James L. Purnell, JR.: Civil Rights Advocate and First Black Commissioner in Worcester County, Maryland

​Continuing Series by Dr. Clara Small, Professor Emerita, Salisbury University

James Lee Purnell Jr. (1937 - 2021)
First Black Member and President of the Worcester County Commissioners
Former President of the Worcester NAACP (1986 - 1995)

James Lee Purnell, Jr., was born July 26, 1937, to James Purnell, Sr. and Hulda McCray Purnell, in the community of Briddelltown, in Berlin, Maryland. James, “James Junior,” or “Jimmy,” as he was called, was the oldest of eight children of the couple. He was born into a segregated society on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and was acutely aware of racism and discrimination. He experienced segregation and discrimination from birth. Berlin was segregated, and whites and blacks lived on opposite sides of US route 113.
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When blacks shopped in Berlin, they were required to park in designated parking areas and had access to only one bathroom that was not always fit to use. Nor did they feel welcome to participate in or enjoy traditional holiday celebrations or events. For example, two years in a row, James, Jr., and his friends went to watch Berlin’s Halloween Parade and they were chased back across the high-way by white boys wielding bricks. Similarly, they were not allowed to stand on the streets to watch parades or other events because it was considered loitering, especially for blacks.

Until the late 1960’s, blacks were not permitted to swim at Ocean City, except on the three “colored days,” one for each state on Delmarva, which were set each year after Labor Day, when the White tourists had gone home.  Persons of African descent were not permitted to do certain things, such as: wait inside the bus station, regardless of the weather; were not allowed to sit in any other area of the theater other than the balcony, known as the “crows nest;” restaurants either required black customers to carry out their food or to sit in “special colored sections;” blacks were not permitted to sit at soda fountain counters and trains had separate “colored” cars; and the closest hospital treated blacks only in its segregated colored ward.  Little League baseball did not exist for black boys and there were separate White Boy Scouts and Black Boy Scouts, if they existed at all for blacks.  Those were some of the racist conditions under which James Purnell, Jr. and other Blacks lived.  

Photo Taken on a “Colored Excursion Day” in Ocean City, Md.
C.1940s
​Ocean City Life Saving Station Museum/Vanishing Ocean City

However, there were some very serious slights that affected him on a very personal level. In 1947, at the age of 10, James and his sister were standing on the corner of the street while their mother was inside paying for her shoes and a Berlin policeman named Noah Hudson yelled at them, “N-----, get off the street!” and then struck his sister in the stomach with his blackjack. Officer Hudson apologized when James Lee Purnell, Sr. confronted him, but Hudson lost his job when James Purnell, Sr., pursued the incident with Hudson’s superiors and Berlin town officials.

James, Jr. also witnessed the mistreatment of his mother. He saw “her go uptown to get a bus ticket to Philadelphia, but she could not stay inside and receive the ticket. She paid for the ticket but had to go outside, and then the person would bring the ticket out to her.” Around the age of 14, he saw blacks beaten up in Ocean City during a Halloween Day parade, for no apparent reason, and some people had bricks thrown at them by sailors during the parade. As a result, Blacks have not held a parade there since. From those slights and many others, James, Jr. learned persistence and the desire to see justice done. It also encouraged him to fight for things he considered to be good and just.


He learned to work at an early age on his father’s chicken and dairy farm, Purnell’s Dairy, the only black-owned dairy farm in the county. His day began at 4 a.m., and they milked the 17 cows by hand. He learned all facets of the job and years later, when his father became ill, he ran the dairy farm in his father’s absence. After he performed the necessary chores on the dairy farm, he was prepared to go to school by 8:30 a.m. because education was a requirement in the Purnell household.
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At the time, Worcester County, Maryland had two educational systems, one for blacks and one for whites, and that system remained in place until 1965 when the first black student attended Stephen Decatur High School. In the mean-time, James attended Flower Street Elementary School in Berlin, and walked miles to and from school every day on the dirt roads in good and bad weather. His books were often tattered and torn, and/or marked up, and used from white students in the county, and discarded. Some of the books were often retrieved from the dump. Despite the use of secondhand books, James had good grades. In the 9th grade he went to the “old”, Worcester High School at Ross Street in Snow Hill, Maryland, and then to the “new” Worcester High School in Newark, Maryland. In high school, he ran track and played football, but he could not find summer employment in Ocean City, because blacks, unless they worked in menial jobs, could not visit Ocean City until after Labor Day. In 1953, at the age of 16, James decided that he wanted to earn some money of his own. He applied for a job at the Sunshine Laundry and was hired. He was the first black person the laundry had ever hired, and he worked there until he graduated from the “new” Worcester High School in Newark, Maryland in June of 1955.

