A Healing Presence in Our Community

The Percy G. Harris Family

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Editors: Lennox W. Randon, Lileah F. Harris, MD and other family members.

A special project of UnityPoint Health Cedar Rapids and Mercy Medical Center

Printed September 2015

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Forward

Growing up in Cedar Rapids, I had the honor and pleasure of getting to know Percy and Lileah Harris in the years when their family lived north of Mt. Vernon Road SE in the Erskine School neighborhood and our family south of Mt. Vernon Road in the Monroe School neighborhood. I also had opportunities to see the family as a member of All Saints Catholic Church. When young, I was always told PercyHarris was an important person in Cedar Rapids. As I got older and developed my study of Cedar Rapids history, I became very aware of the special and lasting contributions Percy and Lileah Harris had done and were doing for the Cedar Rapids community. From their early Cedar Rapids home on A Avenue NE across from St. Luke’s Hospital to their well-fought-for home on Bever Avenue SE, the Harris family has continued to be a lasting component of our Cedar Rapids community. They have improved, in unforgettable ways, local institutions of high standing including St. Luke’s Hospital, St. Paul’s Methodist Church, the Jane Boyd Community Center, the local United Way, All Saints Church and many more social and educational organizations that are detailed in this book. Dr. Percy Harris’ office was a downtown Cedar Rapids fixture for half a century, first on the 4th floor of the Guaranty Bank Building and later in Robert Armstrong’s S.G.A. Building on 2nd Street SE and the Professional Park Building on 3rd Street NE. His nearly 40 years as County Medical Examiner is an outstanding record of service to the residents of Linn County. This document is a fitting tribute to Dr. Percy and Lileah Harris and a wonderful acknowledgement of all they have accomplished. The history of their lives is a great and lasting chapter in the story of how Cedar Rapids became a more enlightened and socially responsible community. The History Center in Cedar Rapids is proud to have contributed to this account of the lives of the Harris family and continues to be committed to preserving the collected stories of Cedar Rapids and Linn County history.

Mark Stoffer Hunter - Historian - The History Center - September 2015

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On November 3, 1999 Iowa Senator Tom Harkin rose before the United States Senate to honor Dr. Percy Harris, a man he called “a distinguished Iowan” whose life is “truly a great American story.” 1

Percy Harris was born in the deeply segregated American South just before the onset of the Great Depression. He was orphaned by age 11, and his education was sporadic until his late teens. Despite these hardships, Dr. Harris went on to graduate from a prestigious university and medical school, where he was class president all four years. He chose Cedar Rapids, Iowa as the place to build his practice, raise his family and serve his community. Along the way, Dr. Harris became one of the most recognized, respected and beloved figures in Iowa.

A Great American Story

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A Great AmericanStory

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Percy Gene Harris was born on September 4, 1927 in the small town of Durant, in Holmes County, Mississippi. Like most of rural Mississippi before the Great Depression and before the Great Migration of Blacks out of the South, Holmes County was predominantly Black and poor. Even today, Holmes County ranks last in the U.S. for life expectancy,2 with a median household income less than half the national average.3 But in 1927, the population of Holmes County was more than double what it is today,4 and Durant was a busy railroad town offering plenty of opportunity for men who were willing to work hard.

Young Percy’s father, Norman Henry Harris, Sr. — the son of a man born into slavery shortly before the Civil War — had a good job as a mechanic at the Illinois Central roundhouse. Other members of the Harris family did well, too. Dr. Harris’s uncle, Otha Harris, was said to be rich (“colored rich” as they called it in those days5) and owned a shiny new Oldsmobile coupe. In the summer of 1930, Norman Harris, Sr. borrowed Otha’s coupe to take three-year-old Percy and a young cousin to visit relatives in a nearby town. On the way home, the car went off the road into a ditch. Percy and his cousin survived the accident, but his father, age 34, was killed.

Dr. Harris’s mother, Glendora Roundtree Harris, continued to live in Durant with Percy and her two older children, Norman Harris, Jr. and Hilda Harris. Durant was a segregated town but the Harris family fared better than most. Dr. Harris’s great-grandfather, Moses Harris, was biracial, and having White relatives entitled the Harrises to certain privileges, including the “right” to try on shoes and clothing in the local store.

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Education was another matter. The Harris children attended the Holmes County Training School for Colored. County training schools were the norm for Black children in the South, but the services they offered were second-rate at best and most children never received more than a rudimentary education. A 1935 assessment of the South’s county training school system noted that “enrollment is congested in the first three grades; buildings are dilapidated and inaccessible; and teaching equipment is meager or lacking … dominating all else is the problem of financial support, involving a current annual expenditure of $87.22 per child for the United States as a whole but an annual expenditure of only $12.57 for the average Negro child.”6 Still, both Norman, Jr. and Hilda finished secondary school and attended college.

Percy, 10 years younger than his nearest sibling, went to the Holmes County School for a year or two before his mother married John Coleman in 1935 and the family moved to Memphis, Tennessee. Percy attended fourth and fifth grades at a local school. In 1937, his sister Hilda Harris died of pulmonary tuberculosis, and the following year his mother Glendora Harris died of the same disease. Tuberculosis, at that time was the sixth-leading cause of death in the U.S.,7 and was highly contagious. The only available treatment was “rest, diet and sunlight.”8 Dr. Harris remembers his mother would tenderly kiss his feet instead of his cheek to keep from passing the disease on to him.

After her death, 11 year-old Percy had to undergo a chest x-ray, which indicated the possibility of TB in a gland in his left lung. As a result he was sent to a sanitarium near Memphis for Black children and adults at risk of tuberculosis.9 He lived in the sanitarium from 1939 to 1941, two long years during which he recalls he cried every day and received no formal education. However, Percy learned how to read from adults who lived in the building right next to the one for children. Many years later, Dr. Harris told his own children stories of him reading the newspaper to adult residents of the sanitarium.

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Shortly after Percy’s release in 1941, he took a train to Waterloo, Iowa to live with his aunt, Blanche Hoosman, and her husband John. Blanche, known locally as Madame Hoosman, was a fortune-teller who made a living reading palms, tea leaves and coffee grounds. Madame Hoosman used a bogus transcript for her bright nephew to get him enrolled in ninth grade at East Junior High School.

Life in Waterloo differed greatly from what Percy had experienced in the Deep South. The city, like all of Iowa, was overwhelmingly White. In 1940, there were only an estimated 1,500 African Americans10 in Waterloo out of a total population of more than 51,000.10 Fifteen hundred, however, was a large percentage compared to other Iowa towns. Virtually all of the Black community lived on Waterloo’s east side, regardless of income.

Iowans prided themselves on being among the earliest states to enact prohibitions against racial discrimination, including eliminating a ban on interracial marriage a full decade before the Civil War began. Public schools were integrated too, thanks to an 1867 ruling by the Iowa Supreme Court that “separate” was not “equal,” beating the U.S. Supreme Court to that realization by 96 years.12

In other aspects of daily living though, discrimination in Iowa remained a fact of life if not of law. Unlike the city’s public schools, Catholic schools in Waterloo remained segregated. Racial discrimination at businesses statewide was not outlawed until 1949, when the Iowa Supreme Court ruled businesses had to serve customers regardless of race.13 In Waterloo, young Evelyn Lileah Furgerson, daughter of the town’s first Black physician Dr. Lee Burton Furgerson, Jr., recalled the time a cross was drawn in the wet cement in front of her parents’ home, reportedly by members of the Ku Klux Klan.14 The town’s movie theater directed Black patrons to sit in the balcony. Skating rinks and swimming pools tended to be for Whites only. The same applied to most hotels and restaurants.

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In 1942 Madame Hoosman sent her nephew to live with her married daughter in Chicago. He attended Wendell Phillips High School for a time. Fifteen-year-old Percy quickly landed a Christmas job at the Chicago Post Office and continued to work there full-time after the holidays instead of staying in school. Eventually Madame Hoosman brought her nephew back to Waterloo to resume his education. He graduated from Waterloo East High School in 1947 at the age of 19 and entered Iowa State Teachers College (now the University of Northern Iowa) in the fall. While family and friends suggested he study law, the young man’s hopes leaned toward becoming a pilot or possibly a psychiatrist.

