Dr. Beverly Eagle Rogers and her Great-Aunt, Mrs. Cora Jones “Boot” McLeod in 2021.Picture courtesy of Dr. Beverly Eagle Rogers
A new book details the life of Cora Jones “Boot” McLeod, who passed away on August 7, 2022 at the age of 104. Her great-niece, Dr. Beverly Eagle Rogers, cared for her frequently over the last four years and was inspired to write down the stories Mrs. McLeod shared. The resulting book, A Century + of Living: The Autobiography of Cora Jones Boot McLeod, is by turns moving and instructive. Mrs. McLeod was born in 1918, and lived through many landmark experiences that southern African Americans had in the 20th century. At the same, of course, she was a unique individual. As readers of the book will learn, Mrs. McLeod was a giving person, a devout Christian, and a business leader in the historic Hayti community of Durham, NC.
Born in 1918 in a rural section of Wake County, NC, Mrs. McLeod was the fourteenth of fifteen children. Her father, Junious Jones, was a farmer and a Baptist minister who preached throughout Wake County. Her mother, Olivia Young Jones, was a skilled seamstress who kept her children well dressed in clothing she made by hand. On Sundays, the whole family would follow Rev. Jones to wherever he was preaching.
While growing up on the farm, Mrs. McLeod relished working and playing outdoors. She recalls that early in her life she asked a neighbor to cut her hair short. About this episode, and about her nickname, Mrs. McLeod says in the book:
All my life, as far as I can remember, I was called ‘Boot.’ Aunt Cora, Papa’s sister, named me Cora. She had a daughter named Cora and her husband’s brother’s child was named Cora Lee.I never heard a story, nor was told where the name ‘Boot’ came from or how it got to stick on me. That Sunday, I sat in Pet’s chair and all my long, nappy,thick hair was spread out across the floor. My new hair style was shaped like a bob cut. Then, folks called me, ‘Boy Boot.’
The children of a large family are necessarily spread over years, even decades, and this was the case with the Jones family. One of Mrs. McLeod’s brothers, Leroy, was born in 1896 and played a role in presidential history. He served in WW I, and returned home in 1918 just in time to meet his new baby sister. Later, he became a valet to future president Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), who had been stricken with paralysis due to polio. Biographer Jean Edward Smith, in the best-selling book FDR (Random House, 2007), notes that in the winter of 1924, Franklin Delano Roosevelt sought the warmth of Florida waters in a houseboat. Of Leroy Jones, Smith writes:
Franklin was accompanied on that first voyage by his Negro valet, LeRoy Jones... Jones played a vital but unsung role in FDR’s life. He woke him in the morning, bathed him, dressed him, and took care of his most basic needs—a gentle caregiver without whom Roosevelt could not have functioned.
Leroy, as eldest son of the Jones family, sent home a phonograph and other “fancy items” that must have excited the imagination of his young sister. Perhaps his sophistication and travels planted the seeds that would later grow into her idea to become a business owner, and to enjoy city life in Durham, NC.
Dr. Rogers says that Mrs. McLeod also valued education highly. In a telephone interview on 8/24/22, Dr. Rogers stated: “My great-aunt valued education…she always promoted lifelong learning, whether it was a skill, or another degree.” Mrs. McLeod’s love of learning began at a school held in her family’s home church, Jones Chapel (named for her father). She attended as part of the “too young” group there, children who were too young to be enrolled in the first grade, but who attended nonetheless while their parents worked in the fields. Two teachers at Jones Chapel taught grades one through six (note: universal kindergarten wasn’t available in North Carolina until 1977). At Jones Chapel she learned her alphabet and numbers.
This close association between education and the Jones home church represents the strong historic connection between African American churches and schools. Prior to 1917, many African American schools doubled as learning spaces. Then, as African American communities raised funds for school building in the late 1910s and throughout the 1920s, congregations often played key roles in the construction of purpose-built schools. Most often, these buildings were only made possible because of the double taxation that the communities imposed upon themselves: African American families paid their taxes, then usually had to raise funds again to obtain schools for their children (Anderson, The Education of the Blacks in the South, 1860-1935). Consequently, one often finds Rosenwald schools and other historic African American schools near African American churches.
Mrs. McLeod next attended the Knightdale Rosenwald School, which was completed in 1921 after community members paid their taxes, then donated another $1,073 (the equivalent of $17,760 in today’s dollars). The Rosenwald Fund, inspired by Booker T. Washington and funded by philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, contributed $800, along with plans for the school. The school board also spent $2,195 to build the two-teacher school. The Knightdale Rosenwald School was a two-teacher school that had two large classrooms and, as was the case for all rural Rosenwald schools, a smaller space labeled as an “industrial room.”
While some scholars interpret the industrial rooms on the Rosenwald plans as an indication that African American children were being educated only for manual labor, it’s important to note that during the segregation era, all North Carolina schools followed the same core curriculum. In 1926, Nathan Carter Newbold, North Carolina’s Director of the Division of Negro Education from 1920-1950 , stated that the curriculum was the same liberal arts curriculum for all schools. (Hoffshcwelle, The Rosenwald Schools of the American South). In addition, no funds were ever allocated by North Carolina for industrial education at the elementary level.
