Aiken native remembered for her character

Web posted September 24, 2000

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By Greg Rickabaugh
South Carolina Bureau

Editor's note: Aiken was the first city in South Carolina to adopt the Character First program, a burgeoning movement to teach the value of good character.

Barbara Green, poet and educator from Aiken, says her mother taught her about character. SPECIAL

But decades before the program was created, schoolteachers in Aiken taught character education daily. In this story, The Augusta Chronicle takes a look at how an Aiken schoolteacher's character training shaped the life of a woman and her daughter.

Long before Aiken adopted the Character First program, years before the character billboards went up and generations before the mayor signed certificates to honor children of character, Mae McCarter Green was learning about character in a post-Civil War Aiken school.

The school's headmistress taught a long list of virtues daily at morning chapel.

Godliness. Reliability. Honesty. Thoroughness. Dedication.

These lessons helped reinforce the traits Mae and her five Aiken-born sisters were taught in the McCarter household.

Today, Mae's daughter, Barbara Marie Green of Chesapeake, Va., credits that character education in the Aiken school with the person she is today - a published poet, speaker, storyteller, educator and business woman.

``I was taught to make my own choices,'' said Ms. Green, 72. ``I was given the tools for making choices. When I have to make a decision, I use that as a foundation. The Schofield background and my mother's background in Aiken have a lot to do with my present decision-making and my ability to make decisions clearly.''

Molding character

Last year, Ms. Green moved farther south in Chesapeake, Va. While setting up her new home office, she hung a picture of her and her mother. The picture was taken in approximately 1935 when Barbara was 7.

The picture is significant because it was taken during the period in Ms. Green's life when her mother was carefully molding her character.

Ms. Green was born when her mother was 40 years old, making her a late-life baby. For that reason, Mae seemed aware that she might not survive for a long part of her daughter's life. Therefore, for her daughter to thrive without her, Mae gently but systematically taught her daughter the rules for a successful life.

It was during those moments after lunch, and after her reading from a children's Bible, that her mother would describe her time at Schofield Academy in Aiken. Mornings at Schofield began with chapel, led by the headmistress, Ms. Martha Schofield.

In addition to the daily prayer period, Mae told her daughter, Ms. Schofield would discuss character building with her students. Apparently, these sessions made quite an impression, because Ms. Green's mother seemed determined to pass them on.

A personal history

Mae McCarter was born in 1888 in the heart of Aiken, the eldest daughter of Emanuel McCarter, who was of Cherokee Indian, African-American and possibly Scottish heritage. His wife, Julia Grant McCarter, was also of Cherokee and African-American heritage.

Mae attended Schofield Academy in Aiken during Ms. Schofield's early tenure. The headmistress was one of the many Quakers who migrated south after the Civil War to educate the newly freed blacks.

In school, Ms. Schofield taught character training during morning chapel. For Mae, it was a re-enforcement of the ideals she learned at home as part of the McCarter household, a family with five daughters.

In school, one of the people who impressed Mae was a classmate named Quiller Harrison, the brightest student at Schofield. Once in class, Quiller would actively raise his hand, and, if called upon, give the correct answers to any and all questions posed.

``He apparently lived outside Aiken, as reportedly he would walk many, many miles daily to reach school. And he was never late,'' Ms. Green said.

Later in life, Quiller would wed Mae's sister, Mary.

But Mae herself would move away from Aiken with the character to make her dreams come true.

She not only would speak the beliefs that were instilled in her at home and at Schofield, she would live them. During the Depression and her daughter's elementary years, Mae was active in the Harlem, N.Y., community where they had moved.

At one point, Mae became president of her daughter's parent-teacher association at the local elementary school. When heavy traffic in front of the school endangered schoolchildren, Mae led the association to fight for a street closing. After a battle with the New York City Board of Aldermen, the group got its wish.

Mae had a soft voice, Ms. Green recalls. Yet, she was able to assert herself.

One of her goals was to assist the needy children in the school. So the parent-teacher association held a clothing bank. Mae also was able to persuade local optometrists to provide free or low-cost glasses for needy children.

These were the stories and character traits that molded Ms. Green.

``Had my mother not been born in Aiken and had she not attended Schofield and had she not had Emanuel and Julia Gant McCarter as parents, I would not have had the character training and surely not the stamina which I am blessed to have,'' Ms. Green said. ``My parents never told me that there wasn't anything that I couldn't learn. They gave me my wings.''