In August 1948, shortly after Lileah Furgerson graduated from Waterloo East High School, her father died unexpectedly of a stroke at the age of 49. She was a gifted musician who dreamed of becoming a concert pianist. Lileah enrolled at Iowa State Teachers College, where she became involved in theater. She landed a part in a production of Deep Are the Roots, in which she played a mother and Percy played her son. Lileah and Percy dated for two years before marrying on July 8, 1950 at St. Peter Claver Catholic Church in Waterloo.

The following year the young couple moved to Washington, D.C. By then Percy had determined that a future as an Air Force pilot was unlikely. While President Harry Truman had issued an executive order in 1948 establishing “equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed forces without regard to race, color, religion or national origin,” 15

the U.S. military was proving slow to integrate. Instead, Dr. Harris set his sights on completing his undergraduate work at Howard University in Washington and going on to medical school there.

Of course living in the nation’s capital was expensive. Both Lileah and Percy needed jobs. Before leaving for Washington, Percy wrote to the new U.S. Congressman from Iowa’s Third District, Harold Royce (H.R.) Gross, to ask for assistance.

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“I knew Mr. H.R. Gross well,” says Dr. Harris. They met when Gross was a radio newscaster at KXEL in Waterloo. The year was 1948 and Gross was covering labor unrest at the Rath Packing Company in Waterloo. Rath employees had joined a nationwide strike by meat packing workers, in part to protest the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. A striking union member at the Waterloo plant was shot and killed, leading to what Harris terms “a great upheaval” — a riot that left the plant in shambles.16 When rioters moved toward Gross, Percy waved them off, saying “don’t bother him, he’s a friend.” 17

Later that year, Mr. Gross defeated a fellow Republican, incumbent John H. Gwynne, for the first of Gross’s 13 terms in the House. Representative Gross remembered Percy and helped both Percy and Lileah find jobs in the capital. Percy started as a dishwasher at the priests’ residence at Georgetown University. He later worked nights as an elevator operator at a high-rise on Connecticut Avenue, while Lileah worked as a typist at the Pentagon.

Lileah’s sister, Betty Jean Furgerson, soon joined them in D.C., working at the CIA and sharing expenses with the couple. “Things were tough,” says Percy, “but Lileah’s mother helped us out. She knew a lot of people in Washington and they helped us, too.” In 1999, he told the Cedar Rapids Gazette, “We were very, very poor [in Washington] and couldn’t have gotten through without each other.” 18

The Washington the Harrises knew in the 1950s was a deeply segregated community. Although African Americans accounted for almost 35 percent of the total population, segregation was the norm at most of the city’s public facilities, schools and housing, either by custom or legal mandate.19 Oddly, while many establishments barred American Blacks, those from Africa, East Asia and other parts of the world were exempt from discrimination. Dr. Harris recalls, “In the same restaurants where I could not sit and be served, my Black friends who were not American citizens simply had to flash their passport and they were served.” 20

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Percy received his Bachelor of Science in zoology from Howard in 1953. Over the next four years, he studied medicine at Howard, where he was class president every year. (Dr. Harris says that means he is “still class president” since no one ever replaced him!) By the time he graduated in 1957, Dr. Harris and his wife had four children. Specializing in psychiatry would have meant additional training in the form of a lengthy residency — out of the question for a man with a growing family. Dr. Harris chose instead to go into general practice (known today as family medicine), which only required a one-year hospital internship.

Internships had just begun to open up for Blacks nationwide and offered better pay than in years past (years when Dr. Harris and his fellow medical students referred to the pay as just “better than cigarette money”). There were four internship programs available in Iowa, where the Harrises hoped to settle down and raise their family. He applied to, and was accepted by, St. Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids.

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Mercy Hospital, also in Cedar Rapids, had already hired its first Black intern — Dr. Mayfield. Dr. Harris noted that Dr. Mayfield was warmly accepted and did a wonderful job, paving the way for Dr. Harris to become the first Black intern at St. Luke’s. He chose the program because St. Luke’s promised housing for its married interns with families. But when the Harrises arrived in June of 1957, they learned the hospital relied on real estate agents to find those accommodations. While realtors had no trouble placing the eleven White interns, they could not find anything for the Harrises. Lileah Harris and their four children (with twins Philip and Paul due the following spring) had to move in with Lileah’s mother in Waterloo while Dr. Harris stayed at St. Luke’s.

Despite the housing issue, for the most part Dr. Harris felt welcome at St. Luke’s. He remembers one physician, Dr. John Robb, who generously offered to let the Harrises stay with his family until they found a home. Instead, St. Luke’s administration converted a hospital-owned house on A Avenue that had been used for nursing students into a home for the Harris family. The hospital acted quickly, and the Harrises moved in before the next school year commenced. Mrs. Harris recalled that hospital superintendent Lou Blair worried about their small children living on such a busy street, so he “put a fence around the yard for safety and also put up a swing set.” 21

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“Dr. Percy G. Harris announces the opening of his office …”

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For Dr. Harris, the prejudice that made it impossible for him to find housing in the city provided an unexpected benefit for his career. In those days, hospitals didn’t have emergency room physicians on staff. Instead, nurses had to call in a doctor when one was needed. It didn’t take long for St. Luke’s nurses to realize that Dr. Harris was readily available on short notice.

“I was right across the street from the hospital and could spend more time there than the other interns,” Dr. Harris told the Gazette in 1999. “If there was a late emergency, the nurse would call me. Many of those emergency cases became patients of mine.” 23

The internship ended June 30, 1958 and two weeks later, on July 11, Dr. Harris opened his office for the general practice of medicine and surgery on the fourth floor of the Guaranty Bank Building. At first it was slow going for the solo practitioner. Fortunately, Cedar Rapids’ Black community, while small, had a strong middle class that supported the new doctor. Dr. Harris credits Vernon Smith, a biochemist at St. Luke’s, with spreading the word about him through the Black community. But some opportunities available to White physicians were not open to Dr. Harris, such as performing insurance exams or serving as a company doctor. At one point Stewart Shank, Commissioner of Finance for Cedar Rapids, approached Dr. Harris about becoming the city physician after Shank’s daughter, a St. Luke’s nurse, recommended him. When the proposal was put to a vote though, Dr. Harris was rejected.

Luckily, others in the community were eager to support Dr. Harris. Fellow physician Maurice Estes “from day one started to help me,” says Harris, adding much of his practice could be traced back to Dr. Estes, who remained a lifelong friend. Dr. Estes was not the only one to support Dr. Harris. In a 2002 video Dr. Harris told oral historians Jerry Ferrie and Allan Eggers, “I can’t overemphasize this group of people who were determined Dr. Percy Harris was going to make it. There was this Black group and then there was a group of Caucasians and Coe College people. At least two or three presidents of Coe College were patients of mine and a large number of faculty became patients.” 24

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Another plus for Dr. Harris’s career was his decision in 1958 to apply for the position of Linn County deputy coroner. He admits he did it initially for the extra money ($15 per case), but soon found the role had even more to offer. The following year, Dr. Harris became Linn County coroner. Then, in 1961, when the new statewide medical examiner system went into effect, the Board of Supervisors appointed Dr. Harris as the first Linn County medical examiner, a position he would hold for the next 40 years. Even after retiring, Dr. Harris continued to help out as an assistant medical examiner until 2002.

His service as medical examiner also raised community awareness of Dr. Harris. His name was often in the newspaper in connection with high-profile cases. The position also brought him into close contact with law enforcement personnel and city leaders, who quickly came to like and respect him. In fact, Dr. Harris says many of his first patients came from the Linn County Sheriff ’s Office and the Cedar Rapids Police Department, and he still counts law enforcement personnel among his closest friends.

As word about Dr. Harris spread, his practice continued to grow. Eventually General Mills hired him as its company doctor. The chief physician of General Mills told Dr. Harris sometime later, he was their best doctor. Similarly, Percy became the principal physician for Iowa Illinois Gas and Electric Company, where sons Bruce, Philip and Paul would later have summer jobs. “My success in terms of building a practice came because of a large group of people who were committed to help me,” he reiterated. In addition, business man Robert Armstrong arranged for Percy to provide flu shots for employees of Armstrong’s Department Store.

