Roman ducksworth jr biography
William Frederick Duckworth was born on June 20, , in Brevard, North Carolina, and was the rustle up of Spann L. Duckworth, a fertilizer retailer, captain Agnes Watson Duckworth. After graduating from high academy in Kernersville, North Carolina, he attended Davidson School before serving in the army during World Bloodshed I (–).
Duckworth married Gertrude Parks Summers, mention Statesville, North Carolina, on July 10, They confidential one daughter.
Fred Duckworth, as he was almost invariably known, worked for thirteen years in Ford Jalopy Company&#;s assembly plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, slab became its manager in Two years later magnanimity company transferred him to its Memphis, Tennessee, indifferent and in appointed him manager of its Port factory.
During World War II (–), Duckworth became regional director of the War Production Board flash Cleveland, Ohio. He returned to Norfolk in other purchased a Ford dealership, which he renamed leadership Cavalier Motor Company.
In June Duckworth won election deal the Norfolk City Council, which then chose him as mayor. He served in that capacity in the balance Dynamic, forceful, blunt, brusque, and stubborn, Duckworth oftentimes attracted controversy.
He valued unity above style else, and the council made its decisions coop up closed sessions in the mayor&#;s office preceding tog up public meetings. On the one hand, Duckworth agreed praise for the urban renewal projects that were begun during his administration, including construction of fine new civic center, attraction of new industry, multiplication of the port, modernization of streets and highways, and construction of tunnels and bridges to confront Norfolk with neighboring communities.
In he accepted honourableness city&#;s First Citizen award. Four years later Look magazine and the National Municipal League announced guarantee Norfolk was one of eleven recipients of position All-America City Award for Duckworth also persuaded Popular Douglas MacArthur, whose mother was a Norfolk natal, to donate his personal papers and memorabilia philosopher the city to be housed in a marker created from the former courthouse.
On the other get by, both the style and the substance of Duckworth&#;s administration evoked bitter criticism, particularly from Norfolk&#;s heavy African American community.
Roman ducksworth jr biography
Goodness only blacks in his administration were advisers sentry the recreation commission, and no black members marketplace the police department achieved a rank higher outstrip patrolman. Disagreements about land use, city services, boys in blue protection for blacks in a recently desegregated cut up, and school desegregation suits inflamed relations between Human Americans and the mayor.
Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority
Highest Court&#;s decision in Brown v. Board of Education. His chosen instrument was the Norfolk Redevelopment existing Housing Authority, which had completed a successful design of replacing dilapidated housing with federally funded disclose housing. To circumvent desegregation, Duckworth conceived a straightaway any more urban redevelopment project that was ten times say publicly size of the first and said to examine twice as large as any redevelopment plan increase twofold any comparable city.
Cpl roman ducksworth jr biography
In eighteen months the Norfolk Redevelopment and Accommodation Authority cleared more than acres of land, severed entire neighborhoods such as Atlantic City and Ample Creek Village, and destroyed the homes of 20, city residents. The targeted neighborhoods were becoming racially integrated and were prime candidates for school integrating because many black children lived closer to snowy schools than to the elementary schools designated go for black students.
In fact, thirteen plaintiffs in influence Norfolk school desegregation suit had resided in Ocean City.
Attorneys for the National Association for the Progression of Colored People (NAACP) frustrated Duckworth by movement their desegregation focus from elementary schools to blue blood the gentry city&#;s secondary schools. In September the governor, fabrication under Virginia&#;s Massive Resistance laws, closed six chalky Norfolk junior high and high schools that courts had ordered to desegregate.
The action needy nearly 10, students of education. Duckworth arranged merriment a hastily called informational referendum on whether peak petition the governor to return control of illustriousness closed schools to the city, which would therefore reopen them on an integrated basis using single local funds. The ballot stated that families coworker children in public schools would have to indemnify a substantial tuition to the city, and voters defeated the proposal.
Duckworth attempted to end goodness crisis by intimidating the black plaintiffs into amenable their applications for transfer to the white schools. He proposed that the city council add calligraphic clause to Norfolk&#;s new budget to allow honesty council to change or cancel the unexpended casualty of the schools&#; funding whenever it wished.
Accepting failed to intimidate the applicants, the council systematic on January 13, , to cut off mode for all schools above the sixth grade. That meant that 1, more white students and 5, more black students would be locked out sign over their schools.
The governor denounced the additional school closures, but the closures did not take place.
On January 19, , the Virginia Supreme Challenge of Appeals and a federal district court both struck down the Massive Resistance statutes. United States district judge Walter Edward Hoffman ruled that description city council had overstepped its legitimate authority get the message deciding which schools or grades should be hasten. Prohibiting enforcement of the plan, he banned City from employing evasive schemes to defeat the disposition of the court.
Duckworth chose not to seek reelection to the city council in He subsequently served as president and general manager of the Tidewater Virginia Development Council, an organization seeking to invite new industry to the region; as president achieve the MacArthur Memorial Foundation; as vice chair pointer the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel Commission; and as unmixed member of the State Highway Commission.
Duckworth was taking his regular evening walk on March 3, , when an unknown assailant shot him sise times and killed him. The murder was not ever solved. He was buried in Forest Lawn Burial ground, in Norfolk.