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M.J. & Kathryn Woods and the quest for racial justice in Cobb
By Thomas A. Scott, PhD.
professor of history, Kennesaw State University
In the age of segregation before the 1960s, the Marietta and Cobb County school districts maintained separate
schools for blacks and whites. Until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that such systems were
unconstitutional, Southern school boards operated under a legal fiction that schools could be separate as long
as they were equal. But everyone knew they were clearly unequal. Cobb County never built a black high school.
Instead, it chose to pay tuition for any interested African American youth who wanted to journey into Marietta
to go to school. When the Marietta district began in 1892, the city fathers built two school buildings, a
fine brick structure on Waterman Street for whites and a wood frame facility on Lemon Street for blacks.
Both were designed to house about 500 students. In the early 20th century, the city added two new structures
for white pupils: the Haynes Street School (later called Keith School) in 1913 and Marietta High School on
Winn Street in 1924. The old Lemon Street School never had indoor plumbing. It deteriorated over the years
and by the 1940s had become a firetrap. Finally, the city built a safe brick building in 1950. That facility
now houses the Hattie Wilson Branch Public Library.
The movement to create a black high school in Marietta was spearheaded by Spelman College graduate Ursula
Jenkins. She found an abandoned church on Harold Street that the all-white Board of Education agreed to
rent and restore. Consequently, the two-room school opened in 1925 for about 20 students in the seventh and
eighth grades. The first two teachers, Ursula Jenkins and Catherine Crittenden, taught a curriculum that
included algebra, chemistry, English, history and home economics. At the end of the year, Marietta schools
superintendent Claude A. Keith reported the experiment had gone well and that a ninth grade would be added
in the fall. He called upon the school board to provide a better building whenever funds were available.
In 1929, Professor M.J. Woods arrived to serve as principal of the elementary and high school, now containing the full complement of grades. A graduate of Georgia State College in Savannah (now known as Savannah State University), Professor Woods joined Ursula Jenkins at Harold Street High School, while Catherine Crittenden went to the elementary school. Two years later, the Rosenwald Fund provided a grant that enabled the city to construct a brick four-room high school building on Lemon Street, across from the elementary school. That structure would last until a more modern edifice was constructed in the early 1960s. It was originally called Marietta Industrial High School, then Perkinson High School and, after 1947, Lemon Street High School. In 1931, Woods coached the first football team to a record of seven wins and one tie. Under his leadership, the school soon included a band and an active PTA. Gradually, the programs and curricula expanded. By the time Woods left the school in 1962, Lemon Street High was fully accredited.
Meanwhile Woods’ wife, Kathryn Roberson Woods, exhibited a remarkable lifelong commitment to children, education and civil rights. A one-time school teacher, Mrs. Woods was the heart and soul of the civil rights movement in Cobb County. Born in 1908, she organized the Cobb County Council of Colored Parents and Teachers and served as its president in the 1930s. Later, she served two terms as national membership chair of the National Association of Colored Parents and Teachers. As a community activist she forged a Marietta alliance with Atlanta’s Butler Street YMCA and in 1944 helped persuade Marietta’s leadership to build a public swimming pool for black youth. A member of Cole Street Baptist Church, she became in 1962 the first African-American member of Cobb County Church Women United. A decade later she served as president of that organization and in 1980 was named its Valiant Woman of the Year. Woods’ work in the field of civil rights included many years of service as a member of the Cobb NAACP and as chairwoman of the Cobb chapter of the Georgia Human Relations Council.
In the mid-1960s, she tried to register for a ceramics class at the Cobb County Young Women’s Christian Association, shortly after the “Y” moved to a new facility in Marietta on Henderson Street. The woman at the desk became flustered and stammered that the YWCA did not accept women of color. A person of great dignity, Woods exclaimed, “And you call yourself a Christian organization!” Then she walked out. The incident did not reflect the views of the board or executive director Monte Whitaker. The YWCA had been active in Cobb County since 1917. When the Henderson Street building opened in 1965, it boasted the county’s first public indoor swimming pool. The mission of the “Y” was to help women become more self-sufficient and to promote peace and justice. The next day Mrs. Woods received a call, asking her to come back. Shortly after, the organization asked her to serve on the board. Thus, the “Y” became integrated. Through her board membership she helped to organize the biracial Women to Serve All People, which recruited low-income girls to participate without charge in YWCA programs.
The Georgia Council of Human Relations was one of the first groups in Cobb County where blacks and whites worked together on a basis of equality. As black and white members labored for integration, they developed strong friendships. Woods was a forceful leader with the self-esteem to go wherever she needed to go. Of her many honors, perhaps the most prestigious was a 1981 WXIA-TV Atlanta community service award. Mrs. Woods died in 1987 and Professor Woods in 1992, but their legacy lives on in their lifetime of service for all the people of Cobb County.
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