Dr. Harris knew there were some in Cedar Rapids who did not want him as their physician because of his race. In spite of such prejudice, only once in his career did he encounter a patient who spat out the words, “I don’t want a n***** for my doctor.” It happened in 1958, when a county nurse asked him to check on a patient whose own physician refused to go see her. Dr. Harris, who had learned about dealing with racial hatred at an early age, calmly responded, “You didn’t select me, I was sent to see you, but I’ll let them know that you still need a doctor.” 25

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Still, Dr. Harris says that professionally, “I could count on one hand the number of known instances of racial resentment I’ve encountered.” 26 He prefers to remember people like the White man from Alabama who came to the St. Luke’s emergency department. After Dr. Harris treated him, this man from the Deep South chose Dr. Harris to be the physician for himself and his entire family.

By the time Dr. Harris retired from private practice in October 1999 — 41 years after he opened his first office — he had become a Cedar Rapids institution. Upon his retirement, the Gazette editorialized that his patients “describe a man who was in step with the latest in diagnosis and treatment, but old-fashioned in the way he cared about their emotional, as well as physical, health and would always spend a few extra minutes or hours caring for both.” 27 Patient Erma Lam agreed, saying, “He’s more than our doctor. He’s our friend. He’ll be missed.” 28

On that last day in his office, after seeing his final patients, Dr. Harris reflected on how he got there. “All my life there have been so many people who have helped me. Many times there were just little things that didn’t seem like a big deal. But, looking back, I think, ‘My goodness, how would I have gotten along without them?” 29

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A Home of Their Own

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Even as Dr. Harris’s practice was starting to grow, housing remained a problem for his family. Three years after the St. Luke’s internship ended, the family — now with seven children — was still living in the hospital-owned house on A Avenue. The Harris’s efforts to find a suitable replacement had run into a roadblock. The only properties available to them were in low-income neighborhoods on the city’s predominantly Black southeast side.

Their situation was not unique. The 1961 Civil Rights Commission on Housing noted that “housing … seems to be the one commodity in the American market that is not freely available on equal terms to everyone who can afford to pay,” adding, “The dollar in a dark hand [does not] have the same purchasing power as a dollar in a white hand.” 30

Property owners, real estate brokers and the financial community all seemed to adhere to the principle that only a “homogeneous” neighborhood “assures economic soundness.” 31 Lenders also believed the stereotype that minority groups were poor credit risks. The result was a widespread practice of housing discrimination throughout the nation. Even the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) encouraged racial discrimination, declaring in 1938, “If a neighborhood is to retain stability, it is necessary that properties shall continue to be occupied by the same social and racial groups.” 32 The FHA went so far as to classify as “undesirable” any land adjoining property sold to Negroes or Mexican Americans.

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Even after the Housing Act of 1949 declared the goal of “a decent home and a suitable living environment for every American family,” 33 discrimination persisted. For example, brokers and lenders in Gross Pointe, Michigan created a point system in which Italians, Greeks and Spaniards had to score 65, Jews had to score 85, and “Negroes andorientals were excluded entirely.” 34 When a developer acquired property in Deerfield, Illinois and let it be known that he intended to sell some of his homes to African Americans, a building inspector shut down construction and the local Park District voted to secure the property through eminent domain. Similarly, when an African-American couple, Mr. and Mrs. Rowan Wiley, bought a vacant lot in Portland, Oregon in 1959 and began work on their new house, the Water District tried to obtain the site through condemnation proceedings. The couple fought back through the courts. Three days after a Federal court sided with the Wileys, an arsonist burned down their partially built home.35

For Percy and Lileah Harris, their dream of owning a home was thwarted by discrimination that prohibited them from neighborhoods they preferred. “We’d drive around town looking for spots to build,” recalled Dr. Harris in 1982. “And I know that in at least two instances, neighborhood organizations were formed, attorneys were hired to keep us from moving in.” 36

In 1961, Robert (Bob) Armstrong, Chair of the St. Luke’s Board of Trustees, asked a fellow Board member why the Harrises were still living in the A Avenue house. When told they were not allowed to purchase a house or land in the neighborhoods they liked, Mr. Armstrong was determined to help. Owner of the popular Armstrong’s Department Store, long a fixture in downtown Cedar Rapids, Armstrong was a well-known civic leader. He and his wife Esther were active in the community and St. Paul’s Methodist Church on 3rd Avenue SE, where Dr. Harris was also a member. Armstrong had a reputation for fairness in dealing with his employees, regardless of color, including being the first in the area tohire Black salespeople.

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He called Dr. Harris daily, suggesting possible houses or lots, but as soon as the sellers realized the prospective buyers were Black, they’d suddenly claim those properties were unavailable. Finally, Mr. Armstrong approached his church with a proposition. The Armstrongs had recently donated property on Bever Avenue, adjacent to their own home, to the St. Paul’s building fund. Mr. Armstrong proposed selling one of those lots to the Harrises for the appraised value of $7,500.

Dr. Jackson Burns, the St. Paul’s minister, said his immediate reaction “was one of thrill, of excitement, of joy, that a man had the courage to take this kind of stand.” 37 He saw it as an opportunity for the church to take the lead in their community and “to witness for our belief in the equality of man under God.” 38

Others did not view it that way. Neighbors in the Indian Creek Hills subdivision sent letters to members of the St. Paul’s congregation urging them to vote against the sale, citing concerns about the economic impact on their property. “We do not believe it is a christian [sic] act to help one family and do so much harm to dozens of others in the neighborhood,” 39 they wrote.

St. Paul’s held a special meeting on the evening of December 13, 1961. Hundreds of parishioners were in attendance, including Dr. Harris. Mr. Armstrong addressed the congregation first, acknowledging that it was a “hot issue … a world issue … whether men and women are entitled a life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, regardless of their race, color or creed.” 40 Armstrong rebutted claims about property values, citing studies that showed little or no impact when nonwhites moved into White areas. He also talked about Dr. Harris and his struggles to overcome obstacles in life, adding, “if this man is good enough to become a member of St. Paul’s Church … I believe he is good enough to live beside me, or you, or any other member of this church.” 41

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Other parishioners argued Mr. Armstrong should never have put the church — or them — in the position of having to take a stand on the controversy. One church member expressed concern about the reaction to their decision in the Cold War era “all over America and into Russia and communist nations.” 42 But while acknowledging “we are all the children of God and we are equally important to him,” she maintained, “When people live in a neighborhood, they are at home with people of their own kind and their own status.” 43

Dr. Jackson Burns responded, “We are given an opportunity now, a God-given opportunity, to say something to this community, to this world, to our children and to our children’s children about where we stand and what we believe … I cannot believe you will fail the church.” 44

They did not. Of 751 church members present that evening, 460 voted to sell the Bever Avenue lot to Dr. Percy and Lileah Harris. The decision was upheld at a special meeting on May 22, 1962 when the Quarterly Conference voted in favor of the sale 40 to 1.

The decision rocked St. Paul’s. Many of the 291 who voted “no” left to form a new church Lovely Lane Methodist. Eldest Harris son Bruce (General Counsel, New Jersey Turnpike Authority and mayor of Chatham Borough, NJ) later became friends with the sons of Lovely Lane’s pastor. Two days before the December meeting, a local businessman and member of St. Paul’s wrote to Robert Armstrong to close out his accounts at the store “after forty years of doing business with you.” 45 With all the reasonableness he could muster, he expressed his willingness to “working with Negros [sic], having them eat in the same restaurants, having them use the same rest rooms … or riding with them in public conveyances,” but said emphatically “I do resent being ‘told’ I must sleep with a Negro, which, in effect, is the equivalent,” and offering his hope that someday Armstrong and Dr. Jackson Burns would “see the error of your ways.” 46

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The event was “epochal” for Cedar Rapids, said Robert Armstrong.47 As both supporters and foes had suggested, news of the incident received statewide and even some national attention. Reporters from Time magazine attended the December meeting (although Dr. Burns discouraged them from writing about it) and an article about the results of the meeting ran in Jet magazine.48

For Percy and Lileah, it was a difficult time. But Dr. Harris says, “It never occurred to us to give up. It was a matter of survival. We were desperate to find a home.” 49 The city issued a building permit for their six-bedroom house in June of 1962. On February 9, 1963, the couple and their seven children — with number eight on her way — moved into their new home. (Within two years the house was expanded to include a seventh bedroom and additional family room space.)