Worcester High School became the Worcester County Board of Education after integration in the 1970s
WO-586 Worcester High School Architectural Survey File
Photo by Jon Schmidt 

James, Jr. ran track and played football in high school, but he also played baseball in his early years with the Berlin Eagles. In 1998, he along with John “Johnny Boy” Jarmon and Oliver “Moose” Purnell, were recognized with a trophy the Berlin Eagles had won in the Negro Baseball Championship Game in 1965.
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Upon graduation from high school, James decided that he wanted to be a truck driver. He loved driving trucks across country, but after 12 years of working for Clifton Cannon Ford Trucks, Harry C. Burton and James Hartman, and hauling chickens for local poultry producers until 1970, he made the decision to go into the drapery business and worked for himself. He was admitted into a trade school in Hazelton, Pennsylvania and became the only certified professional drapery installer on the Eastern Shore, in Washington, D.C., and New York City. He opened his own business, Purnell Drapery Installation in 1975. James and his wife, Clemeth, whom he married on December 25, 1961, ran a very successful drapery installation business, during the condominium boom in Ocean City, Maryland. In the early years of the business, his employees were his nephews. He taught them the skill of hanging drapes. He was also a school bus contractor for Worcester County for nearly forty years. As a local entrepreneur, he owned his own bus and he often took school children and others on trips and to conventions.

James Purnell and his wife, Clemeth, in a photo taken sometime in the 1990s.
Daily Times/Delmarva Now File Photo

James Purnell, Jr. labored to care for his family and to effect change in Worcester County. However, 30 years later, the 1990s had not produced very much change for most blacks. Some examples of the socio-economic system in the 1990s under which Mr. Purnell and most blacks labored in Worcester County, Maryland on a daily basis, included:

• The average mean income for black households in the 1990s was $21,166 compared to $38,229 for white households.
• The per capital income for blacks was $7,792, but was more than $16,203 for whites.
• Twenty-two percent of black persons in Worcester County lived below  the poverty level, compared to 7.8 of county whites.
• The unemployment rate for Worcester County African Americans was 9.1% which was more than two-and a half times that of the County’s white residents of 3.6%.
• Black persons held only 3.4 percent of all executive, administrative, and managerial positions in the county.
• 76% of white Worcester Countians over 25 years of age completed high school, while only 48 percent of blacks that age had the same educational level, and 25 percent had not gone beyond the eighth grade.
• In the 1990s, Worcester County African Americans were less likely than  whites, by 20 percent to own their homes, moreover, black-owned homes  had an average value of $46,763 compared to $116,841 for white owned homes. (Honiss W. Cane, Jr. et al v. Worcester County, et al. Civil Action No. Y92-3226 p. 47)
• Of the 12 operating departments in Worcester County’s government, five had no black employees.
• From 1980 to 1993, there were 64 government leaders working in the County, only one of whom was an African-American and he was the jail’s  warden, Warden Shockley.
• Worcester County’s elected officials employed 64 persons within their offices, and only five of those 64 persons were black. (Honiss Cane, Jr.et al v. ​Worcester County, et al, Civil Action No. Y92-3226).

