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Page initiated Sept. 29, 2016

 

A short biography

The first of 14 children. A person devoted to living out her Christian creed. A joiner. A leader. A strong-willed person willing to take the slings and arrows of public life to pursue equity and justice for all.

Sarah Mingo was born in Heath Springs, S.C. in 1925, the first of 14 children. Forced to leave high school without a diploma because the district reassigned a 12th-grade teacher, she moved to Charlotte; met her future husband Robert Louis Stevenson as they worked in old Charlotte Memorial Hospital’s housekeeping department; lived in Cherry; raised four sons; moved in 1970 to a street off Beatties Ford Road. Along the way, she did domestic work in a Myers Park home, taught at a day care center, worked at the Charlotte Area Fund and established the city’s mediation efforts now housed at the Community Relations Committee.

Activism to acquire uniforms for a son’s school band led to her prominent role in merging the school district’s black and white PTAs, before courts forced CMS to desegregate its schools. She served on the CMS Board of Education from 1980-1988, losing a bid for a third term in an election dominated by advocates for scaling back desegregation.

Her leadership and encouragement of numerous business, women’s and civic groups over the years is a part of the record accumulated on this site. And her accomplishments have been celebrated by numerous groups over the years.