The family loved the house and immediately settled in. Daughter Lileah Harris (recently retired pathologist and partner, Cedar Valley Pathologists) remembers the “really good, nice people” who built their house and discovered most of the neighbors were nice, too. She was thrilled to be in a house with a shower, blissfully singing an old Zest soap jingle the first time she tried it out.

For young Lileah and her siblings, the move also meant a new school, Erskine Elementary. Bruce, the eldest, was in sixth grade. He was well aware the parents of some of his new classmates had signed petitions to keep the Harris family out.

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Two neighbors across the street were among those who had been opposed to the Harrises moving into the neighborhood. They each owned half of a divided driveway across the street from the Harris home. The driveway was a popular shortcut with neighborhood kids because it was the most direct route to Erskine. Bruce recalled that he and his siblings were forced to take the “long way” to school because the homeowner on the left refused to let the Harris children use her side of the driveway. The homeowner on the right had been outspoken in opposing the Harris’s purchase of the property directly across from his home. However, he soon changed his mind, and permitted the Harris kids to walk on his side of the driveway. In a small act of defiance, siblings Lileah and Paul would sometimes “accidentally” stumble off of his side onto the woman’s side.

Another individual who was initially against the Harrises later carpooled with them, driving Bruce to school. Dr. Harris attributes the man’s change of heart to seeing Dr. Harris — dressed, as always, in a coat and tie in public — mowing his lawn. That quiet dignity, a lesson learned from his mother back in segregated Durant, Mississippi, helped foster respect among Dr. Harris’s new neighbors in his all-White Cedar Rapids neighborhood.

Occasionally people would drive by the house and shout racial epithets. And in one particularly ugly and shocking incident, someone threw a brick through the Harrises’ living room window.

Nevertheless, the Harris children focus on nice neighbors like the Armstrongs, who let the kids play in their garden. Mr. Armstrong even took some of the children on flights in his private plane. Other neighbors began to accept them, too. Son Philip Harris (Partner and Trial Attorney at Jenner & Block law firm in Chicago) says, “I never saw any bitterness in my parents, and slowly people who didn’t want us in the neighborhood became our friends.” Even most of the St. Paul’s parishioners who left the church after the 1961 vote eventually returned.

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At Erskine, the Harris siblings had to adapt to being the only Black children in school. Although some teachers were not helpful, principal Clarence Luvaas made the adjustment easier. Peter Harris (film and television music composer) says Mr. Luvaas would pull him out of class to read books on African American leaders like George Washington Carver since the school did not teach Black history. When classmates called the Harrises derogatory names, Mr. Luvaas was quick to intervene. Young Lileah Harris states the White kids at first were not used to Black classmates, but “It didn’t take long for perceptions to change and that was because of my parents. They stood up for us, and kept in touch with our teachers.”

In their former neighborhood, the Harris kids attended Polk Elementary School. It was only slightly more diverse than Erskine, with relatively small numbers of Black students and a few Native American students. However, one advantage of Polk was the children of Coe College faculty members were enrolled there. “One child was one of my best friends,” notes eldest child Bruce Harris, “and it was through that friendship, and the NAACP, that my parents established the relationship with Coe.”

In 1969, the Harris family made national news again, but in a different way. They became the first Black family featured in Maytag’s popular ad campaign showing how large families put their washers and dryers to the test. Ebony magazine profiled Dr. and Mrs. Harris and their children – ten at that time - in a full-page promotion. The March issue’s advertisement proclaimed, “Mrs. Percy G. Harris of Cedar Rapids, Iowa” did 28 loads of laundry per week for “ten lively youngsters … herself and Dr. Harris, a prominent physician.” 50

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A Pillar in the Community

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As Dr. Harris established his medical practice and settled into his role as medical examiner, he also began to assume a leadership role in the community. In 1964, he served as president of the Cedar Rapids Chapter of the NAACP; he and Mrs. Harris became life members. In 1967, Dr. Harris chaired the Board of Directors of Jane Boyd Community House, a recreational facility for low-income children (alumni of the program include former NFL great Kurt Warner). Dr. Harris led the drive to build a pool there.

He was a member of the Mayor’s Committee on Low-Cost Housing, which helped low-income families gain access to decent housing. From 1968 to 1977, Dr. Harris served on the Black Culture Advisory Board at Coe College. He also held leadership positions with United Way.

In 1972 Dr. Harris became chair of the Board of Directors for Oakhill Engineering Corporation, the first Black-owned light manufacturing business in Iowa. This wire harness production company resulted from efforts by the Oakhill-Jackson Economic Development Corporation to establish minority economic development in Cedar Rapids. The following year Dr. Harris founded Cedar Rapids Community Cable, serving in a variety of leadership roles over the next decade, including vice president, president and CEO, in a successful effort to bring cable television to the Cedar Rapids area.

In the medical community, Dr. Harris was active with the Linn County Medical Society and the Community Mental Health Center of Linn County. From July 2006 to December 2013, he served on the St. Luke’s Hospital Board of Directors. When he retired, he was appointed Emeritus Status in recognition of his long and distinguished service to St. Luke’s and the community. Dr. William Galbraith, a longtime friend and colleague, calls Dr. Harris a very special person and a superb physician. “He’s an exemplary member of our medical community,” says Dr. Galbraith. “His personal ethic and devotion to duty are extremely strong. Dr. Harris is highly respected by other physicians.”

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For that reason, Dr. Harris was a leader on the St. Luke’s Medical Staff, including being elected Medical Staff president by his peers in 1976. Dr. Harris says when he accepted the position, “I told them my principle job was to get open heart surgery. I said we’re going to do it for St. Luke’s.”

Cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Wilson W. Strong explains bypass surgery didn’t come into its own until 1967, with a pioneering program at Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Strong came to Cedar Rapids eight years later, fresh out of a residency where he had learned bypass surgery. He recalls some in Cedar Rapids were concerned a local open-heart program would overtax the resources of what was then a small community hospital. However, Dr. Harris was convinced it was the right thing for St. Luke’s. He forged the drive that gained approval for the city’s only program of cardiac cath-eterization and cardiovascular surgery. Dr. Strong states as one of the most respected physicians in the community, Dr. Harris was able to build a consensus for launching the St. Luke’s program, garnering support from physicians, hospital administrators, nursing staff and others. The proposal was a success and the first surgery was performed in June of 1978. Thirty-seven years later, more than 12,000 patients have undergone cardio-vascular surgery at St. Luke’s. “Patients can stay in their own community,” explains Dr. Strong. “If they have an emergency, they can get treatment and surgery right here.” The establishment of local open-heart surgery greatly advanced medical care in Cedar Rapids, and would have a lasting impact.

Another achievement for Dr. Harris was his appointment to the Iowa Board of Regents in 1977. The Board of Regents is a group of nine citizens, appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Iowa Senate, who govern five public educational institutions in the state (the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, the University of Northern Iowa, the Iowa School for the Deaf, and the Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School). Governor Robert Ray named Dr. Harris to the Board for his first six-year term and Gov. Terry Branstad reappointed him in 1983.

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Because Dr. Harris was the first African American on the Board of Regents, he assumed they were looking for someone different. “It turned out I really wasn’t so different,” he recollected. “There were people on that board just like me.” Still, he felt that he would … “bring to the job a special awareness of minority problems in education” 52 as he told the Gazetteat the time of his appointment.

During Dr. Harris’s 12-year tenure as a Regent, the University of Iowa hospital system expanded significantly, becoming a leading academic medical center and a regional referral center. Dr. Harris was also instrumental in plans to build the University of Iowa’s Carver-Hawkeye Arena, one of the largest university-owned facilities in the nation, which opened in January 1983.

Other activities included teaching a Saturday class for high school students interested in a medical career, and volunteering as the team physician for the Jefferson High School football team. He was also the physician for the Cedar Rapids Class A baseball team. During the time the team was affiliated with the St. Louis Cardinals, Dr. Harris and sons Philip and Paul, both avid athletes and loyal Chicago Cubs fans, were treated to a Cardinals–Cubs game in St. Louis in owner Augie Busch’s sky box. Paul (Secretary and General Counsel for KeyCorp, a Cleveland based bank holding company) recalls the other guests were disappointed when the Cubs won, but the Harris boys were overjoyed.

