CHESTERTOWN — What’s being advertised as “The Final Curtsy” will return the spotlight to this summer’s hugely popular Legacy Day exhibit that showcased the Black debutantes of Kent County.
A special celebration of the “Pride Without Prejudice” display will be held on Saturday, Nov. 30 from 1 to 4 p.m. at Sumner Hall in downtown Chestertown.
Proceeds from the $20 admission will benefit Sumner Hall, one of only two African American Grand Army of the Republic buildings still standing in the United States.
The ticket price includes light fare, a complimentary beverage, lots of games, prizes and music.
For more information, contact exhibit curator Vanessa Isaacs Ringgold at 443-691-1543. She is the first vice president of Sumner Hall’s board of directors.
Tickets must be purchased in advance. See https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-final-curtsy-tickets-1078630395549?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
With sponsorship and support of Sumner Hall and Chesapeake Heartland: An African American Humanities Project, Ringgold, a 1971 debutante, took the lead in putting together the exhibit for the annual Legacy Day festivities in August.
The exhibit was a big draw, if not the biggest draw, to the 2024 edition of the annual event that celebrates the rich cultural heritage of Kent County’s African American community.
“The response was very positive,” Ringgold told The Evening Enterprise in a telephone interview last week.
“For many people in the white community, who didn’t know about this program, it was an eye-opening experience,” she said.
“From the African American perspective, it brings back good memories. … They know some of the people [debutantes and escorts].”
Overall, Ringgold said, “It’s been a joyful experience.”
“That’s why before taking the exhibit down, I wanted to do an event.”
The “Pride Without Prejudice” display tied into this year’s Legacy Day, which focused on the vital role that fraternal and service organizations played in fostering strength and solidarity within Kent County’s African American community for well over a century.
“The Elks lodge [near Rock Hall] was one of the honorees and cotillion balls was one of the major activities they participated in each year,” Ringgold noted.
Selection as a debutante to represent the Elks’ Bay City Lodge No. 1490 and Star Temple No. 1141 was a privilege bestowed upon outstanding young women during their senior year of high school, beginning before public schools in Kent County were fully integrated in 1967.
Criteria for selection as a debutante were not based on America’s standard definition of beauty, although all of the debutantes were indeed beautiful, according to one of the exhibit’s panels.
Instead, the selection focused on “their academic achievement, what they did in the community, their character and how they treated others,” Charlotte Potts, Star Temple’s Daughter Ruler for 10 years, told The Evening Enterprise.
Potts’ daughter Schree was a debutante in 1985 and her son Garvin Jr. was an escort.
Many of the local Black debutantes went on to college and to become professionals, making significant contributions in the workplace and in their communities, Ringgold and Potts said in separate interviews.
To that point, after graduating from Chestertown High School, Ringgold earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and a master’s degree in journalism from The Ohio State University. Her broad range of work experience has included public relations, which took her to New York and Chicago, children and family services, and as a right of way/relocation specialist.
She and her husband Alvin — who coincidentally was her cotillion escort — moved back “home” to Kent County in 2022.
Ringgold said she chose the title “Pride Without Prejudice” because “ you didn’t have to worry about bring judged, especially by the beauty criteria. It wasn’t a competition. It was celebrating your excellence. … You were there to represent your community, your organization, your parents. … We didn’t have to deal with any prejudice. We were all there as one.”
The first two debutantes were Sharon Jones, now deceased, and Cheryl Wilson Saunders, who were seniors at then-racially segregated Henry Highland Garnet High School in 1964.
Cheryl Saunders’ daughter Monique was a debutante in 1984.
Since 2016, Monique Saunders Patrick, whose degrees are from Howard University and the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, has been the chief operating officer of the CDC Foundation, which raises money to support the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Vanessa Ringgold said the last class of debutantes that she has been able to document was in 2008.
For many years, the Tri-State Elks’ annual cotillion was held at the Lord Baltimore Hotel, where Black debutantes were “presented to society,” as Terra Deaton ’77 recalled.
“I considered it an honor,” Deaton told The Evening Enterprise. “You got to meet young ladies from Delaware, other parts of Maryland and [Washington] D.C.”
She remembered going to Baltimore once a week — on a Saturday or a Sunday — for six weeks to learn etiquette, elegance, the waltz and how to pull off the all-important curtsy.
The debutantes wore formal white gowns.
“It was a lot like shopping for a wedding dress,” said Deaton, who purchased her gown at J.C. Penny and wore it only once.
The debutantes and their male escorts wore white gloves.
Deaton’s escort was Kent County High School classmate Sam Ringgold. In between their weekly trips to Baltimore, they practiced the waltz at the high school’s radio station WKHS.
Sam Ringgold, who also escorted Lorrie Johnson in 1975, remembered the cotillions to be “all about the girls.”
“We were just along for the ride,” he said.
To illustrate the high-achieving trajectory of many of the debutantes, it’s worth noting that Terra Deaton, who grew up in Washington Park, graduated as a music education major from Morgan State University before setting out on a 36 ½-year career with the FBI in its records division. She retired in 2020 and now lives in Suitland.
Deaton’s younger brothers were escorts — Ralph escorted Linda Hopkins in 1978 and Marlon escorted Myra Warren in 1982.
A decade later, Jana Anderson Carter’s experience was not unlike that of Terra Deaton: weekly trips to Baltimore for ballroom dance lessons with escort James Monty Berry — she drove — and searching for the “just right” formal white gown, which in her case was handmade by a friend.
And what about the fabled curtsy that everyone still seems to remember?
“You basically had to go all the way down to the floor in a big hoop skirt,” all by yourself, Carter said. “The escort was only there to extend his hand.”
Since graduating from Kent County High School in 1987, Carter has earned master’s degrees in project management and strategic communications from University of Maryland Global Campus. She is now the assistant director of sales and services for Visit Annapolis & Anne Arundel County.
When researching the history of the debutante program in Kent County, you will find continuity of community and family.
For example, Jana Carter’s father Dolson Anderson Jr. was the escort for Airlee Ringgold Johnson, then a student at Garnet High School in 1966. And Airlee Johnson is the sister of Sam Ringgold, a two-term escort.
The exhibit will remain up through the end of December.
The fully restored Sumner Hall is located at 206 South Queen St. in downtown Chestertown. It is open to the public every Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and on Sundays from 1 to 3 p.m.
Special arrangements to visit the museum at other times may be requested by phone (410-708-3321) or email (info@sumnerhall.org).
Any related posts will be listed here: