Kinston woman hopes her struggles will help new generation

KINSTON, N.C. - For the younger generation, it's hard to imagine what it was like to live in the south during the time of segregation.
    
For the older generation that lived through it, time has healed some wounds, but other wounds may never heal.
    
One area woman hopes her struggles will help this new generation get on the right path.

At 82, Annie Whitehead lives in a different world than the one she grew up in.
    
Back in the 50's and 60's she was on the forefront of the civil rights movement in Kinston.

“It was terrible, it was a bad feeling, it felt like you wasn't even a human being.  But to tell you the truth, they didn't think we were,” said Annie Whitehead, civil rights leader.
    
She says back then the town was divided; whites here and colored people there.
    
“We had the nobodies, which was the group I was in,” said Whitehead.

She became a leader of the NAACP's youth council, where, following on the footsteps of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., they peacefully picketed businesses that didn't hire black people.
    
“After we started killing their business, then they began to want to negotiate and talk with us,” said Whitehead.
    
Mrs. Whitehead helped found the Volunteer Housewives Association, which helped forge the way for equality. She says they were key in helping to educate and get people registered to vote.
    
They now had the power to have their voices heard and opinions counted.
    
This road to equality wasn't an easy one.
    
“As we were out there doing these things it was real dangerous because we got threats, we got phone calls, whatever,” said Whitehead. “But they never did any harm to us because we had the faith of God with us. When I talk about it, it just hurt me so bad it almost brings me to tears what we went through.”
    
For Whitehead, those tears continue today.
   
“The struggle was so hard and to look at Kinston now it hurts me, it hurts me to my heart,” said Whitehead. “When I look at what's happening now, those children with those baggy pants, those children out there in gangs and all of this stuff.”
    
Just like back then, Whitehead's desire to help is still evident.
    
“Train people to help themselves and Kinston would be a much larger, you wouldn't hear of all this crime and all this stuff going,” said Whitehead. “Each one of us owes something to society in the community where we live.”
    
And now looking back on it all, she said, “It was rewarding. I learned a lot, a lot of experience. I went through a lot of danger, but I didn't get harmed and I would say that it was a wonderful life and one that I would like to share with the younger generation.”

Whitehead also had a radio show in Kinston and was appointed to the North Carolina Board of Health's Advisory Committee for Medical Assistance by Governor Bob Scott.

She served for two three year terms.