Few of Thelma Mothershed-Wair’s friends, former students and neighbors in East St. Louis knew about her monumental past.
At the time, they only knew Mothershed-Wair for her kindhearted spirit, love for cooking and passion for teaching the next generation of students from the 1970s until the mid-1990s in the East St. Louis School District 189.
It was not until years after she left the area that many former students and friends became aware of her historic contributions to push for equal rights in education for Black Americans during the civil rights era.
In the fall of 1957, Mothershed-Wair was one of nine students who integrated Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, three years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that segregation in schools was unconstitutional.
Mothershed-Wair, the eldest of the Little Rock Nine, died on Oct. 19 at 83. Her sister Gracie Davis confirmed to the Associated Press that she died in an Arkansas hospital after dealing with complications from multiple sclerosis.
“She did not let her past define who she was. She never, ever portrayed that to us. It was always, I'm kind, I'm loving, I'm humble,” Wyvetter Younge School of Excellence Principal Kim Jones-Riley said. “Some people are bitter. We never got that version of her … and we experienced what she wanted us to experience, and that was that motherly figure, not a person that was bitter because they went through racism.”
At 16, Mothershed-Wair and eight other African American students were met on Sept. 3, 1957, by an angry white mob that blocked them from entering the all-white Little Rock high school. White people were throwing objects, spitting on them and shouting threats to discourage the Black students from entering and attending school with white students. The Arkansas National Guard prevented the Black group from entering that day. Two weeks later, President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered federal troops to escort the students into the school.
In 2004, Mothershed-Wair said in an oral history video interview with the National Park Service that when the troops left the high school, students would taunt them, staff would not allow them to perform in class programs, and a white girl told the principal that Mothershed-Wair kicked her, though she did not.
Jones-Riley met the civil rights pioneer as a child through Jones-Riley’s mother, who was also a teacher in the East St. Louis district. She became close to Mothershed-Wair’s family because she was friends with her son. As children, they both were members of Jack and Jill of America Inc., a national African American leadership organization, where Jones-Riley began to become a bigger part of Mothershed-Wair’s life.
“My mother wasn't from here — she was from Mississippi — but we went everywhere with our mother, meetings, choir rehearsals, everything in church, and they had the same values because she (Mothershed-Wair) wasn't from here, either.”
Jones-Riley spent time at her home for sleepovers and gatherings with their families. She vividly remembers watching movies, playing games and going to Jack and Jill workshops with Mothershed-Wair.
“She was always really nurturing to us, and when you came over, you were told “go on in there and play and get your plate”,” she said. “It was just like you became a part of that family.”
Mothershed-Wair graduated from Southern Illinois University Carbondale and received a master’s degree from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. She worked in the East St. Louis school district from 1979 to 1994. She held positions as a home economics teacher and guidance counselor. and retired as a guidance coordinator from Wyvetter Younge School 9th Grade Center in 1994. She also worked as a guidance counselor at the St. Clair County Jail and Juvenile Detention Center.
Friends were important to Mothershed-Wair while in East St. Louis. She enjoyed cooking and sharing meals with her girlfriends and their children. She also made time to give back to the community through local organizations. In college, she became a member of the Black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha, and she served in the Delta Delta Omega chapter while working in East St. Louis.
Peggy LeCompte remembers hearing about a woman who was new to the area at the time who helped integrate public education, but LeCompte did not formally meet Mothershed-Wair until she found out that the civil rights icon was married to her former classmate. When they met, LeCompte and Mothershed bonded immediately. They worked in the same school, and their children belong to the Jack and Jill organization. However, their relationship became sisterly, after LeCompte invited her to join the East St. Louis AKA chapter.
“To most people, she was very, very quiet, but when we got together in our little girl groups, that was not necessarily so,” LeCompte said with a smile on her face during a Zoom interview.
During the civil rights era, many people including LeCompte were making names for themselves in their own enclaves by integrating swimming pools, restaurant counters or entertainment spaces. But LeCompte said Mothershed-Wair’s significance was different because of the way she carried herself after her experience.
“Some people, when they have titles like that and they're distinctive and historical, they act distinctive and historical and expect some special behavior, but she never did,” LeCompte said. “So a lot of people never did realize who she was and what she had done for us.”
LeCompte especially remembers Mothershed-Wair’s heart and how she set up a special anniversary evening for her because she could not cook.
“I was giving a party for my husband one time, and I was bemoaning the fact, I didn't really want to go to a restaurant. I wanted to surprise him,” LeCompte said. “She did everything. She had everything on the table. She fixed little cornish hens … and it was funny because when he came home, he said, ‘Oh, I know you didn't do this,’ but she said, ‘Oh yes, she did.’”
Many say Mothershed-Wair’s cooking skills and dishes were comforting and exquisite. Her former 8th grade home economics student, Lavella Horton said Mothershed-Wair taught her how to cook. Horton said she knew nothing about cooking until she took her class. She remembers burning something that she cooked while in Mothershed-Wair’s class, but she was not reprimanded for it, she instead learned a lesson.
Horton said she did not know about her past until she watched a documentary featuring Mothershed-Wair years later.
“In a way, I kind of wish I knew, but then I'm glad that I didn't know because you have a tendency to look at people a little differently once you do find out,” Horton said. “She never walked around showing what she went through.”
Although Mothershed-Wair was a quiet woman, she left an impression on many students in her class and those outside her classroom. Rhonda Jones saw her every day during junior high school because she took the home economics class right next door to Mothershed-Wair. Jones, who works in East St. Louis School District 189, said she was jealous of other students in Mothershed-Wair’s class because her class always seemed to have more fun than the class Jones attended.
“I don't recall ever learning how to cook. I don't recall we didn't do any sewing, but they were over there learning how to cook meals and sew,” she said. “I didn't get my sewing lesson until I was a junior in high school. I took up sewing then, but I wonder why I didn't do well because I didn't have the right teacher. I didn't have Mrs. Wair when I was at Rock Junior High School.”
