By Stephanie Lulay slulay@stmedianetwork.com February 5, 2012 6:52PM
AURORA — The emotional guy who was helped in hardest times, the once little girl who was shown forgiveness, the lady whose church gives turkeys to the food bank — they all knew Marie.
Everyone in the audience had a story to share about Aurora matriarch and community activist Marie Wilkinson on Saturday morning at Aurora’s Fire Museum.
Joan McDonald said that in the 40 years she knew her, Wilkinson often gave to her family in times of need.
“I just want to say thank you,” McDonald said Saturday.
Kris Fox-Kellogg, a Marie Wilkinson Food Pantry board member, said Wilkinson would often tell each person in a room she loved them.
“I thought it was cute, but she really meant it,” Fox-Kellogg said. “The whole theme of her life was love — never hating.”
Saturday’s program brought Susan Neaman to Aurora to discuss the 1949 court transcripts she found in the attic of her parent’s Cincinnati, Ohio, home.
The appellate court transcripts detailed Wilkinson’s lawsuit against Hart’s Drive-In, which she sued after she was refused indoor service by an employee in 1948.
Wilkinson was of African, French and Native American ancestry. Her friend, Bernice Christmas, described herself as about one-eighth black, but said she may have appeared to be White. This posed a problem for the Hart’s employee — to have two women of different races dining together.
Neaman’s mother testified in the case that an employee of Hart’s told her that a sign at the establishment meant they did not serve colored people inside. The judge overruled her testimony.
“She (Wilkinson) knew diversity was a strength, and not a bad thing,” Fox-Kellogg said. “She said, ‘You’re not going to serve me outside. Dogs eat outside.’”
The judge did not find Hart’s at fault, but did fine Norbert Finney, an employee, $25. Still the judge made a case that the women, both members of a civil rights organization, could have been inciting the incident.
Racism might not have been as blatant as in the South, but Fox-Kellogg said it did exist in Aurora. The court case took courage, she said.
“I remember my parents talking about Mexicans taking over Phillips Park. (White residents) would just refuse to be with them,” she said. Wilkinson later became instrumental in helping migrant workers bring a Spanish-speaking priest to Aurora so they could attend church and fundraising for civil rights leaders who had been arrested. Martin Luther King Jr. called, thanking her for her efforts.
“It was a risky time, but if she died, she believed it (would have been) for a good cause,” Fox-Kellogg said.
In her own words
Born in 1909, Wilkinson was born to teenage parents in New Orleans. She spent much of her childhood raised by grandparents and relatives.
On Saturday, Fox-Kellogg played excerpts from Wilkinson interviews that were recorded in the 1990s.
“I remember them talking, they said, we all have to pitch in. Whoever cooked, everybody shared,” Wilkinson said on the tape. She grew up in a big house and split a partitioned room with her brothers.
While Wilkinson “fell in love with Aurora at first sight,” she also was unaware that she would experience discrimination in the North. In 1932 she married Charlie, the son of a slave.
Makeshift pantry
Charlie Wilkinson became an active partner in Marie’s mission, Fox-Kellogg said. The couple had two children, Donald and Sheila.
“They had an agreement — whatever you have in life you should share,” she said.
Charlie built shelves in the basement of their house for food, and Marie’s house at 648 N. View St. became the house where you could go for help, Fox-Kellogg said.
Sheila remembered people coming to the porch to collect food. Marie would invite them in for dinner, Fox-Kellogg said.
Marie started a community food pantry in the 1950s, and it’s currently at 834 N. Highland Ave. The Marie Wilkinson Child Development Center is also dedicated to her memory.
“She thought, ‘We don’t judge. They may need food and we’re giving it them,’” said Diane Renner, director of the food pantry.
“That’s still the way it is. We don’t ask a lot of questions. We’re just here to serve.”
Forgiveness was also a common theme in Wilkinson’s life.
After they married, Charlie’s father gave Marie a whip. It was the whip the slave master used to beat him — he took it when he escaped, Fox-Kellogg said.
Marie often brought the whip when she spoke at schools, and the whip is at her side in the statue in front of the Aurora Public Library downtown.
“She saw it as a sign of forgiveness. He said the people who beat slaves just didn’t know any better,” Fox-Kellogg said.
Marie Wilkinson died in 2010. She was 101 years old.
Part of the Aurora’s Own series, the event was co-sponsored by the food pantry and the Aurora Public Library.
