 LOCAL AND STATE NEWS |
DR. ELIZABETH BIAS COFIELD PASSES AT 89, WEEK OF OCTOBER 29-NOVEMBER 4, 2009
by CASH MICHAELS
The Wilmington Journal
Originally posted 10/28/2009
Her extraordinary dedication to education and public service blazed a path to history as the first African-American female to serve on the old Raleigh School Board, and the first on the Wake Board of Commissioners.
Dr. Elizabeth Agnes Bias Cofield, beloved Shaw University professor and civic leader, died on October 23 at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.
She was 89.
“She led a good and fruitful, indeed purposeful life,” remarked James Jr., one of Dr. Cofield’s two sons.
Dr. Cofield is scheduled to be funeralized Friday on the college campus she called her professional home for 40 years.
It was five years ago, during a commemoration at North Carolina Central University of the historic founding of the Student Nonviolent Organizing Committee (SNCC) at Shaw University, that a retired Shaw instructor, much beloved for her mentoring of the courageous students who led the 60’s civil rights struggle and sit-ins in Raleigh, challenged the college students of today to meet that high standard.
''[Black students 40 years ago were] led, but were not alone,” Dr. Elizabeth Bias Cofield, who actually taught education and trained teachers at Shaw, said during panel discussion. “They had the physical support. Success was due to their discipline because they did not permit participation by hotheads. Only those with fortitude, purpose of mind and spiritual cohesiveness were permitted to go out.''
''Where is your student leadership?” Dr. Cofield demanded of the student audience. “What are they doing, that's what I want to know!”
''...You are a student and you are asking why isn't more happening? Well, that's your answer.”
The students were at first stunned, but then broke out in loud applause.
Dr. Cofield, over 40 years after she taught future leaders to stand up and be counted, had long left the classroom.
But she never left her purpose.
“For more years than I care to count Mrs. Cofield has been like the ''Rock Of Gibraltar'' to scores of area youth,” Bruce Lightner, community leader and president of Lightner Funeral Home, said in a 2005 Carolinian profile of Dr. Cofield.
“Her dedication to education and service to this community is a shining beacon and a fine example for all.”
Dr. Cofield was born in Raleigh at St. Agnes Hospital on St. Augustine’s College campus to John Henry and Frances Lane Bias, one of four children.
Her family later moved to Elizabeth City.
The move would indeed be significant, since her father would soon become the second president of Elizabeth City State Teachers College (which would later become Elizabeth City State University) from 1928 to 1939.
In 1938, Bias Hall on campus was erected in his name.
Young Elizabeth Bias graduated from Peter W. Moore High School 1934, then attended two years of what was then called the Elizabeth City State Normal School, which today would be considered college.
Graduating there, Ms. Bias then attended Hampton Institute in Virginia, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree, completing her course work with honors. She also attended Columbia University in New York City and N.C. State University in Raleigh.
It was also during her senior year in college in 1937 that Elizabeth Agnes Bias secretly married what would become her beloved husband, friend and partner for the next 67 years, James Edward Cofield Sr.,
Born in Enfield as one of eight children in 1914 to Henry and Grace Cofield, young James also attended Elizabeth City State Normal School, where Elizabeth’s father was the president. He was a well-regarded student, and exceptional athlete, competing in basketball, and captain of the football team.
Graduating in 1935, James Cofield began teaching in Albemarle in Stanly County.
It was when he returned to ECSNS that he met and fell in love with Elizabeth.
After college, the new Mrs. Cofield took her first teaching job in Selma, NC, where her husband was also teaching in elementary school, and then coaching at Richard B. Harrison High School.
Mrs. Cofield taught elementary school there for four years.
Then World War II interrupted their lives.
James Cofield served his country in the US Navy as a ship fitter in the Norfolk Navy Yard. When the war ended in 1945, the couple moved to Raleigh to start a new life together as parents to twins – James, Jr. and Juan.
James Sr. became a businessman, “He came from a family of businesspeople,” Mrs. Cofield recalled in a 2006 interview with The Carolinian. “He was good in the classroom, but he loved doing business.”
She continued teaching, but this time, at Shaw University, where she would remain for the next 40 years.
It is no small wonder that many of today’s leaders who matriculated at Shaw University, like famed attorney Willie Gary, late state Sen. Vernon Malone, and the Rev. Dr. David Forbes Sr., pastor of Christian Faith Baptist Church in Raleigh, among others, were all taught by Mrs. Cofield while she was there.
It was indeed a proud day for Mrs. Cofield when one of those students, attorney Gary, became the chairman of the Shaw University Trustees Board.
“It has made me feel good, when I can still feel good after I lost James, “she said. “They’ve all done pretty well, and I’m proud of them.”
“And I still tell them what to do,”
Mrs. Cofield chuckled.
