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Katherine "Kitty" Hill Wright

Page history last edited by gjsands@k12.carr.org 14 years, 6 months ago
Katherine "Kitty" Hill Wright
 You didn’t mess with Robert Moton!
 
I played Basketball.  I started my schooling in 1940.  My sister here (Charlotte) and [my other sister] used to tease me, because I had to attend school [at Robert Moton High] for 12 years, they only went 11.  When we got here, we had the equipment.  I was center forward on our basketball team. I loved it.
  
When we moved here, I wrote our Alma Mater.  (sings Alma Mater) 
  
[After graduation] I received the Valedictorian Scholarship, Senatorial.  I went to Morgan State College, where I majored in Music Ed until I realized that I didn’t want to teach.  I started to pick up electives with social studies and psychology.  I ended up being a social worker with the Baltimore City Department of Social Services for 35 years.
 
I loved [attending Robert Moton High].  I did have concerns and reservations about having to travel 12 miles everyday, and passing Taneytown High, and Westminster High.  I loved attending school.  I loved school

 

I did a little [writing and speaking].  In 1951, I wrote an essay entitled, “what America Means to Me”.  It was sponsored by the Westminster VFW.  I, at the age of 17, won first prize over the 17 year olds in Westminster High and the 17 year old at St. John’s Catholic High.

 
WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME
 
“AND THE THOUGHTS OF YOUTH”
What do Maryland teenagers really think of your country and mine? What does America mean to men and women of tomorrow?
The answers to those questions were practically supplied last week by three seventeen year old Carroll County girls.
 
They put their thoughts on paper and won prizes in the second annual Americanism contest sponsored by the Westminster Post, V. F. W.
First prize went to Catherine Hill of Taneytown, a student at Robert Moton High school. Second prize was awarded to Ellen Chambers of Westminster High school and daughter of Whittaier Chambers, a former courier for a Communist spy ring. Third prize was won by Helen Mitten of St. John’s Catholic high school.
 
Because the essays are interesting reading and because they reflect a phase of teenage life often over looked by adults, two of them are published today on the living in Maryland page. Ellen Chambers’ essay was published in last Wednesday’s edition of The Evening Sun.
 
Carroll County Teen-Agers Tell By: Catherine Hill
I was born in a small town somewhere in the United States of America, a town having population of approximately 2,802.
 
While I was small, little did I know of the greatest of the country which is our heritage. My world was made up of my family, friends, the church which I attended, the town in which I lived, and later the contacts which I made through the school I attended.
 
I can remember my first year in school. School for me was easy because I had always been, so my parents tell me, a rather studious child enjoying books even before I knew what was in them. Then too, I had been led to acquire a thirst for knowledge with the help of my older sisters who, by virtue of their age, had entered school before me.
 
Those were wondrous days when we boarded the bus for school in the morning, took a delightful ride through the countryside with the fields of snow-capped trees in the winter and the fresh budding foliage in the early spring.
 
Home For Evening Meal
On arriving at school I was greeted, along with the others, by a friendly teacher, who throughout the day acquainted us with the mysteries of the printed page. At the end of the day I would return home, there to be greeted by my mother who, in the warmth of the kitchen, would be preparing our evening meal. With my face pressed against the windowpane, I would watch for dad, because his arrival would herald the beginning of a pleasant evening at home.
 
Little did I realize that I, like many other children, was experiencing that which America has to give all her children – security. America, like many other countries, has made some mistakes. This is especially true when I think of the early days in the history of our country when thousands of my people were enslaved. But America has always been a country sensitive to injustice wherever it exists and willing to wipe out those injustices whenever and however necessary.
 
And so it was that the cause of the Negro was taken up by his fairer neighbor and the Constitution became a living example of the fact that all men are free to develop their capacities and abilities as God would have them do and so I am free to live, to work, to play, to grow in great land which is my heritage.
 
As an American I have a right to be proud. When I read about the beauties of far away places, the Taj Mahal in India, the Rock of Gibraltar, the white cliffs of Dover, the Notre Dame Cathedral of Paris, the beautiful bay of Rio de Janeiro, my thoughts wonder to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, Yellowstone National Park, the towering skyscrapers of New York’s Fifth Avenue, the graceful lines of the Washington Monument, the architectural beauty of the Lincoln Memorial, I swell with pride.
 
When I listen to some of the strains of our greatest music such as that by Chopin, Debussy, Wagner, and Mozart, I am reminded of Rodgers and Hart, Oscar Hammerstein, James Weldon Johnson, and George Gershwin. When I learn of Louis Pasteur, Madam Curie and their contribution to the field of science, I am reminded of our own Albert Einstein, George Washington Carver, and the famous Dr. Baer of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. In education, in literature, in engineering and in medicine, America has kept pace, and in some instances, exceeded the rest of the world. Why should I not be proud?
 
America is strong- strong in the belief that does not make it right; strong in belief that there is a God that rules the destinies of man. As in my early childhood, I was protected from the dangers by the protection of my beloved parents, so now I am in a broader sense by a country that seeks ways to take up the cause of the less fortunate.
 
I often wonder what might have been the story of America had not the Europeans come. I do not wish to belittle the American Indian; certainly he has made some contributions to our civilization. However, I want to point out that the vast resources of this land have been discovered and preserved through American Ingenuity. It has taken Ingenuity to discover that which America has to give in abundance. That much the Indians had done to some extent.
 
The genius lies in the realization that not only have we discovered, but also we have learned how to use, how to economize, how to substitute and how to preserve for posterity. Again I have a right to be proud. In another year I shall have attained the age of 21.
 
Why should that be important to me? To begin with, it will mean that under the careful guidance of my home, church, and my school, I have been exposed to the kind of training that will assist me in becoming a worthwhile citizen of my country.
 
I shall be ready for a career, for marriage, for all the responsibilities that life holds. But more than that, I shall be able to realize that great duty which is mine- to cast the ballot, to express my opinions on local, state, and national affairs, to hold political office, perhaps. In short, I will be able to live so that my life will be a concrete example of the pride which every American should feel. This is what America means to me.

 
View the video interview for Katherine "Kitty" Hill Wright at the Carroll County History Project website, "Carroll County - Through the Eyes of the Black Experience": http://carrollhistory.org/tebe.html
 
 

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