Rosie Lee Carpenter, educator and longtime civil rights and community leader in Greene County died peacefully, surrounded by family on August 31, 2024, at the age of 102, at her daughter’s home in Bowie Maryland.
Born January 25, 1922, in Mantua community of Greene County. Rosie Carpenter’s father, a sharecropper, died when she was two years old. Her mother died in a 1943 tornado. Rosie and her younger siblings went to live with her older sister, Annie Thomas in Eutaw. Rosie decided to pursue a career in education after leaving the plantation where she was born.
Carpenter started teaching at the Burton Hills School in Union, Alabama. During the summers of her teaching career, she attended Alabama State University, earning her undergraduate and master’s degrees in education. Later, Carpenter married Willie James Carpenter, her brother’s best friend. They had two children, Joyce Lynett Carpenter (Dasher) and Charles Earl Carpenter.
Throughout her life, Carpenter was passionate about fighting for civil rights. She and her sister, Annie Thomas, were pioneers in Alabama’s Civil Rights Movement. They assisted Hosea Williams and Ralph Abernathy in designing winning strategies for the special Greene County election on July 29, 1969. Williams and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) used Thomas’s and Carpenter’s home to conduct field Voter Registration and Get Out the Vote campaigns.
Greene County’s actions in civil rights afforded opportunities for many Black residents, including Carpenter’s close friend, Robert Brown, who served as the first Black school superintendent. Rosie Carpenter was one of the few teachers brave enough to participate in the civil rights movement despite constant attacks and efforts to get her fired.
Even as Carpenter and Thomas sustained their leadership roles and political activities in Greene County, they traveled throughout Alabama to assist other communities with boycotts and election strategies after the historic Greene County election in 1969, which gave control of the County Commission and School Board to Black citizens, who were the population majority in Greene County
In 2008, Alabama’s Congressman Artur Davis dedicated the Rosie L. Carpenter Haven apartment complex on Annie Thomas Circle based on the sisters’ courageous efforts during the Civil Rights Movement. As a result of Carpenter’s life of service, Greene County has African American representation at all levels of government. Carpenter also impacted her community through involvement in non-profit organizations that provide housing services and resources to young women and community organizing.
At the 50th Anniversary celebration of Freedom Day on July 29, 1969 (July 27, 2019), Elder Spiver W. Gordon’s Alabama Historical Movement, Inc. dedicated a monument for Justice and Voting Rights at the home of sisters Thomas and Carpenter for their tireless efforts in fighting for the rights of the disenfranchised in their community.
Mrs. Rosie Carpenter’s funeral is now set for Saturday, September 14, 2024, at 11:00 AM at First Baptist Church in Eutaw.