Thelma C. Davidson Adair
| Thelma C. Davidson Adair | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
August 29, 1920 Iron Station, North Carolina |
| Residence | New York, NY |
| Nationality | United States |
| Occupation | Educator |
| Spouse(s) | The Reverend Dr. Arthur Eugene Adair |
Thelma C. Davidson Adair (born August 29, 1920) is a Presbyterian educator, church leader, advocate for human rights, peace and justice issues, writer, guest speaker, educator, and activist. She has been a resident of Harlem since 1942. She has been active with Church Women United, a Christian women's advocacy movement. She is an ordained Elder for the Mount Morris Ascension Presbyterian Church of New York City in Harlem. Adair was the moderator for the 1976 Assembly Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Her husband is the late Reverend Arthur Eugene Adair, s a minister of the church from 1943 to 1979, who died in 1979.
Adair is an advocate for early childhood education and helped to establish Head Start programs in Harlem. She is Professor Emeritus of the City University of Queens College, City University of New York.
Adair was born in Iron Station, North Carolina, and lived there while in elementary school. Adair grew up during a period of North America history in the Southern United States known as Jim Crow. She was born in 1922, in Iron Station, North Carolina, one of five children. She was born Thelma Cornelia Davidson. Her family then moved to Kings Mountain, North Carolina. She married Reverend Dr. Arthur Eugene Adair. They moved to New York City in 1942. He because a Senior Pastor of St. John's Episcopal Church (Mount Morris, New York), and is a Harlem and Presbyterian educator.
Like many African Americas and Americans, Adair participated in the World War II efforts at home and abroad. She worked in a war plant. She inspected radar tubes. She was also a young mother at the time. She described her experience:
This was a period of perhaps the greatest number of lynchings. Everything was separate. Total restrictions. And at every moment you could be humiliated just because of color.
Despite the denial, despite the tragedy, despite the suffering, black folks, colored folks, Negro, Afro-Americans, claim America. This was your country, and so the loyalty, and this is the mystery of it all, was so strong that you never, even as we worked in war plants, even as we brought our crippled back, even as we buried our dead and got flags – we were not fighting for someone else. We too were America, and we only wanted the chance and the opportunity that we could have to sit at the table.
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