.............Winifred
Wrisley
Winifred Wrisley is a
deaconess who taught at Allen High School, a church-related
school for African-American Girls in Asheville, North Carolina.
Winnie taught music at Allen High School, and at Harwood School
in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She also served as a part-time local
pastor in Vermont.
The school year was 1959. With school integration problems
tearing local communities apart we at Allen High School found
ourselves close by and involved in a nearby community. High
school African-American girls from that community long ago had
discovered Allen as a boarding school meeting their family needs.
At the opening of the 1959 school year matters there came to a
head and a boycott by the black community meant that alternative
schools must be found. With strength from families in the
community, guidance from the American Friends Service Committee,
and growing support all over the country, we at Allen found that
our resources, too, could be used. These included taking in all
the high school aged students, including four teen-age boys, into
our all-female school. I particularly remember that they decided
to elect as their extra-curricular activity the glee club--about
forty girls and four boys. A challenge for the music teacher!
The following year tension subsided, the community moved ahead in
good faith, and the four boys, as I remember, joined the student
body at Asheville’s public white school, and found the
school needed them especially on the basketball squad.