By Frederick A. Hurst
Each year the Dunbar Community Center on Oak Street in the heart of the Mason Square neighborhood will be celebrating its own by recognizing people who grew up in the Dunbar and later moved on to become successful in adult life. 2003 is a very special enshrinement year, marking the Dunbar’s 90th anniversary and its first year in a remarkable new building.
Who would have thought it! That old building that grew, nurtured and protected so many young people and laid the foundation for so many successful careers; that old building that became a nationally acclaimed Black basketball incubator where legendary heroes from John Cannon to Travis Best, “Gimp” and “Treetop”, recently deceased Amos Hill, and so many more practiced the universal game that Big Will coached so well in the gym called Death Valley; that old building that was Frank Hatchet’s dance studio where everybody’s baby was given the opportunity to perform in public and from which many a national talent emerged; that old building where Peggy Clinton and her beloved Dunbar Players entertained the region with Raisin in the Sun, Pearle Victorious and so many more plays that displayed the range of Springfield’s Black theatrical talent; that old building where Ronnie Carroll, Bob Jennings, Howie Edmonds and so many others dedicated their lives to guiding young lives; that old building where boilers so often busted and leaks so often sprung and bricks so often fell and floors warped; that old building that so many visited so often and loved so much for 90 years, has blossomed from an 18,000 questionable square feet of hope you don’t fail us into a 36,000 square feet wonder to behold!
The essayist, philosopher Thoreau once said that every institution is the lengthened shadow of one [person]. That one person for the new Dunbar is Cherylynn Satterwhite, who grew up in Memphis, Tennessee “surrounded by Black excellence” and “proud, demanding, Black professionals.” She was raised in a place that had Black judges and lawyers and congressmen before it was popular. Storeowners, police and teachers were Black. She never had a White teacher until college.
Her family background prepared her well for the task ahead. One grandfather was a college professor and another a laborer, who gave her early insight into the value of hard work. Her mother and aunts were teachers as was her father, who was also a mortician. Her grandmother stayed at home and was always there for the kids, who were protected and insulated from the ugliness of the times…times when, at three years old, she had already been taught to read “for colored” and “for white only.”
Armed with a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work from Memphis State University and a Master’s in Social Work with an emphasis on Administration from Boston College and a rich work history helping others, Cherylynn was interviewed by Marvin Jacobs, Rachael Stockton and others and was hired into the vacant position of Director in October of ‘87, fifteen years ago, when the Dunbar had three employees, a basketball program, no heat, little running water and general conditions that were “less than desirable” and a meager $165,000 budget that had been escrowed by the United Way.
Things changed fast. A strong Board of Directors—people such as George Sheehy, Jim Mayes, Elaine Rucks, Kamal Ali, Neil McBride, Dwayne Jackson—under Cherylynn’s inspirational leadership-- increased the budget to over 1 million dollars, expanded the staff to 35 and added a variety of new programs including martial arts, computer technology, chess, the Harry Jennings’ Over 40 Basketball League and many more. Besides the 90 year enshrinement program, future plans also include a fundraiser in which individuals will be invited to purchase building bricks and dedicate them to a person they want to memorialize.
All of these programs now take place in a new gym, a new dance studio and a new computer center all housed in a new building conceived and constructed by a multi-racial development team. It is of no small point of pride that the primary developer, builder and architect were Black.
Politics also played a role. Congressman Richard Neal, Senator Linda Melconian and Representative Benjamin Swan all applied the needed political clout and delivered the public financing that made the private building funds possible.
Death Valley is the name given to the gym where visitors dreaded having to face Dunbar’s formidable basketball teams, whose players, in addition to being well coached and competitive, shared the added advantage of knowing how to avoid every warp in the floor and the stage that loomed menacingly close to the basketball hoop, allowing little room for the uninitiated to avoid contact after taking a shot.
The players are still highly competitive and well coached but the warps and the stage are gone, replaced by an infectious enthusiasm that visiting teams will find equally as formidable.
Death Valley has blossomed with new hopes and a new facility that continues to serve and welcome the youth of the community because some people cared and believed. In Cherylynn’s own words, “It was my faith and the collective efforts and the good will of many that made it happen