Carl H. Russell Sr. To Be Honored For Civil Rights Leadership

Office of the Mayor - Feb. 15, 2007
Contact: Linda Jackson-Barnes, 727-2058

The late Carl H. Russell Sr., a city alderman, civil-rights spokesman and founder of the Russell Funeral Home, is being honored with this year’s Civil Rights Movement Resolution by Mayor Allen Joines and the City Council.

A resolution honoring Russell will be read at the City Council meeting Monday, Feb. 19, at 7:30 p.m.

The annual Civil Rights Movement Resolution honors those outstanding individuals who worked to strengthen civil rights and race relations in Winston-Salem.

Russell graduated with honors from Johnson C. Smith University and started Russell Funeral Home as chief owner and operator in 1939. Throughout the 1950s he was active in the efforts to win civil rights for African-Americans in Winston-Salem. Russell was an accomplished public speaker and organizer and became known as the "People’s Spokesman."

In 1961 he was elected to represent the Third Ward on the Board of Alderman. He served 16 years on the board, and served as mayor pro tempore from 1969 to 1977. As an alderman, Russell worked to improve local voter registration, end defacto segregation, obtain countywide election of African-Americans, and give African- Americans access to health care at the Kate B. Reynolds Hospital.

Russell also served as a member of the city-county school board, the Council of Governments, the Governor’s Good Neighbor Council, the Experiment in Self-Reliance board, the Winston-Salem Chamber of Commerce board, and the Kitrell College Board of Trustees. He was a life long member of St. James A.M.E. Church, a member of Bivouac Lodge No. 503, Sethos Temple No. 170, and Ling Solomons Consistory No. 64. His fraternity, Omega Psi Phi, awarded him a 50 year gold medallion at its 1982 golden anniversary.