On Thursday, August 31, 2017, Chlorine Grigsby Carter will present “African American Life: A Personal Perspective” in the Archives and History Library in the Culture Center in Charleston. The program, the fourth in the 2017 Block Speakers Series, will begin at 6:00 p.m. and is free and open to the public.
The oldest of two children born to the late Yorty and Lillian Grigsby, Chlorine Grigsby attended McKinley Elementary in Pittsburgh before the family moved to Charleston when she was eight years of age. In Charleston, she attended Boyd Elementary and Junior High and in 1953 graduated from Garnet High School, where she ran for class president and Miss Garnet. In 1954, Chlorine Grigsby married the late Herman Carter of Cabin Creek/Chesapeake. They had three children: Jovalene Booker and Alexandria Acholonu, both deceased, and Maurice of Stone Mountain, Georgia. She has six grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, and two step granddaughters.
Carter began a new chapter in her life in early 1960 with her husband when they began operating a canteen for youth in Rand and later, before it closed, in the American Legion Post 57. She reopened the business on the West Side of Charleston with new partner Robert Mahone, and she later had a family restaurant on the East End, Clo’s Uptown Eatery.
Chlorine Grigsby Carter worked at the Coyle and Richardson Department Store, the Security Building, as a teacher’s aide in specialized reading at Rand Elementary, in the registrar’s office at West Virginia State, and at BB &T for 23 years until retiring in 1995.
She has been a member of Post 57 Auxiliary of the American Legion, the Conservative Clubs Auxiliary, Charleston Women’s Improvement League, American Cancer Society, and the American Lung Association of Charleston. She currently is a member of The Silver Haired Legislature and has served as Speaker of the House. Carter is a member of the Levi First Missionary Baptist Church.
Participants may park behind the Culture Center after 5:00 p.m. on August 31 and enter the building at the back loading dock area. There also is limited handicapped parking available in the new bus turnaround.
For additional information, contact the Archives and History Library at (304) 558-0230.