Those issues were just some of the reasons Mr. Purnell was actively in-volved in the Worcester County National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and served as Vice-President and President for over nine years and also served as Vice-President of the State of Maryland NAACP. Those factors also compelled him, the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to sue Worcester County five times for discriminatory practices in order to address some grievances and attempts to balance the scale for African American or minority residents. Some of those concerns and the manner in which he, the NAACP, and the American Civil Liberties Union addressed those issues were as follows:

• In 1982, they collectively challenged Worcester County’s attempt to require students to attend school on the federal observance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday as a make-up snow day.
• In 1983, the group questioned the disproportionate shortage of African American teachers within the Worcester County School System compared to the number of African American students and challenged the school board’s hiring practices.
• In 1983, the group demanded that the landfill in the midst of the Briddelltown Community be closed due to gaseous odor, rodent infestation, possible contamination of water in the community, and trash blowing into the yards of the residents. The Board of Commissioners proposed the closing of the dump in 5 years, but Mr. Purnell and the NAACP proposed the immediate closure and cleanup of the dump or a lawsuit would bebegun against the Board of Commissioners.
• In 1986, the group challenged discriminatory hiring practices in Ocean City, Maryland. A march on Ocean City’s boardwalk titled “Struggle for Liberty,” was held in opposition to alleged discriminatory hiring practices. It was believed to be the first civil rights march on the Eastern Shore in 23 years.
  
• In 1986, they proposed the formation of a County Human Relations Commission. The Commission would have been given jurisdiction over discriminatory practices in areas including housing, public accommodations, education, as well as business development and contracting in the county. One facet of the Commission was to ask and secure the support of Ocean City businesses to pledge a number of non-menial jobs the next summer for African American workers. It also proposed the adoption of a non-discrimination pledge and the posting of the pledge in area businesses.
• In 1988, the group proposed a “suspension of patronage,” which was one step short of a boycott against Ocean City unless local officials worked to increase African American employment in businesses.
• In 1988, the group called for the reinstatement of the Worcester County Opportunity Council, which was a placement and counseling service that had been discontinued. The year-old minority job center addressed the disproportionate number of African Americans in menial positions that kept them out of the public’s eye. Over 74% of menial jobs were held by African Americans as opposed to only 3% held by whites.
• In 1991, the group challenged hiring practices in the town of Berlin. Mr. Purnell, the NAACP and the ACLU threatened a lawsuit against the town of Berlin unless the town actively took steps to hire an African American police officer. The town received federal funds for certain police activity and, if blacks were not employed in that capacity, it was a violation of federal guidelines, and then the town would have been subjected to various lawsuits. Nearly one-third of Berlin’s population was African American, but the town stated that it was unable to adequately fill a police officer’s position with an African American. Mr. Purnell and the NAACP also questioned the qualifications and hiring practices used for blacks versus whites.
• In 1992, the group questioned the legality of Worcester County’s at-large voting system. Mr. Purnell, the NAACP and the ACLU filed a lawsuit against Worcester County and asked that the at-large voting system be abolished under the provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in order to allow for the possibility of an African American to be elected to office.

NAACP President Enolia P. McMillan and the Rev. John Wright begin their journey to Ocean City's Boardwalk
The Baltimore Sun
1986​

Those legal issues were merely some of the challenges faced by James Purnell, the NAACP and the ACLU. In their pursuit to rectify some of the grievances. In 1992, Mr. Purnell, the NAACP, and the ACLU initiated the lawsuit, Honiss Cane v. Worcester County, which sought to abolish the at-large system of voting and government that had been in place in the county since 1742. The at- large system of government had denied African Americans the right to elect a person of their choice. The case was based on the fact that blacks made up more than 20% of the Worcester County population but never had a black man or woman elected to the Board of Commissioners. The lawsuit was based on the Civil Rights Act of 1965 which stated that anything that diluted minority voting strength was illegal. On January 25, 1994, Senior Judge Joseph H. Young of the United States District Court ruled that “even under the best of circumstances, the at-large system debased the value of the minority’s political strength,” and tends to disfranchise the county’s black community. Judge Young also ordered the restructure of Worcester’s resident district at-large voting system so blacks would have a better chance of getting elected.