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Impressively, despite the demands of his medical practice and community involvement, Dr. Harris found ways to be with his 12 children as much as possible. The kids often accompanied him to the hospital when he did patient rounds after church on Sunday, or rode along in the car when he made house calls. They also helped out at his office after school. Activities he shared with the kids varied, depending on their individual interests. Athletes Philip and Paul were his “sports buddies.” Daughter Lileah (who became a physician herself) liked talking with her dad about hospital work and his medical examiner cases. Bruce worked in his father’s office during the summers serving as receptionist and bookkeeper when nurse Anne Rapp was on vacation, and sending out bills. Youngest sibling Rebecca (a teacher in Compton, California) accompanied her father to Board of Regents meetings. Rebecca remembers both her parents “celebrated who each child was as a unique individual” — something echoed by her siblings.

Over the years Dr. Percy Harris’s activities as a physician, medical examiner and community leader led to numerous awards and accolades. He received the NAACP Community Service Award (1978), Iowa Football Coaches Association Award (1980), B’nai Brith Community Building Award (1982) and Service to High School Athletics Award (1982). He was often invited to speak at events ranging from the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Banquet in Waterloo in 1984 to the Phi Eta Sigma Initiation Banquet at the University of Iowa (1985).

In 1996 the Cedar Rapids NAACP honored Dr. Harris as its Outstanding Citizen. The following year he was inducted into the Iowa African American Hall of Fame, which recognizes the outstanding achievements of African Americans who have enhanced the quality of life for all Iowans. His selection was based on his lifelong commitment to education and civil rights. Dr. Harris was also named a Mercy Medical Center Laureate on May 20, 1998 when he received the hospital’s prestigious Gold-Headed Cane Award, an honor conferred upon medical laureates who demonstrated medical excellence, professional leadership and personal integrity. Dr. Harris called it “one of the greatest honors bestowed on me.” 53

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At the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Celebration in 2000 at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, where members once debated whether to even let the Harris family live nearby, Dr. Percy and Lileah Harris became the first-ever recipients of the “Who Is My Neighbor?” Award. The award has since been renamed the Dr. Percy and Lileah Harris “Who Is My Neighbor?” Award. In February 2007, the Academy for Scholastic and Personal Success held a “gentle roast” of Dr. Harris at the African American Historical Museum and Cultural Center of Iowa. At the event, James Tinker, then President and CEO of MercyCare Service Corporation, said “I don’t think there’s a more recognized or more beloved figure in Iowa medicine.” 54

In April of 2007, Ted Townsend, CEO of St. Luke’s Hospital, recognized Dr. Harris with the newly created President’s Award. Then, in 2010, the Iowa Medical Society gave Dr. Harris its Physician Community Service Award.

Recognition of Dr. Harris’s achievements extends not just beyond Cedar Rapids but also beyond Iowa. It culminated on that November day in 1999, when Senator Tom Harkin told the United States Senate, “Dr. [Percy G.] Harris is one in a long American tradition of medical practitioners who put patients before profits, who lead by example, and who dedicate themselves to the well-being of humankind, from their community to their nation.” 55

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Percy’s parents, Glendora Harris and Norman Henry Harris, Sr.

Percy’s sister Hilda and baby Percy.

33

Percy and NH (his brother,Norman Henry Harris, Jr).

Percy in 1963, recovering from a peptic ulcer.

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The house on Love Alley in Durant where Percy was born and lived in early childhood.

Percy and Lileah in the play Deep Are the Roots, at Iowa State Teachers College (later UNI).

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Percy and Lileah’s wedding picture.

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Dr. Percy Harris at work.

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A photo of the house at 1101 A Avenue owned by St. Luke’s where theHarris family stayed until their current home was constructed.

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Percy, Lileah, Bruce, David, & Lileah.

The whole family in a Maytag Ad, January 4, 1969.

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Percy, Lileah and the 12 Harris kids - on the front lawn of their home at 3626 Bever Avenue, around 1980.

Lileah Harris, 1976.

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19271930

C. 1933-341935

19371938

1939-41

1941

1942

C. 19431947

1947-491949

1950

19511951-53

19531957

Sept 4: Born in Durant, MSJune 6: Father (Norman Henry Harris) dies in auto accidentAttends Holmes County Training School for ColoredMother marries John Coleman and the family moves to Memphis; Percy attends school for approximately two yearsSister (Hilda Harris) dies of tuberculosisMother (Glendora Roundtree) dies of tuberculosisPercy lives in TB sanitarium for black children (possibly Lynk-Rest Sanitarium, Bartlett, TN); receives no formal educationDischarged from sanitarium and moves to Waterloo, IA, to live with his aunt (“Madame” Blanche Hoosman), a fortune-teller; Percy enrolls in 9th grade at East Junior HighMadame Hoosman sends Percy to Chicago to live with her daughter; Percy gets a job at Chicago post office instead of going to schoolPercy returns to Waterloo and enrolls in schoolGraduates from East Waterloo High SchoolAttends Iowa State Teacher’s CollegeState of Iowa v. Katz: Iowa Supreme Court rules businesses have to serve customers regardless of raceJuly 8: Percy and Evelyn Lileah Furgerson marry at St. Peter Claver Church in WaterlooPercy and Lileah move to Washington, DCPercy attends Howard University, majoring in zoologyGraduates from Howard University with bachelor of scienceGraduates from Howard University medical schoolJuly 1: Becomes 1st black intern at St Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids

Timeline of the life of Percy G. Harris

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1958

195919601961

1962

1963

19641967

1968

July 11: Dr. Percy Harris opens his “office for the general practice of medicine and surgery” at 425 Guaranty Building; joins St Luke’s medical staff

Linn County coronerJane Boyd Community House board memberLinn County medical examiner (’61 – ’00)

Chair, St. Luke’s Medical Records Audit & Utilization Review Committee (’62-’75)

Feb. 9: Harris family moves into 3626 Bever Avenue SE

President, NAACP, Cedar Rapids Chapter (’64-’66)President, Jane Boyd Community House board (’67-’69)

Black Culture Advisory Board, Coe College (’68-’77)

St. Luke’s assistant medical director (’58-’59)Linn County deputy coroner

Founder & president, Cedar Rapids Negro Civic Org (’61 – ’67)Cedar Rapids/Marion County Human Relations Council (’61-’67)Dec 13: St. Paul’s Methodist Church votes 460 to 291 to sell property in their all-white neighborhood to Percy and Lileah Harris

May 22: Methodist Church Quarterly Conference votes 40 – 1 in favor of the land sale to the HarrisesJune 1: Building permit for a seven-bedroom house is issued

Iowa Act Against Discrimination passes

Member, Mayor’s Committee on Low-cost Housing

Parliamentarian, Linn Co. Medical Society (’68-’77)Attends funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr.April 11: Fair Housing Act of 1968 becomes law

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1969

1972

1973

1974

19751976

1977

1978

Board member, Cedar Rapids United Way (’69-’72)Member, Non-Profit Housing CorporationHarris family is featured in a Maytag ad in Ebony magazine’s March issueBoard member, Linn County United Way (’72-’76)

Founder, president & CEO, Cedar Rapids Community Cable (’73-’83)Board chair, Oak Hill Engineering (’73-’75) (first black-owned light manufacturing business in Iowa)VP, St Luke’s medical staff

Community Mental Health Center of Linn Co. (’74-’82)Secretary-Treasurer, St. Luke’s medical staffPresident-Elect, St. Luke’s medical staffPresident, St. Luke’s medical staffLeads process for approval for St. Luke’s open heart programVP, Cedar Rapids Cable Communications (’76-’83)Ebony magazine article, “Black Medics in Control”Appointed by Gov. Robert Ray to Iowa Board of Regents (’77-’83)Kirkwood Community College Medical Advisory Committee (’77)

Speaker, Honors and Oath Day, Howard University College of Medicine

Iowa Foundation for Medical Care (’77)

1st open heart surgery performed at St. Luke’s

United Way nominating executive committee (’72-‘76)Oakhill-Jackson Economic Development Corp. (’72-’75)

VP, Non-Profit Housing Corp. (’73)

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19791980

1982

19831984

1999

2000

19851995

NAACP Community Service Award

B’nai Brith Community Building AwardService to High School Athletics AwardSpeaker, Iowa Assn. for the Deaf, Cedar Rapids

Oct 26: Honored as the Cedar Rapids NAACP Outstanding Citizen

October: Retires from medical practice

Retires as medical examiner

With Lileah, receive the first Who Is My Neighbor? Award at the Martin Luther King, Jr., Day Celebration at St. Paul’s United Methodist ChurchSt. Luke’s Hospital Board Member

Board president, Oak Hill EngineeringIowa Football Coaches Association Award

Reappointed to Iowa Board of Regents (’83-’89)Speaker, Martin Luther King, Jr., Day Banquet, Waterloo

Attends Million Man March in Washington, DC

Inducted into the Iowa African-American Hall of FameMercy Medical Center Gold Headed Cane Award

November 3: Sen. Tom Harkin tribute in the United States Senate

“Roast” of Percy Harris at fundraiser for Academy for Scholastic and Personal SuccessSt. Luke’s Hospital Honorary Board MemberMay 8: Evelyn Lileah Harris dies

1996

19971998

2006-132007

20132014

Speaker, Phi Eta Sigma Initiation Banquet, Univ. of Iowa

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Lileah and her siblings, 1998 family reunion.

