LOCATION
The Rural Towns in Lowndes County, Alabama
The Caldwell-Perryman Family roots are in small, rural towns in Lowndes County, Alabama. These rural towns can be seen on the map to the right. The city of Calhoun, the birthplace of our matriarch and patriarch, is located at the bottom center of the map.
Lowndes County is located midway on the Selma-to-Montgomery National Historic Civil Rights Trail. The Lowndes Interpretive Center is located in White Hall, Alabama, at the top of the map at center. The Interpretive Center is a National Park Service site that serves as a repository of information for the significant events that occurred in Lowndes County during the Civil Right Movement. The city of Calhoun and the entire County can be explored on the interpretive map below.
Calhoun, Lowndes County, Alabama,
Birthplace of Ida Caldwell & Starling Perryman
Our Matriarch Ida Caldwell and Patriarch Starling Perryman were born in Calhoun, Lowndes County, Alabama. In fact, most of the Caldwell-Perryman ancestors were born or raised in Calhoun, and many of their descendants reside there today. Currently sparsely populated, in the past, Calhoun had numerous large farms and several single-family homes in housing projects.
Using the interactive map below, explore the city of Calhoun. Click on the direction and then put in the location: Calhoun, Lowndes County, Alabama. Travel through Calhoun by following County Road 33 from the beginning to the end. Start at the intersection of Alabama Road 21 and Lowndes County Road 33 and travel for approximately three miles; you will find Lum Road on the right. Lum Road leads to the old Norwood Community, where our Matriarch, Ida Caldwell Perryman, is buried. Travel another half mile; on the right, you will find Dickie Road, which leads to the Big Union Christian Church. Big Union was founded in 1881. Ida’s stepfather, Winston Glover, was one of the early pastors, and her grandson, James Caldwell Jr., and son-in-law, Dillard Means, served as elders. Caldwell-Perryman descendants still serve in leadership roles at Big Union Christian Church today.
Back on County Road 33, If you venture several more miles, on the left, you will find Hill Top Road. Hill Top Road was named after the Hill Top Club. This Club was established by Starling Perryman (born 1899), the grandson of Matriarch Ida Caldwell & Patriarch Starling Perryman. Approximately two miles down Hill Top Road., on the left will Mushatt Road, which leads to the location of the old Caldwell Place/Plantation. Once you are back on County Road 33, about 1/4 of a mile past Hill Top Road, you will find Perryman Drive, named after Caldwell-Perryman descendants, some of whom still live off this road today. The old Caldwell Family Cemetery is located a mile beyond the end of Perryman Drive. Ida’s eldest child, James Caldwell Sr., is buried there.
Approximately two more miles down County Road 33, on the left, you will find The Calhoun School. The Calhoun School was established in 1892.
The school was founded by Calhoun community leaders in partnership with Booker T. Washington (founder of Tuskegee University) and two female teachers from Washington's alma mater, Hampton University. The teachers, Charlotte Thorn and Mabel Dillingham, would become co-principals of The Calhoun School, a private, industrial training boarding school modeled after Hampton and Tuskegee Universities.
The Calhoun School was founded following the aftermath of the 1888 lynching of Theodore Calloway and the killing of 40 Blacks who armed themselves in protest against this murder (Frierson, 2011). Mobilized through a prayer vigil resulting from a divine connection of church and community, the Calhoun community was ignited to seek relief to establish a school to educate their children.
Today, The Calhoun School, the “lighthouse on the hill,” is a public K-12 school that still stands as a center of community pride. And it should; despite their abject poverty during the 1890s, community leaders helped build the school, and parents contributed over $1000 annually in tuition (with supporting fundraisers in the North) (Frierson, 2011).Of particular note, after a 40-year effort, the Calhoun School leadership was able to arrange a joint venture with Lowndes County administrators, where a Calhoun faculty member laid out the route, the students graded the road, and the County
provided a gravel surface of what became Lowndes County Route 33 (Ellis, 1984). This joint venture was undertaken to aid farmers in getting their products to market. In addition, The Calhoun School sponsored a land bank that helped 85 families buy land to build homes (Ellis, 1984).
LOWNDES COUNTY, ALABAMA
Lowndes County, Alabama -- Home of the Original Black Panther Party
Very few understood the context in which the fight for educational and economic equality occurred better than the Black citizens of Lowndes County, Alabama (Frierson, 2011). Known for its reputation as “Bloody Lowndes,” there was “racial terrorism” and extreme oppression suffered by Blacks in Lowndes County from the 1870s through the 1960s. As mentioned, Blacks were lynched and even evicted if they sought an education for their children.
W.E. B. Du Bois (1970), who lived in Lowndes County in 1906 while collecting data on local life for the U. S. Department of Labor, concluded that only a few regions in the nation held conditions more unfavorable to the rise of Blacks than Lowndes County, Alabama. Du Bois’ assessment reflected the trying conditions in Lowndes County, where “the white element was lawless” (p.163) and where Blacks lived in abject poverty. Moreover, Blacks were denied equal protection under the law, the right to vote, and the right to an equal education while subjected to a barely functional
educational infrastructure.
During the 1960s, Black parents established the Lowndes County Christian Movement for Human Rights in the absence of federal intervention. They would later garner support from the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) headed by Stokely Carmichael. Together, members of the two organizations established the independent Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO), also known as the original Black Panther Party.
The LCFO successfully protested the ongoing barriers to Black enfranchisement and registering citizens to vote (see pictures below). Lowndes County Black citizens did not promote violence but felt that they had been pushed into a corner and would come out “fighting for life or death” for their Civil Rights, as a panther would.
LCFO’s efforts resulted in lasting change for Lowndes County, Alabama, along with other Black Belt Counties in the surrounding area. Also, their radical democratic politics transformed the Black freedom movement across the nation, inspiring Blacks throughout the United States to adopt a new paradigm in the fight for Civil Rights. LCFO’s “Black Power” slogan and its black panther emblem also spread and were adopted by activists Bobby Seale and Huey Newton in Oakland, California. Seale and Newton, SNCC veterans of the Lowndes County effort, would later organize the more militant Oakland-based Black Panther Party.