As a result of the decision rendered by Judge Young, a new district was created, elections were held, Mr. James Purnell took office in 1995, and he became the first black commissioner elected in Worcester County’s 253 year history. The new district was the only majority Black State Legislative District on the Eastern Shore. When he was elected to the position, he was the “First and Only” Black Worcester County Commissioner, and he represented District 2. In December of 2005, he was unanimously elected president by Commission members after having served previously as vice-president for six years. Mr. Purnell was re-elected each time he ran for the position of Commissioner. He was a member of the Tri-County Council for the Lower Eastern Shore and also the Maryland Association of County Officials. James L. Purnell was quite successful as a County Commissioner due to the support of the NAACP, the Berlin community, and concerned citizens of Worcester County. But his journey was not easy, due to threats to his life and his livelihood. Fortunately for him, there were those who literally had his back and helped to support him. Another factor that helped him to succeed was that he owned his own business so that economic coercion, the threat or fear of the loss of his business could not be used against him. It also meant that he was not under the thumb of anyone. ​

James Purnell Made Headlines When He Was Elected the First Black Worcester County Commissioner
Daily Times/Delmarva Now File Photo

While in office, James Purnell sought to improve Worcester County hiring practices and pushed diversity among county employees. When the Worcester County School Board asked for his support for its annual budget, he refused until it agreed to hire African American teachers, due to its shortage of minority teachers and staff. As a result, seventeen (17) African Americans were hired within that first year.

James L. Purnell, Jr. was also involved in local concerns. One major issue was the Germantown School and its heritage. The school was built in 1922, with the support of the Rosenwald Fund and matching funds from the local community. Because of the funds from the Rosenwald Fund, the Germantown School is known as a Rosenwald School. The school was built as a single-story frame, two-teacher plan schoolhouse. It was designed to provide an education for children in grades one through seven. The Germantown School provided the rudiments of an education for African American students in Berlin when…

“the state of Maryland provided an average of $1.69 for each white child
while it provided $1.46 per black child… Educational opportunities were
dire for African Americans because at “the turn of the century, seven
counties----Anne Arundel, Prince George’s, Charles, St. Mary’s, Queen
Anne’s, Somerset and Worcester-----made no contributions to Negro
schools from county funds.”

As a result, most African American schools existed due to the benevolence of the black community, gifts, churches, and black organizations. “Black school buildings often were ones whites declared unfit for their own children… No Maryland county had a black high school, and a Negro higher education received scant encouragement.” By the late 1940s and early 1950s, it was obvious to Whites as it had always been to most Blacks that Black school structures, equipment, supplies, etc., were inferior, if the school existed at all in some areas. By 1950, the inferior status of Black schools had become a priority for the Civil Rights lawyer Thurgood Marshall, and others as they challenged “the separate but equal” clause of the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896. Some people had also come to realize that “separate but equal” schools were expensive. Once the United States Supreme Court rendered the Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas decision on May 17, 1954, that to separate students on the basis of race was unconstitutional, money to equalize black and white schools slowly began to trickle into black schools, but for many schools it was too little and too late.

The Germantown School had the reputation of having provided quality education grounded in the 3R’s (reading, writing and arithmetic), literature, science, poetry, geography, etc., in order to make the students well-rounded citizens. Their education was due to the many dedicated principals and teachers who were committed to the education of black children. The Germantown School remained in active use until 1962, eight years after the rendering of the Brown decision. It had been the belief of most people that American society and the quality of education would be equalized and that black schools would receive the same quality of books, equipment, school structure and the salaries of all teachers would be the same, but that did not materialize. The reality was that most formerly all-black schools were vacated or abandoned, and most black principals and teachers lost their jobs or were demoted. In spite of its contributions to society and the education of multitudes, Germantown School was closed because the Worcester County Board of Education no longer needed it as a school. On December 11, 1962, for the sum of one dollar, the school was turned over to the County Highway Association. The front wall, the floor and windows were removed, and the association installed four garage bays and a ground-level concrete floor and made it into a truck and storage garage.