Extended family, 1998 family reunion.

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Percy and Lileah 1999 - Bever Park.

Percy Harris, March 4, 2000.

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Herb & Jo Wiese, Neighbors and family friends, at the Harris’s 50th anniversary party.

All of the Harris siblings, taken the day after the 50th anniversary party.

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Lileah playing her piano in the living room at 3626 Bever Avenue.

Extended family at Lileah’s 80th birthday party at the Cedar Rapids Art Museum.

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Top row: Paul’s Children - Kathryn, Andrew, Elizabeth & Christopher Harris. Matthew’s daughter - Lily Harris.Middle row: Lileah’s daughter - Lark Randon. Philip’s children - Corinne, Caroline & Emily Harris.Bottom row: Grant’s daughter - Chad Harris. Anne’s family - David, Rebecca (holding her daughter Savannah) & Evelyn Carter.

Grandchildren and Great-Grandchild of Percy and Lileah Harris

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Lileah, Feb. 22, 2011, when she was honored at Ruth White’s Academy event, held at the African American Museum of Iowa.

Percy Harris, President Obama and Ben Rogers.

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I Stand On His Shoulders

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When Dr. Percy Harris arrived in Cedar Rapids in 1957 to begin his internship at St. Luke’s Hospital, the city’s population was 98.6 percent White. 56 Today the population is larger and more diverse than ever. But that’s not all that has changed since Percy and Lileah Harris chose Cedar Rapids as their home.

Dr. Harris went from being an anomaly as the only African American physician at St. Luke’s (where he recalls one woman asking him curiously if the Black of his skin would rub off) to becoming the man Dr. Wilson Strong calls “one of the most respected physicians in our community.” Along the way, Dr. Harris changed perceptions about race.

“He did it not by knocking doors down, but by building trust, and over time won hearts and minds,” says former Cedar Rapids City Council member Dale Todd. In so doing, Dr. Percy Harris “opened doors for guys like me.”

Karl Cassell, community leader and executive director at the Regional Economic Development Institute agrees, calling Dr. Harris a role model to every young African American who has lived in Cedar Rapids over the past few decades. “You wanted to impress him,” explains Cassell. “I hope to be half the man he was. I stand on his shoulders.”

Ted Townsend, president and CEO of UnityPoint Health - Cedar Rapids, calls both Dr. and Mrs. Harris barrier-breakers. Referring to the housing battle of 1961, Townsend says, “Cedar Rapids is a good community, but in the early ‘60s it was not a community that had matured racially. It has matured now and the Harrises were a big part of that transformation. And they did it through the force of their personalities.”

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The Cedar Rapids Gazette called the challenge to the “Whites only” makeup of the Indian Creek Hills subdivision Dr. Percy Harris’s “first, and most lasting contribution to Cedar Rapids.” The Gazette went on to state he and his wife, through “their courage, civility and simple sense of justice throughout that episode, and their refusal to respond in kind to the bigotry and bitterness they faced, helped city residents of all races through one of the city’s most important cultural transitions.” 57

“My parents showed what life should really be,” says Matthew Harris (founding collaborator, Handmade/Heartfelt MPLS; Creative Producer at Harris/Byrd Productions; and Barista at Caffetto Coffee Shop) the tenth of their 12 children. “They demonstrated the human spirit survives in the face of adversity. They taught us you stand up for your rights if you’re not being treated fairly. But they also taught us to be kind and to help others in need.” Peter Harris, the fourth Harris child, adds, “I learned from my parents all human beings are valuable. I heard virtually no prejudicial statements from them, no racism. They believed we all deserve to find a place on this planet.”

Dr. Harris opened the door for other Black professionals in Cedar Rapids. Ebony magazine, in its June 1972 issue, profiled the talented African American health care professionals who held leadership positions at St. Luke’s Hospital. The magazine commented Cedar Rapids, “a relatively small, rural-oriented, politically conservative urban community” with an almost all-White population, was the “last place most people would expect to find a group of high-powered, Black, medical professionals.” 58

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Nevertheless, in addition to Dr. Harris, who was then president of the medical staff, the group included Dr. Montague S. Lawrence (1923-2001), chief of surgical services; Dr. Kingsley B. Grant (1931-1993), chief pathologist; and Vernon Smith (1926-1999), biochemist and supervisor of special chemistry. Another Black physician, Dr. Reid E. Motley (1933-2003), was also on staff.

While admitting housing continued to be an issue until the early ‘70s, the “medics” agreed it had been relatively easy for Black doctors to become established in Cedar Rapids. Dr. Harris suggested one reason was the small number of Blacks in the city did not “pose … a threat,” but added “there is another reason, which is perhaps a bit more intangible. It seems to me in Cedar Rapids there are more than enough people who really care about their fellow citizens.” 59

Many of those citizens were Dr. Harris’s patients, “thousands of them … who wouldn’t have dreamed of going to another doctor and who never hesitated to call Harris for guidance and a little reassurance.” 60 Herb Wiese, Ph.D. (retired Professor and Chairman, Department of Foreign Languages at Coe College) calls Percy his best friend of nearly 60 years, as well as his doctor. Dr. Wiese says, “He is much loved. Even though he’s been retired a long time, he can’t go anywhere without people coming up to him, shaking his hand and kissing him.” Herb, who for several years took daily walks with Dr. Harris, quips, “No strange women have kissed me!”

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His Greatest Legacy

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In early 2015, Dr. Harris was asked which achievement made him most proud. His eyes softened and his voice was warm with emotion, but his answer was immediate: “My wife — I had a great marriage — and our 12 kids.”

“My wife was smart,” says Dr. Harris. “She was a pianist. First time I saw her, she lived down the street. Her story about meeting me is they would come down and I’d chase ‘em. And until her death, I said I didn’t chase you, you came down to see me.”

When Mrs. Harris passed away in 2014, she and Percy had been married for 63 years. Together they served their community — as life members of the NAACP, leaders at Jane Boyd Community House, active participants in their children’s schools, and parishioners at their respective churches (St. Paul’s United Methodist for Dr. Harris, All Saints Catholic Church for Lileah). Between them they led many civic and charitable organizations in Cedar Rapids, from United Way to the Symphony Guild. And along the way they raised a dozen children who have gone on to achieve success in their chosen fields. “All of the kids were great examples of good citizens of the state and community,” recalls Dr. Herb Wiese, close family friend.

Growing up in a White neighborhood and attending an almost all-White school in the 1960’s, the Harris children were affected by racism. There were occasional derogatory comments from classmates. For example, Mark Harris remembers the time a fellow first-grader called him a racial slur and he fought back. When Mark explained to the principal the reason for the fight, the principal understood and sent him back to class with only a reprimand. Later, when Mark was in high school and a cartoon in his French book struck him as racist, he told his teacher, who then stopped using the book. In spite of such incidents, for the most part the kids have good memories of growing up in Cedar Rapids. “Sometimes race came into play,” says Paul Harris, “but the positives outweighed the negatives.”