More importantly, African American teachers and principals did not convey the message that their students should embrace limited aspirations. In the book Their Highest Potential, historian Dr. Vanessa Siddle Walker details how African American teachers in segregation era schools nurtured their students and produced many accomplished professionals. In documentaries that focus on oral histories of Rosenwald schools, former teachers and alumni consistently state that teachers in Rosenwald schools had high expectations for students, and encouraged their best students to attend college.
About her first impressions of the Knightdale Rosenwald School, Mrs. McLeod recalled joyful thoughts, as well as the hardship caused by a segregated school system that did not provide transportation for African American students:
My first day at the Rosenwald School is etched in my memory for always. I enjoyed meeting my new classmates. All the students were excited about our new school. Meeting my teacher filled my heart with joy. Ms. Candace had a pleasant face and a bright, sunny smile. I was glad to be a part of history and didn’t even know that I was. We were all ready to learn and grow and make our parents proud. [But] The five (5) mile walk to school took a toll on me.
The Jones family moved to Durham when Mrs. McLeod was 13. She recounts the family’s struggles during the Depression, as well as her determination to make her own way. It would eventually lead her to enroll in beauty school after she had married her lifelong love, James Frank “Buster” McLeod, and became a mother at the age of 17. Dr. Rogers says that, of all the stories her great-aunt shared, the one that stands out the most to her is how her great-aunt decided to gain more independence by attending beauty school.
In Mrs. McLeod’s words, that experience didn’t just teach her new skills, it changed her outlook:
I graduated from DeShazor’s Beauty College in August 1943…Attending DeShazor’s Beauty College changed my viewpoint on life. I had not been exposed to successful Negro women running their own businesses and making financial decisions.
After working for a dozen years in a salon owned by someone else, Mrs. McLeod decided to join the ranks of business owners in Durham’s historic Hayti district by opening her Tip Top Beauty Salon in 1955. She rented shop space with two friends, and recounts her excitement:
Tip Top Beauty Salon was something extra special! We carried the great chemistry over to our salon. We shared the leadership roles, and made business decisions together.
Although Tip Top was very successful, Mrs. McLeod could not protect it from urban renewal and highway building, larger forces that ultimately destroyed the Hayti district in the mid 1960s. Prior to that, Hayti was a vibrant, self-sufficient community and business district, as illustrated in the film Negro Durham Marches On (a 1948 film by Don Parrisher commissioned by the Durham Business and Professional Chain). Although she and other business owners in Hayti were promised that urban renewal would benefit them, Mrs. McLeod was skeptical:
We received letters at the beauty shop about plenty of meetings set to hear and understand what was about to happen. Negro leaders were told that the buildings and houses would be torn down and with the money furnished from the government, they would be rebuilt and replaced. Even Mr. Lehman reassured us that when the urban renewal was completed and the community was reestablished, we would still be able to have our Tip Top Beauty Salon. I listened at meeting after meeting and deep within, I didn’t feel comfortable with what I was hearing and what was happening.
As the changes unfolded, Mrs. McLeod’s fears were vindicated. Many homes in the Hayti district were torn down and never rebuilt. The Durham Freeway tore through the center of the district, further damaging businesses that relied on local residents and foot traffic. In February, 2021, an NBC Channel 11 Eyewitness news story reported:
It was really the installation of that highway that decimated the community. And it was never the same," said Angela Lee, executive director of Hayti Heritage Center, the nonprofit cultural arts and arts education group that operates in one of Hayti's oldest original structures, St. Joseph's AME Church. The church was once the center of Hayti on Fayetteville Street. Now, it's all that's left of old Hayti -- steps away from a highway exit.
They bulldozed a lot of the homes and put up apartments. Some of the businesses either returned, relocated, reinvented themselves or were altogether gone," Lee said of the years-long freeway construction project which ended with the freeway becoming a barrier through the center [of] Hayti.
Not to be defeated even by these overwhelming forces, Mrs. McLeod opened a beauty shop in her own home called McLeod’s Beauty Nook. She operated this business for 50 years, from 1965 to 2015. Along the way, she mentored and advised many young women.
Mrs. McLeod’s faith was a pillar for her entire life, and she attended Mt. Vernon Baptist Church up until two months before her death. As a church leader she was active in many programs, and Dr. Rogers commented that “she was such an influencer in her family, her community, her church.” Dr. Rogers notes that her great-aunt was also a loving mother who decided not to have a large family, but to focus her love and parenting on her two children (and on the two grandchildren that she would later raise).
I was fortunate to speak with Mrs. McLeod on several occasions, and was honored to be asked to write the foreword for the book. The story of Cora Jones “Boot” McLeod's life is far too rich and complex to capture in one article, but her fascinating book A Century + of Living: The Autobiography of Cora Jones Boot McLeod is available from Amazon and other online bookstores. When asked what inspiration she hopes others will take away from reading the stories, Dr. Rogers encourages people to ask their elder relatives questions, and that she hopes they will “find some kind of connection to your history, because your history makes you who you are.”
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