HIGH POINT CONFIDENTIAL: A change of course - Black golfers' boldness helped integrate Blair Park

Oct. 29—HIGH POINT — It's been nearly 70 years since Perry Little and Hubert Creft played their first round of golf at Blair Park Golf Course, and it still ranks as the most important victory the course has ever seen.

For the first quarter-century of its existence, Blair Park had been as white as the balls its patrons played with, a throwback to the days of segregation. By the mid-1950s, municipal golf courses in neighboring Thomasville and Greensboro were open to Blacks, but Blair Park remained a whites-only course.

That changed when Little and Creft — a couple of prominent African-American doctors in High Point — and George Simkins, a Black doctor from Greensboro, got teed off.

The year was 1954, and city officials had shown no willingness to change the course's whites-only policy. So on Dec. 29, 1954, the three Black men calmly but firmly took matters into their own hands.

"I've heard the story many times," says Daniel Creft, of Jamestown, a son of the late Hubert Creft. "They were refused being able to play, but they insisted they were going to play anyway."

The story is that club pro Chuck Alexander politely told the three men he didn't have the authority to let them play because they were Black.

"Well, our money is green," Little replied, "and we're going to play."

With that, they plopped their green money on the counter, walked out onto the course and played nine holes.

Two days later, they did the same thing, much to the club pro's chagrin.

Carl Little, son of the late Perry Little, confirms the story.

"They kind of got tired of always playing the same golf courses and not being able to play there," says Little, of High Point. "One day, they just got fed up and said, 'We're going to play.' And that's what they did."

Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of the story. News of the Black men's unauthorized golf rounds reached City Hall, where officials still seemed unwilling to overturn the whites-only policy. According to newspaper articles at the time, officials claimed they were contractually bound to keep Blacks off the course.

"It has been a point of popular belief that the Blair family left, in its deed giving the golf course property to the city, a covenant which restricted use of the facilities of the property to white persons only," The High Point Enterprise reported. "However, it is reliably reported that no such covenant exists."

Subsequent stories in The Enterprise, published in January 1955, reveal much hand-wringing on the part of city officials as they pondered whether to allow Blacks to play on the municipal course.

Finally, on Jan. 18, the High Point Parks and Recreation Commission, an advisory committee, endorsed the city's existing policy of a segregated Blair Park Golf Course. City Council followed suit and, by not enacting a new policy, also gave segregation a high-five.

Unfortunately, that was par for the course in the 1950s.

It wasn't until a year later — on Feb. 21, 1956 — that City Council officially reversed course and agreed to integrate Blair Park.

"With the governing body's action today, High Point became one of the few cities in the state where Negroes and whites use golf facilities jointly," The Enterprise reported.

The policy took effect on March 1,1956, and 11 Blacks played golf at Blair Park that day, according to The Enterprise.

We don't know if those three Black doctors — the men who had so boldly stood up for their beliefs and desegregated Blair Park — were among the 11 Black golfers that day, but we sure hope so.

And we hope they hit 'em long and straight all day long.

jtomlin@hpenews.com — 336-888-3579