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The children realized they, like their parents, were viewed as role models. Karl Cassell calls them “the quintessential Huxtable family”.61 Grant Harris, a middle-school teacher in New Orleans, has met physicians there who were originally from Cedar Rapids and they are quick to tell him how much his father inspired them. Sarah Harris (M.F.A. in film and video production and youth instructor), looks back on herinteractions with the parents of her White friends and says, “One of the lessons I learned is, we kids could change people’s minds” about race, adding, “What my family experienced had a very positive outcome.” Anne Harris Carter (Director - Recruitment and Diversity, Alliant Energy), concurs, saying, “What I appreciate now is hearing from White people I went to school with telling me how important that event was for them and for their families, too.”

“My parents raised 12 kids,” says the youngest Harris, Rebecca. “Everyone turned out well and we all like each other a lot. Our parents celebrated who each child was as a unique individual. How thankful I am for my parents and for my family, the foundation they set for me!”

“I hope part of their legacy is in their children,” says Anne Harris Carter, “and not just my siblings but for generations to come. I hope the Harris name continues to mean something here.”

Family, friends, patients, colleagues and neighbors paint a portrait of a man who has touched thousands of lives and changed his community, forever, for the better.

“I never became a psychiatrist,” said Dr. Harris in 1982. “But I think over the years I’ve been able to help people. Even more than that, people have helped me. I’m not a rich man by any means. But when it comes to friends, I’m a millionaire.” 62

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Standing Shoulder To Shoulder: Evelyn Lileah Furgerson Harris

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Evelyn Lileah Furgerson was born on February 23, 1931 in Waterloo, Iowa to Dr. Lee Burton Furgerson Sr. and Lily Williams Furgerson. She went by her middle name, which was derived from the first names of her parents.

Dr. Furgerson, a native Texan, was one of the town’s first two African-American physicians. His mother was born a slave. His mother’s father was a White slaveholder. Dr. Furgerson earned his B.A. and M.D. from the University of Iowa. He moved to Waterloo, where he provided health care to the city’s Black population that was drawn there by jobs with the Illinois Central Railroad.

The Furgersons bought a house in a White neighborhood at a time when segregation and racial discrimination were the norm, not just in the Deep South but also throughout the U.S. The Ku Klux Klan reportedly drew a cross in wet cement in front of the Furgerson home. Skating rinks and swimming pools were for Whites only and restaurants were segregated. World-renowned singer and activist Paul Robeson was barred from Waterloo’s Whites-only hotels, so he stayed with the Furgersons.

Dr. and Mrs. Furgerson told Lileah, her three sisters and her brother that racism was “a distraction that revealed the ignorance of the practitioner.” 63 When the local movie theater tried to steer Black patrons to the balcony, the Furgerson children refused because their parents taught them to stand against discrimination. On another occasion, Lileah’s home economics teacher segregated the class’s four African-American students to a separate table. Mrs. Furgerson intervened to have the seating arrangement changed.64 Later, when Klondike’s, a popular local hangout, would not allow Blacks to eat their ice cream in the store, Lileah herself filed a Civil Rights complaint. Nothing came of it, but even then, as a junior high student, she had taken an important stand.65

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Lileah was an excellent student and a gifted musician. She started playing piano by ear at age four, and began formal lessons soon after. Although the teacher’s White students performed in recitals, Lileah was not allowed to participate. Frieda Freiburghaus, one of Lileah’s favorite teachers at Grant Elementary School, responded by urging the Furgersons to have Lileah audition with an outstanding piano teacher, Miss Rose Lena Ruegnitz, at Iowa State Teachers College (ISTC). Lileah called it “an example of how prejudice can sometimes have a good outcome.” 66

In 1948, Lileah Furgerson graduated from Waterloo East High School. Shortly afterward, her father died unexpectedly at the age of 49. It was a blow to the whole family, but Mrs. Furgerson insisted her daughter continue with her plan to enroll at ISTC, where she would live with Miss Ruegnitz. In a speech she gave in 2011, Lileah recalled the next two years with her piano instructor as “one of the best times of my life.” 67 In addition to studying music Lileah became involved in theater, appearing in Deep Are the Roots and Blithe Spirit.

She also started dating a fellow student she knew from Waterloo, Percy Harris. By the end of her second year in college, Lileah was working on Rachmaninoff ’s Second Piano concerto to audition for a Waterloo Symphony competition. But she chose instead to leave school and marry Percy Harris. They were wed on July 8, 1950 at St. Peter Claver Church in Waterloo.

After the wedding the young couple moved to Washington, D.C. Percy enrolled at Howard University to complete his zoology degree.Lileah, an excellent typist, went to work for the Pentagon. In 1953, Percy graduated and began medical school at Howard. Meanwhile, Lileah had left the Pentagon to focus on raising their growing family. By the time Percy finished medical school, he and Lileah had four children.

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In 1957 Dr. Harris accepted an internship at St. Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids. Initially Mrs. Harris and the children stayed with her mother in Waterloo, but ultimately St. Luke’s arranged for the family to live in a house at 1101 A Avenue, across the street from the hospital. Later the family made headlines — and challenged the mind-set of the citizenry — when they purchased land and built their home in an all-White neighborhood.

During those early years in Cedar Rapids, Mrs. Harris’s daily activities were centered on their kids — eventually 12 in all. Both Percy and Lileah inspired a lifelong love of learning in their children. “We always knew school mattered,” says daughter Rebecca Harris, “but it was more than just school. It was an appreciation of the value of learning itself.”

Like her mother before her, Lileah Harris was quick to step in if she felt her kids were being treated unfairly. Mrs. Harris was vigilant about protecting the rights of other children too. She was part of a committee that changed the way cheerleaders were selected at Washington High, ensuring inclusion of minority students. Over the years she volunteered at her children’s schools and was very active in the PTA, including serving as the first Black PTA president at both Erskine Elementary and Washington High School.

As the children grew older and more independent, Mrs. Harris devoted more of her time to volunteering in the Cedar Rapids area. She served on the NAACP Board of Directors, and throughout her life carried her father’s NAACP card in her wallet. She was also on the Advisory Boards for Jane Boyd Community House and the Minnesota Early Learning Design program. In addition, she was a member of the Mental Health Association Board of Directors.

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During the 1970s and ‘80s Lileah Harris served on the Human Rights Commission and on the Human Relations Council, focusing on housing equality. She was part of a team on the Human Rights Commission that investigated a sex discrimination charge by two local teachers who were required to stop teaching at the end of their fifth months of pregnancy. As a member of the Multicultural Nonsexist Committee, Mrs. Harris helped attract Black teachers to the district and introduced an integration plan for the Cedar Rapids School System.

Lileah Harris’s love of music led her to join the Board of Directors of the Cedar Rapids Symphony Guild, where she was the publicity chair from 1973-74. Her dedication to the Catholic faith kept her deeply involved in All Saints Catholic Church where she served as president of the Parish Council and sang in the choir. She also worked as a volunteer counselor at Birthright of Cedar Rapids.68

Lileah and her husband were committed to improving interracial relations. Dr. Harris spoke about overcoming prejudice at forums in small towns. Mrs. Harris recalled the couple regularly hosted “sort of like a tea thing on Sundays” for two or three families of different races.

In the late 1980s Iowa Public Television broadcast an educational program on the Russian language. It aired during the Soviet Union’s glasnost era and Lileah was intrigued. When the series ended, she studied Russian at Coe College. Unfortunately, Coe discontinued the Russian language program in 1988. Mrs. Harris faced a dilemma. She could continue her studies at the University of Iowa, but that would require driving on the highway to and from Iowa City. “She was our chief taxi driver and logged countless hours in the car,” says Anne Harris Carter.69 But the highway was another matter.

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Still, Lileah was determined to continue her studies, and that determination resonated with all of her children. She started taking Russian courses at the University of Iowa, and with encouragement from a favorite professor, took additional classes so she could finally attain her college degree. Son Grant Harris says he was blown away, “not because she was going to finish college but because this meant she would have to overcome her fear of driving on the highway.” 70

Mark Harris said it was challenging for his mother to be the oldest student in class. However, she persevered and in 1993, at the age of 62, Lileah Furgerson Harris received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Russian, along with the Dean’s Achievement Award from the College of Liberal Arts. “I was very proud of her when she got her degree,” says Mark. “She didn’t get the degree to get a job, she did it for herself.” Rebecca Harris, who was in middle school at the time, adds, “Seeing that leaves a positive impression on you.” For the rest of her life, Mrs. Harris loved reading books and poetry in Russian. She even served as an unofficial translator when she and Dr. Harris went to Russia with a tour group.