Her own Schofield

In a way, Ms. Green had her own Schofield. From her mother's teachings and her own schooling, she learned quickly that character was needed to accomplish the goals she had in life.

``I was taught to make my own choices, and I was given the tools for making those choices,'' Ms. Green said.

Born in Harlem in 1928, Ms. Green lived among many noted black professionals, performers and artists.

``They weren't just people we read about. We were able to see them as live images going about their daily routines,'' she said.

``It was basically a white area. We all lived very peaceably together. There were many people with visions and goals, and I was one of them.''

At 6 feet tall, she was expected to play basketball, but the teen-ager avoided athletics.

``I refused to be categorized,'' Ms. Green said. She preferred photography, collecting records, singing, dancing and her school work - anything but athletics.

Her first music teacher shaped more than her soprano voice. The teacher groomed the tall young girl to speak with authority and project a sense of ease and self-assurance.

After high school, Ms. Green attended Hunter College and City College of New York. She later taught English for nine years and was a supervisor for New York City schools for 21 years. Ms. Green, who never married, was also active in the National Association of Negro Musicians.

Before she began writing poetry in 1990, Ms. Green published a 12-page monthly newspaper in New York's Queens. Good News was begun in January 1985. The paper's motto came from Sophocles' ``None love the messenger who brings bad news.''

She loved to tell people that her newspaper did not publish any crime or violence.

``I started out putting a few quotations in the paper,'' Ms. Green said. ``After awhile I started putting in a poem or two. Eventually, I had a poetry page containing my work and poems sent in by readers.''

She closed the paper in 1992, saying she was too tired to continue publishing it. One of her board members suggested she publish a book of poetry. She placed an ad in her own paper and had money in hand before the book was even published.

And a poet was born

She published five books, but her success stories did not stop there.

In 1994, because of her achievements in journalism, the writer was inducted into the African-American Biographies Hall of Fame in Atlanta. Three years later, she was inducted into the Alumni Association of Hunter College Hall of Fame in New York City.

Mae had always wanted her daughter to succeed, Ms. Green said.

``She did not want me to be abrasive or unkind, but she wanted me to be able to stand on my own two feet,'' she said. ``She wanted me to be strong enough for this tough world, and, by George, I am.''

Back to Aiken

One of Mae's last wishes in life was to visit her hometown of Aiken. Ms. Green took her mother back in 1974.

Of course, much had changed since her last time there. But they did drive by city hall and the family church, Friendship Baptist Church.

``Mother showed me the side door of the church,'' Ms. Green said. ``There, her grandmother would take candies from her apron pocket. Then, she would give them to the children as they exited after Sunday school.''

They had a little difficulty locating the site of the old McCarter homestead. Mae assumed that it might have been the site of a new drive-in bank, but she wasn't sure since she had not been to Aiken since her daughter was born.

When Ms. Green drove her mother to Aiken, she did not know that her mother would die the following year.

``So I am very happy that we had that brief but wonderful trip to her hometown,'' Ms. Green said.

In her 1995 book Dreams and Memories, Ms. Green prints a picture of her and her mother, the same one that now hangs in her Chesapeake, Va., home in Virginia. Across from the picture in the book, a poem titled Who Am I memorializes her mother.

``If you really want to know who I am/ Then let me tell you/ That though I am in my sixth decade/ I remain in my heart and soul/ Mae McCarter Green's little daughter, Bobbye.''

Who Am I

(By Barbara Marie Green)

If you really want to know who I am

Then let me tell you

That though I am in my sixth decade

I remain in my heart and soul

Mae McCarter Green's little daughter

Bobbye

Seated in our rear Harlem apartment

In mother's cherry wood rocker

Which, unlike most,

Had a low semi-circled back

Which ended in beautifully carved ends.

As I'd clutch the ends

While seated upon the rose moire cushion

Mother had made,

I'd rock and dream

Of all the far off places I hoped to visit

And also of the famous person

I hoped to become.

Well, I have traveled much afar

And in some circles, I am well known,

Yet deep in my heart,

I still remain,

Mae McCarter Green's little daughter,

Bobbye

Reach Greg Rickabaugh at (803) 279-6895.

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