Remembering Ada Jenkins and her legacy
By Kelsey Mevs and David Boraks
More than 40 people gathered for a panel discussion Oct. 24 delving into the life and legacy of Ada Jenkins (1882–1945), an African-American community leader who left a big mark on Davidson.
Jenkins is remembered for helping to build and lead Davidson’s colored school during segregation.
PODCAST
On the panel were Maragaret Kuras, Davidson Historical Society board member and researcher; Ruby Houston, alumna of the Ada Jenkins School and owner of Jenkins’ former house on Sloan Street; and Harold Rice, current CEO of the Ada Jenkins Center. Several other alumni in the audience—Valerie Graham, Nora Shipp Redfear, and Marvin Brandon—also reminisced on their time as students at the Ada Jenkins School.
Kuras shared her biographical research about Ada Jenkins. She was born Ada Ola Mitcham on March 15, 1882, in Conway County, Arkansas. She was the youngest of at least nine children born to Alfred and Elizabeth Mitcham. Kuras said the family had lived in York County, South Carolina, up until about a year or two before Ada's birth.
"Music and education were very important to the family. Ada's older brother, Scott, became a physician, and her youngest brother Wheeler became a professional musician. And of course, we know she became a teacher and principal," Kuras said.
Everyone who spoke touched on the immense impact Ada Jenkins and the school had on not only students, but on the entire Davidson community.
"This was not a woman that stayed in her office," Houston said. The Ada Jenkins School was a place of community support and offered education up till the 11th grade, afterschool extracurriculars, and even vaccinations.
The alumni all spoke fondly about the Ada Jenkins community. All were still able to name their elementary school teachers decades after graduating. Students at the Ada Jenkins School could not leave the building without becoming well rounded individuals, they said. For example, Redfear said she learned to play violin at the school, and recalled that she once played "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra.
Beginning with Ada Jenkins and continuing with later principals, including James O. Harris, the school emphasized discipline. Years later, students still remember Harris's infamous paddle used for corporal punishment and dubbed the "Board of Education."
Ada Jenkins School closed in 1966, when Mecklenburg County desegregated the schools. Students transferred to formerly white schools: Davidson Elementary School, J.M. Alexander Middle School in Huntersville and Torrence-Lytle High School in Huntersville.
Resident Amy Diamond asked Houston how the closing affected the community.
"It was very hurtful," Houston said. "And you had a sense of loss. It was one more thing to fight for. I feel like I'm a woman on Brewster Street. I think we all remember the movie ['The Women of Brewster Place'] with Oprah Winfrey pulling one brick at a time, trying to stabilize the force in the African American community because a piece of the rock was taken away.
"So for many years we had to fight to keep it, to become the place that it is today," she said.
Houston recalled how residents fought a proposal to turn it into a drug rehabilitation center.
After it closed, the school building housed community services and activities into the early 1990s. Then in 1998, it became a formal nonprofit under its current name, the Ada Jenkins Center.
The Ada Jenkins Center acquired the school building in 2017 from Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools.
Today, it houses a variety of social services programs, providing a food pantry and nutrition services, after school and other education programs, financial assistance, and home ownership training and support, among other things.
"Back in the day, the Ada Jenkins Center needed to be all things to everybody," said Harold Rice, the center's CEO. "Over the course of years, programs have come and gone, and that's based upon need, right? And so here we are in 2026. We no longer need to be all things to everybody. We can support other organizations in their mission. … We're still a hub."
Ada Jenkins' life
Kuras detailed the events of Ada Jenkins’ life leading up to the construction of the school, including her education at Clark University and work in Liberia. Sprinkled throughout were facts that made the crowd laugh, like the mention of Jenkins’ inheritance from her father: a heffer, an organ, and $10.
Her father, Alfred Mitcham, had been a free man of color, a master mason, a landowner, and a farmer. He died in 1900, when she was only 18.
While in college, Ada Mitcham met a seminary student named Albert G. Jenkins. They married in 1907. He became a church pastor, and they moved frequently, Kuras said. In the late 1920s, they moved to Charlotte, where Albert was pastor of Simpson Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church. That's when Ada Jenkins began teaching at the former Davidson Colored School, a wood-frame building on the site of the current brick building.
After Albert died in 1930, she moved to Davidson. Altogether, she taught and served as principal for 17½ years, Kuras said. A photo from 1929 shows Ada Jenkins with students in front of the old wood schoolhouse.
Kuras said by the 1930s, the old school house was in disrepair. Some accounts say it burned. but Kuras said she hasn't found any records of that. Ada Jenkins and PTA president Logan Houston (Ruby's grandfather) led an effort to raise money and build a new brick schoolhouse on the site. The new six-room school opened in 1937.
"Ada Jenkins was a strong presence in the running of the school and in the lives of the students. In addition to her other duties, she taught and played the piano and organ, and led the glee club," Kuras said.
Ada Jenkins passed away in January 1945. She and Albert are buried at Pinewood Cemetery, a historically black graveyard next to Elmwood Cemetery in Charlotte.
Houston said: "I light up every time I hear about Miss Ada Jenkins because there has never been a level of the highest respect for one African-American woman in North Mecklenburg and in this state, regarding education.
Related links
"Shared Stories: African Americans in North Mecklenburg, Volume 1," published in 2017 by Davidson College Archives and Special Collections. Edited by Jan Blodgett, Kapil Vasudev, and Loretta Wertheimer.
Historic survey report on Davidson Colored School/Ada Jenkins School, 2006, Charlotte Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission`
Comments