Racial reconciliation forum at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church

ST. PETER'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Jimmie Lee Kirkpatrick (left) and De Kirkpatrick will share their slavery-forced connection Sept. 28 at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church.

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church will host a forum on racial reckoning featuring the shared history of Charlotte descendants of an enslaver and enslaved.  

St. Peter’s Racial Justice and Reconciliation pillar of the church’s social justice ministry will present “Stirring the Ashes” on Sept. 28 from 6:30-8 p.m., with Jimmie Lee Kirkpatrick and De Kirkpatrick, 1966 Myers Park High School graduates. Jimmie Lee is Black; De is white and the great-great grandson of the man who owned Jimmie Lee’s forebears.

The church is located at 115 W. Seventh St.

Jimmie Lee Kirkpatrick is one of the most noteworthy football players in Charlotte history. A standout at all-Black Second Ward High, he gained regional and national attention at Myers Park before going to Purdue University. Jimmie, a highly-sought recruit by college programs, was rejected for inclusion to the 1965 Shrine Bowl, an annual all-star football game between the top white players in North and South Carolina.

Charlotte civil rights lawyer Julius Chambers successfully sued to break the color barrier, but the ruling came too late for Jimmie Lee to play. West Charlotte High’s Titus Ivory was invited a year later.  “Although we were never friends in high school, I admired Jimmie because he was an outstanding football player who helped lead our school to the regional state championship in 1965,” De Kirkpatrick said on his website.
Nearly 50 years passed before the men connected after Jimmie Lee research into his family history revealed their shared story.  

“Years passed,” De wrote. “I never saw Jimmie again, until 2014, when he called me after I responded to a series of articles about him in the Charlotte Observer. Having engaged in some deep ancestral work about his family, he discovered his ancestor had been held in slavery by a white man named Hugh Kirkpatrick. Well, friends, Hugh is my first name and this slaveholder was my great-great grandfather. I am still recovering from this news.”

Over the past decade, the men have made presentations across Charlotte, including Johnson C. Smith University, Myers Park Presbyterian Church, Charlotte Country Club, Myers Park Baptist Church, Mecklenburg Historical Society and Christ Episcopal Church.

A film clip from their new documentary will be shown followed by comments by De and Jimmie along with audience participation.  Tickets are $15 at onrealm.org. Parking is free at the garage next to the church.   

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