THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 12, 1994 TAG: 9406120115
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940612 LENGTH: ELIZABETH CITY
Back then, he told City Council members this week, the county courthouse was about the only place a black boy could find a public restroom. He and his friends used to stop by the historic building, reading the names of the 1882 Pasquotank County commissioners etched carefully into the floor.
{REST} They could read all but one - a name that had been chiseled out, rumor had it, by racists who discovered the commissioner had been a black man.
Hugh Cale.
``It sort of bothered me,'' said Wright, who first learned of Cale through a friend's father. ``And I began to wonder about that thing.''
Wright's curiosity turned into admiration for Cale, whom many place among the county's grandest historic figures. And last month state officials granted Wright's request for a historical marker near Cale's gravesite.
The marker, the 11th to be placed in Pasquotank County since the state program began in 1936, will be dedicated in September at the corner of Road Street and the thoroughfare bearing Cale's name.
The striking cast-aluminum sign will introduce to some and reaffirm for others the life of a man whose contributions have started thousands of other lives on the right track.
Cale, a county commissioner, Republican state legislator, and founder of present-day Elizabeth City State University, is recognized as a pioneer in opening education to blacks in northeastern North Carolina.
His 1891 bill establishing the Elizabeth City State Colored Normal School to train black teachers has earned him a modern-day credit as founding father of ECSU, now one of 16 schools in the University of North Carolina system.
Cale's name flashes prominently across numerous signposts in the southeastern part of the city, on a street, on a former public school, a community center, a scholarship fund and a college dormitory.
He is remembered every year at ECSU's Founders Day ceremony, when university officials visit Oak Grove Cemetery to lay wreaths at the graves of Cale and two early college presidents.
But Wright said the annual service ``just wasn't enough.''
``We have lost a lot of our history by nobody ever recording anything,'' Wright said, lamenting how little he knows of his father, who died just before Wright was born in 1919.
``It's not for people now. It's for people in generations to come. It's for the future.''
Wright's concern for preserving history is evident in the decor and content of his aging three-story home on South Road Street.
``You ever seen such a mess?'' he said recently, rooting through a pile of photo albums and envelopes for just the right artifact to match his thoughts.
His living room is lined with photos of family members: grandparents, mother, son, daughter, grandchildren. Some pictures are a few years old. Some decades. Some rest on a 65-year-old stand-up radio that still plays.
A side room is cluttered with mementoes and old movie equipment Wright has collected in years as an audio-visual expert.
Born and raised in Elizabeth City, Wright earned an associate's degree in industrial arts from Temple University in Philadelphia in 1941.
He served as a civilian testing Navy ships during World War II, worked for the Carolina Amusement Co. and managed the Gaiety movie theater, and spent nearly 20 years in audio-visual work for Elizabeth City-Pasquotank County Public Schools before retiring in 1984.
Other feathers in Wright's cap include service as a volunteer firefighterand membership on the Museum of the Albemarle's Board of Trustees.
Wright currently coordinates public relations for the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in northeastern North Carolina. His home church, Mount Lebanon A.M.E. Zion, was also Cale's.
Hugh Cale's life has captured the imagination of more than just Wright. Much of the application work for the state marker was done by ECSU Archivist Leonard R. Ballou, who is still tinkering with a 500-page manuscript about Cale that he started years ago.
``I was really impressed with this gentleman's track record,'' said Ballou, who came to ECSU as a music teacher in 1962.
``I think he accomplished a great deal for his time and place.
``I'm glad Mr. Wright thought of the idea and did something about it, rolled up his sleeves and really worked.''
Wright was congratulated this week by the Elizabeth City Council and other local residents, who said it was about time Cale received wider recognition.
``I think it's way past due,'' said Shirley Simpson, who directs the Hugh Cale Community Center.
``We're really proud to have that done.''
by CNB