Corlis Turner Anderson

Corlis Anderson Turner, born in Charlottesville in the year of the Brown v. Board of Education decision (1954), grew up in a segregated neighborhood that bordered then Burley High School. She attended Jefferson Elementary School, Venable, Burnley-Moran, and Walker before going to Lane High School in 1969.  Along with other neighborhood children, she frequented Washington Park and Carver Recreation Center, commenting, “We were a very close village.”  With few team sports available to young girls, she participated in roller skating and was a majorette. At Lane High School, she was the only Black cheerleader for three consecutive years. There was “no manual” for integration, either on the gymnasium floor or in the classroom and she reflects, “I felt like I was put in a situation I was never prepared for.” After college at St. Augustine University in Raleigh, NC, she returned to Charlottesville and spent a large part of her teaching career at Henley Middle School as a health and physical education teacher.