Former activist, educatorAlice R. Calloway dies

By: Jeremy Slayton | Richmond Times-Dispatch
Published: September 28, 2009

Alice Reid Calloway was a reserved, soft-spoken woman. At the same time, she had no trouble standing up in opposition of injustice.

"At times, when it was necessary, she was assertive in a way that commanded your attention," said longtime friend Thomasina T. Binga. "When she felt very strongly about an issue, she certainly could address it with aplomb."

Mrs. Calloway, a retired educator who grew up in Jackson Ward next door to Maggie L. Walker, the first black woman to charter a bank in the U.S., died Friday at her Westminster Canterbury residence. She was 94.

Mrs. Calloway was a trailblazer in her own right as she helped desegregate Richmond during the civil-rights movement. Her efforts for integration began during the summer of 1932 as a 14-year-old, in the midst of the Great Depression.

She was a founding member of Girl Scout Troop 34, the first black group south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Richmond, at the time, became the first city in the South to offer a Scouting program to African-American girls.

In a 1997 Richmond Times-Dispatch interview, Mrs. Calloway said: "But we didn't feel like we were under a microscope. We really didn't have any idea we were changing history. We wanted to do well and have fun."

Mrs. Calloway, who taught sociology at Bennett College in Greensboro, N.C., and later at Virginia Union University, was the second black woman to serve on the Richmond School Board. She was appointed in 1969 by the City Council.

At that time, she noted her desire to improve the city's educational system. However, her activism in city schools started before her 10-year stint on the School Board.

During the late 1950s, she and her husband, the late Dr. William C. Calloway Sr., were among a group of black parents who refused to sign pupil placement forms that would have left their son Wallace in the all-black Norrell Elementary School in the wake of Massive Resistance to integrated public schools.

"If we had signed the forms, it would have allowed the schools to stay segregated," Mrs. Calloway said in a 2006 Times-Dispatch interview.

In 1960, Mrs. Calloway and her husband were plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit aimed at allowing their children to enter the all-white Chandler Junior High School. Neither of the Calloways' sons attended an integrated Richmond public school, but the family's actions helped pave the way for other black children to do so.

Mrs. Calloway's involvement in the community extended beyond education. She helped organize pickets and boycotts to integrate downtown Richmond department stores. She was a member of the Richmond Crusade for Voters and was a former commissioner of the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority.

She also was a charter member of the Beta Epsilon Chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority at Virginia Union University, from which she graduated in 1939. She earned her master's in sociology from Fisk University in Nashville.

Mrs. Calloway was an avid reader and maintained an extensive library. She traveled around the world with her husband and often remarked in later years that "she had been everywhere and seen it all," Binga said.

Her sons preceded her in death: William Christian Calloway Jr. in 2000 and Wallace Reid Calloway in 1983. Her survivors include a brother, Dr. William Ferguson Reid of Glen Allen; and two grandchildren.

A funeral will be held Tuesday at 11 a.m. at St. Philip's Episcopal Church, 2900 Hanes Ave.

Contact Jeremy Slayton at (804) 649-6861 or jslayton@timesdispatch.com.