears, 74, the youngest of the 14 children.
“Just think, as they would put it, the children of tobacco farmers had the insight and the concern for others to do this, and it has grown to this level,” she said. “For them to know that their children were at the foundation of it, I think that they would be beaming from ear to ear.”
Who were Roman and Annie Martin?
Roman and Annie Martin both grew up in Rockingham County. Together they had 16 children, two of whom died in infancy.
Roman Martin was a stern man, but he also provided structure to the family and love and support to his wife.
He made a living by growing tobacco on a 50-arce farm where some of his children and grandchildren still live.
Annie Martin was a teacher before she married. She worked in a one-room school in the Bethany area.
After marriage, she worked on the farm with her husband.
She was a smart and a determined woman.
“I remember other people used to bring their mail and important papers over so she could read and interpret it for them,” said Eudoxia Dalton, one of their 10 daughters.
Annie Martin was also outspoken, especially when it came to education. In 1947 — two years before her youngest child graduated from what was then the Madison Colored High School — she and several other families appeared before an all-white school board to demand that their children be given a bus route.
Annie Martin, the group’s spokeswoman, said that the black children were walking miles to school while the white students rode a much shorter distance to school on a bus.
“We had to walk four miles one way, and we walked past the white school to get to our school,” said her daughter, Lois Fears.
The next school year, Lois Fears, who Annie used to call her baby, rode the bus to school.
“They were really impressed with her because of how articulate she was and how well she expressed her idea with conviction,” Fears said.
The school bus battle was one of the last major fights that Annie Martin took on before dying in 1949.
Yet, on her death bed, she asked her husband and her other children to “make sure the baby goes to college,” Eudoxia Dalton said.
Lois Fears did. In fact, seven of the children went to college. Six became teachers. One became a principal of an Atlanta school, and one taught college in Virginia. Three of them have advanced degrees.
“That’s rare for that many from one family to go to college, especially during that time frame,” Magoon said. “Usually, only white families did that, and even then, a very small percentage of them did.”
But doing unique things is not unusual in the Martin family.
After all, the scholarship started with a conversation the family had one day while sitting under a tree at Hayes Chapel United Methodist Church in Bethany.
How it started
For years, the children and several other families would come home the first week in August to attend a community church revival. Several black churches in the area got together for a weeklong prayer vigil.
Though many of the Martin children moved away from the old homeplace, they always came back for the revival, which always included lots of food, singing, shouting and praying.
In 1970 — four years after their father had died and 21 years after their mother’s death — Gladys Martin McNatt, a daughter living in New Jersey at the time, said they should look for ways to help the community.
“We need to do something besides get together and eat fried chicken and homemade cakes,” she said.
Those words started the family thinking about what else they could do. Eventually, they envisioned a scholarship to honor their parents.
But they didn’t want to help the standout students at their old school, now named McMichael High.
“The ones who are at the top are going to get some kind of scholarship offer anyway,” Fears said.
So, the family wanted to help average students — those who showed potential and who had a desire for college but maybe not a lot of money. Students like themselves when they were growing up.
So, in October 1970, the family opened a $400 account at what was then Northwestern Bank. Each sibling promised to give $100 to the account. Though friends and some businesses have made donations, the account is still mostly funded by the family.
On average, about 15 to 20 students apply each year.
“I know people who I personally went to school with who benefited from that scholarship,” said Jean Bullins, who now works in the guidance counselor’s office at McMichael. “Even a few hundred dollars can help.”
Joe Webster, a 1972 recipient of the scholarship, agrees.
“I grew up on a farm, and I was one of eight children,” said Webster, a former N.C. associate attorney general who now serves as the city attorney for the town of Green Level in Alamance County.
“That scholarship really meant everything to me,” he said. “It was a source of encouragement. That scholarship just kind of helped me and motivated me to let me know that there were people out there who wanted me to achieve.”
Contact Cynthia Jeffries at 627-4881, Ext. 126, or cjeffries@news-record.com