Dr. Forbes remembers his former teacher as “a classy lady [who] carried herself as an intelligent, sensitive, assertive and passionate person.”
“She was determined to make a difference in the world,” Dr. Forbes told The Carolinian/The Wilmington Journal this week. “Dr. Cofield was an articulate person whose words were offered to lift the listener.”
As a student at Shaw University back in the 1960’s, Dr. Forbes remembers attending at least three of Dr. Cofield’s classes.
I never achieved the ability to relax in her classes as she required that all of her students bring their best minds to her seminars,” he recalls.
“I can hear her now, “Forbes, FRONT AND CENTER! SPEAK!”
“Speak what Mrs. Cofield?” the young student would ask Cofield.
“If you have to ask me what you should speak, you’re not yet in this class,” she would sternly admonish. “What is the title and focus of the class? What was today’s assignment” What, if anything, did you read since last class? What have you read in the press, the newspaper, news magazines which has implication for our focus?
“Speak Forbes,” Dr. Cofield would command. “Speak class!”
In the days of segregation, that kind of stern discipline was essential, Dr. Cofield’s students now say, in order to survive.
It also produced strong young black men and women of character and courage, who would go on to lead the ‘60’s civil rights movement, as David Forbes and other Shaw University students did with the founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Raleigh Woolworth lunch counter sit-ins.
“Mrs. Cofield was an ardent supporter of the sit-in movement and was both encourager and counsel for student protesters,” Dr. Forbes said. “Her husband, Mr. James Cofield, a bail bondsman, sprung both Shaw and Saint Augustine's College students from jail, pro bono.”
Indeed during the turbulent sixties, James and Elizabeth Cofield worked together to support the cause. As she advised and monitored young student leaders from Shaw and St. Augustine’s College who peacefully and constructively took to the streets in protest, James, a professional bondsman, would bail them out of jail in large numbers when they were arrested.
Too many, that made the Cofields heroes of the cause.
“All should know that James never asked for or received one penny of pay or reimbursement for his magnanimous, humanitarian act,” Mrs. Cofield said in a short bio of her husband upon his death in 2005. “This was characteristic of James, he spoke infrequently and softly of his enormous acts of generosity.”
Mrs. Cofield’s commitment to teaching, training teachers and love of education is what led her to politics, and eventually being elected to the Raleigh School Board in 1969, the first Black woman to do so. Atty. Fred Carnage, another African-American, had been appointed to the board.
“I was elected for four years, but I gave up one year,” she recalls.” Why? Because talk of merging the Raleigh City and Wake County Public School Systems was in the air, which meant dramatic changes were close at hand.
The merger occurred, and Mrs. Cofield was seen as one of those who helped to make it a smooth transition, helping to make her widely recognized and respected.
At the urging of attorney Carnage and others, Cofield ran for Wake County Commissioner and won, becoming the first African-American ever elected to that body during the 1980s.
She would remain there for the next twelve years.
Since the commissioners held the purse strings and determined the budget for the school system, Mrs. Cofield said her move made sense.
“I knew I could do more,” she said, in planning for school construction, particularly for the Black community.
Plus, there was no educator on the board of commissioners.
As the only Black woman on the board, Cofield made it clear that she “wasn’t afraid of those folks,” namely the white majority. But she hastens to add that there were a few who were biased, they did, for the most part, worked together in their decision-making and outreach.
“They were wonderful, so nice and respectful,” she says, particularly when it came to her expertise as an educator.
And what about Elizabeth Cofield’s legacy? How would she want others to remember her?
“That I lived not only for myself, but for my people.”
On Sept. 8, 2008, Elizabeth Bias Cofield was inducted into the Raleigh Hall of Fame in recognition of her lifetime of service to the community.
Dr. Cofield was the widow of the late James E. Cofield, Sr. and is survived by two sons: James E. Cofield, Jr. and Juan M. Cofield (Julia); three grandchildren: Nicole, Elissa and Alexis; her sister: Lillian B. Abron.
The family will receive friends on Thursday, October 29, 2009 from 6:00 to 8:00 P.M. at Haywood Funeral Home, 2415 S. Wilmington St., Raleigh, NC.
A viewing will be held on Friday, October 30, 2009 from 11:00 A.M. to 12:00 P.M. Then the Delta Omega Omega Service at 12:00 -12:30 followed by the funeral service at 1:00 in the Boyd Chapel on the campus of Shaw University, Raleigh, NC.
Entombment will follow in Carolina Biblical Gardens, Raleigh, NC.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Elizabeth B. Cofield Scholarship Fund, P.O. Box 320128, West Roxbury, MA 02132.
Arrangements are being handled by Cofield Mortuary, Weldon, NC and Haywood Funeral Home, Raleigh, NC.
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