Germantown School as it Stands Today

Photo Credit: Paul Baker Touart

Germantown School as a County Garage

However, by 1995, some former students, teachers, and concerned citizens recognized the value of their former beloved school, the value of their heritage, the struggles they endured in order to have obtained an education, and the heroic efforts made by their teachers and others to obtain their goals. Those concerned individuals held meetings and five years later established an article of incorporation as the Germantown School Community Heritage Center. By 2000, the school had been designated as a historic site and through the persistence of James L. Purnell, Jr., the committee was granted ownership of the school for the purpose of preserving it. With the cooperation of Worcester County and the State of Maryland, the Germantown School Committee successfully competed for grants. By 2010, the committee held a groundbreaking ceremony that officially began the renovation of the school. After the renovations were completed in May of 2013, the Germantown School was no longer a vision but a reality, and the Committee and community are eternally grateful for the support and diligence of James L. Purnell for his efforts to preserve the beloved school.

Mr. Purnell was also very active in other areas as well. He was one of the founders of the Annual Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Banquet that has been held nearly 30 years. He served as the Chairman of the Tri-County Council, which represents and serves Worcester, Wicomico and Somerset Counties. He also served on the Lower Shore Private Industry Council and the Delmarva Business League, for many years, and was a member of the Maryland Association of County Officials.

As a civic-minded member of the community, James Purnell was involved in many community activities. He was a Prince Hall Affiliated Mason, a Past Worshipful Master of the former Booker T. Washington Lodge #87 of Berlin, and a member in good standing of Lincoln Lodge #53 of Berlin. He served as Worthy Patron of the former Lily of the Valley Chapter #47, Order of the Eastern Star, now, Sunlight of the Valley Chapter #43 of Berlin and Past State Grand Master of the Odd Fellows of Maryland. He was also very active in his church. He was a lifelong member of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church of Berlin where he served as Chairperson of the Finance Committee, President of the United Methodist Men and Chairperson of the Administrative Board and Building Fund, among other positions.

James L. Purnell was the recipient of numerous awards. On October 23, 1998, he received the Distinguished Service Award as the former First Vice-President of the Maryland NAACP. The award was in appreciation of outstanding leadership and support of the Maryland State Conference of NAACP branches, college chapters and youth councils. On March 25, 1995, at the NAACP Regional meeting in Washington, D.C., James Purnell and the Berlin branch of the NAACP won the NAACP Region VII Award for Outstanding Programmatic Activities in the Worcester County, Maryland Branch. In February 2007, he was named the Out- standing Achiever by the African American Pride Magazine, for his community service.

In 2017, he published an autobiography about his race-related experiences in the county, “James Lee Purnell, Jr.: Memoires of Struggles and Progress In a Segregated Worcester County, Maryland,” with Kimberly A. Chase. In his book, he stated that “He wanted to be remembered as a person who gave of himself to make a difference in the community along with support that I got from the com-munity and from the county as well as from the state.”

Cover of James Lee Purnell Jr.: Memories of Struggles and Progress in a Segregated Worcester County, Maryland
2017
​Ancestorybook Publishing

James Purnell also received national recognition for his civil rights work and the voting rights suit against the Worcester County government which created the only majority Black State Legislative District on the Eastern Shore. As a Worcester County Commissioner, he continued to fight some of the same problems and concerns as he did as President of the Worcester County Chapter of the NAACP, because some of those same problems continued to exist under different names and terms or under different disguises. Mr. Purnell, “a Crusader for Justice,” worked exceedingly hard to do his part in the struggle for justice and civil rights for everyone. He understood that the struggle continues on a daily basis, and he was determined to continue to fight for justice and civil rights until racism and discrimination are eradicated. When James Purnell was asked by a reporter why he fought so hard in order to do his job, he stated “I did not do it for the money because we got no money. I wanted to see a change, and those changes we were able to get. I knew what we went through as a people.”

After years of toiling for what he believed was right and just, James Lee Purnell, Jr., died on December 27, 2021, at Tidal Health Peninsula Regional in Salisbury, Maryland. “His life was marked by his fight for Black rights, from working to have a landfill removed from a Black neighborhood to successfully suing the county over minority voting rights.” James Purnell often stated that he “learned that in order to make changes, as we were moving forward to do with regard to racism, you have to be willing to go out on a limb as you proceed and work hard.” He had also learned from his father that perseverance and fighting for what’s right is what he carried with him throughout his life. As a result, his legacy is his decades of work in social activism on the Lower Eastern Shore of Maryland.