Mrs. Harris was chosen for Waypoint’s Pillar of the Community Award in 2011 at their Tribute to Women event. She was recognized for a lifetime of service, volunteerism and advocacy to improve opportunities for all community members. That same year she received the “I Am The Bridge” Award from the Academy for Scholastic and Personal Success, a program created to encourage African American students seeking fulfillment of their academic and individual potential.

Tragically, 2011 was also the year Mrs. Harris suffered her first stroke. Her oldest daughter, Dr. Lileah Harris, says her mother, a determined woman more accustomed to caring for others than being cared for herself, was frustrated by her inability to function independently. Mrs. Harris was a resident at Hallmar Residential Care in Mercy Medical Center until her death on May 8, 2014.

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Upon her death Lileah Furgerson Harris was hailed as a “Renaissance woman” who left a lasting legacy. Community leader Karl Cassell said, “She held her family together but also made her children aware of issues and that you have to stand up for things.” Rebecca Harris calls her mother “a master pianist with a social activist heart.” Anne Harris Carter speaks of her appreciation for all her mother did, including “what she did to make it easy for my dad to do the things he did.”

Mrs. Harris’s love of music and the arts has been passed along to her children, several of whom now have careers in those fields. Mark Harris, a professional musician and music teacher in Los Angeles, calls her his “musical role model” who “played from the heart, for the love of it.”

Peter Harris says what impressed him most about his mother “was how compassionate she was” and notes she taught all of her children the importance of empathy. Grant Harris talks about Lileah Harris’s moral and ethical center, even about little things like fudging your age to get into a movie theater cheaper. She wouldn’t allow that, saying, “There’s a right way to do things.” Dr. Lileah Harris says the lesson she learned from her mother was “do what you love.” Her mother’s passions were wide-ranging, from family to music, foreign languages, gardening, the arts, civil rights, human rights and her Catholic faith, which Dr. Lileah Harris says was a tremendous source of strength for her mom.

“With all of her intelligence and talent, she could have been many other things,” says Bruce Harris. “But I’m glad she chose to be a mom.” 71

Youngest child Rebecca concludes together her parents taught their children — and their community — the importance of doing “everything you can to make the world a better place with whatever gifts you have.” Without question, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is a better place because of Percy and Lileah Harris.

NOTES1 “Tribute to Dr. Percy G. Harris,” Capitol Words,

by Sen. Tom Harkin, November 3,1999. 2 CNN, June 16, 2011.3 Holmes County median household income 2009-13,

$22,325; U.S. median household income 2012, $51,017; United States Census Bureau.

4 Holmes County population was 38,534 in 1930; 2014 estimate is 18,459; United States Census Bureau.

5 Percy Harris oral history, Collection of the Carl and Mary Koehler History Center.

6 County Training Schools and Public Secondary Education for Negroes in the South, by Edward E. Redcay, Ph.D., 1935.

7 United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.8 Percy Harris oral history, Collection of the Carl and Mary

Koehler History Center.9 Probably the Lynk-Rest Sanitarium in Bartlett, TN, founded

by Dr. Miles V. Lynk.10 “African-Americans Followed the Tracks to Waterloo,”

1993 Courier Annual Edition.11 1940 population: 51,743 (United States Census Bureau). 12 “Iowa History Timeline,” Iowa Pathways.13 State of Iowa v. Katz, “African-Americans in Iowa,

1838-2005, IPTV.org.14 Speech by Lileah Harris at the “I Am The Bridge”

Award ceremony, presented by the Academy for Academic and Scholastic Excellence, February 24, 2011.

15 Executive Order 9981, issued July 26, 1948. 16 Bringin’ Home the Bacon: The Rath Packing Company

in Waterloo 1891-1985, by Rebecca Conard, 2010.17 Percy Harris oral history, Collection of the Carl and Mary

Koehler History Center.18 “Healing Presence,” by Tom Fruehling,

Cedar Rapids Gazette, 1999.19 Separate Is Not Equal: Brown v. Board of Education,

“Washington, D.C.: A Challenge to Jim Crow in the Nation’s Capital,” Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

20 Percy Harris oral history, Collection of the Carl and Mary Koehler History Center.

21 Speech by Lileah Harris at the “I Am The Bridge” Award ceremony, presented by the Academy for Academic and Scholastic Excellence, February 24, 2011.

22 Advertisement, Cedar Rapids Gazette, July 11, 1958.23 “Percy Harris’ Life Worked Out Great, Especially for Iowa,”

by John Carlson, Cedar Rapids Gazette, October 6, 1999.24 Percy Harris oral history, Collection

of the Carl and Mary Koehler History Center.25 Ibid.26 “Black Medics in Control,” Ebony magazine, June 1976.27 “Retirement of Dr. Harris Ends an Era of Service,”

Cedar Rapids Gazette Editorials, October 6, 1999.28 “Healing Presence,” by Tom Fruehling,

Cedar Rapids Gazette, October 3, 1999.29 Ibid.30 1961 Civil Rights Commission Report on Housing.31-34 Ibid.35 “Wiley Family Housing Struggle,” by E. Shelton Hill, 1960,

Oregon Historical Society, Stella Maris House Collection. 36 “Percy Harris; His Hallmark is Compassion,”

by John Carlson, Des Moines Register, October 22, 1982.

37 From transcript of the December 13, 1961, meeting at St. Paul’s Methodist Church, collection of the African American Museum of Iowa – Gift of Dean Metcalf.

38 Ibid.39 Collection of the African American Museum of Iowa –

Gift of Thomas Riley.40 Transcript of the December 13, 1961, meeting at St. Paul’s

Methodist Church, collection of the African American Museum of Iowa – Gift of Dean Metcalf.

41-44 Ibid.45 Letter, Collection of the African American Museum

of Iowa – Anonymous Gift. 46-47 Ibid. 48 December 28, 1961 issue.49 “Percy Harris; His Hallmark is Compassion,”

by John Carlson, Des Moines Register, October 22, 1982.50 “Dr. and Mrs. Harris sometimes wonder how even a

Maytag can stand the pace,” Maytag ad, Ebony, March 1969.51 Truven Health Top 100 Hospitals® Program.52 “Dr. Harris Named by Ray to Board of Regents,”

by Roger Munns, Cedar Rapids Gazette, July 7, 1977.53 Percy Harris oral history, Collection of the Carl and Mary

Koehler History Center.54 “Admired C.R. Doctor Laughs Along with Roast Crowd,”

by Adam Belz, Cedar Rapids Gazette, February 23, 2007.55 “Tribute to Dr. Percy G. Harris,” Capitol Words,

by Sen. Tom Harkin, November 3, 1999.56 Historical Census Statistics on Population Totals by Race,

1790 to 1990, and by Hispanic Origin, 1970 to 1990, for Large Cities and Other Urban Places in the United States,” by Campbell Gibson and Kay Jung.

57 “Retirement of Dr. Harris Ends an Era of Service,” Cedar Rapids Gazette Editorials, October 6, 1999.

58 “Black Medics in Control,” Ebony magazine, June 1976.59 Ibid.60 Percy Harris’ Life Worked Out Great, Especially for Iowa,” by

John Carlson, Cedar Rapids Gazette, October 6, 1999.61 After The Cosby Show, 1984-1992.62 “Percy Harris; His Hallmark is Compassion,”

by John Carlson, Des Moines Register, October 22, 1982.63 Speech by Lileah Harris at the “I Am The Bridge” Award

ceremony, presented by the Academy for Academic and Scholastic Excellence, February 24, 2011.

64 Lileah Harris, “Adult Voices, Children’s Eyes,” African American Museum of Iowa oral history project, March 24, 2010.

65 Ibid.66 Speech by Lileah Harris at the “I Am The Bridge”

Award ceremony, presented by the Academy for Academic and Scholastic Excellence, February 24, 2011.

67 Ibid.68 Lileah Harris, “Adult Voices, Children’s Eyes,”

African American Museum of Iowa oral history project, March 24, 2010.

69 “Lileah Harris, C.R. civil rights leader, ‘Renaissance woman,’ dies,” by Mary Sharp, Cedar Rapids Gazette, May 11, 2014.

70 Ibid.71 Ibid.