Breeding

Most North Texans will probably never know how much Hazel Harvey Peace has changed the place we call home.

Peace is a small woman. She stands straight and her voice is clear, and at times, it carried further than that of Herman L. Totten, the dean of the School of Library and Information Services at the University of North Texas.

For her 100th birthday, Peace got a gift she couldn’t estimate. The School of Library and Information Ser­vices named a professorship for Peace. In doing so, UNT be­came the first four-year university in the state to name a professorship for a black woman.

Peace was the dean of girls at I.M. Terrell High School be­fore the long arm of Jim Crow was partially disabled by the courts. Peace didn’t see the school door as her boundary, but worked to bring literature to her students in spite of the bricks of segregation that so often kept southern black students separate and unequal from their white peers. Her renown grew quietly among ed­u­cators in Fort Worth, and the children’s section of the Fort Worth Public Library would eventually be named for her.

On Thursday, each faculty member of the library science school showed up to a luncheon in honor of Peace. Totten said the professorship is especially fitting, seeing as most of the school librarians in Texas studied at UNT.

Peace gathered admirers around her for the affair. Barry Brown, the chief of staff for the office of U.S. Congressman Michael C. Burgess, read a tribute from the congressman. Linda Allmand, a member of the Peace Professorship Cam­paign Committee, spoke of both her long association with the teacher, and the library school’s drive to continue Peace’s outreach to children. For­mer students and colleag­ues of Peace attended. Bob Ray Sanders, of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, spent too little time reminiscing about being a student in the care of Hazel Harvey Peace.

“When I was at I.M. Terrell, I was on the annual staff,” Sanders said. “Every annual staff had a dedication page. In 1965 — now I know some of you are doing the math — our annual staff dedicated that page to Mrs. Harvey Peace.”

Sanders explained by telling a recent story about a party for Peace’s 100th birthday.

“At a party the other night, Hazel Harvey Peace stopped the program a couple of times to tell some girls on the front row the right way to cross their legs,” he said. “She stopped a few times to talk to some young men, too. She told them — as she told us — how to sit up straight and hold our heads up high. There were people there that night who said: ‘Mmm-mmm. A hundred years old, and she’s still teach ng. She’s still teaching.”

Sanders said Peace and her colleagues made sure their students got the best of their teachers.

“For those of us who were there in the dark days, these people went out and they got their education, and then they came back home to us, and we were not de­prived,” Sanders said.

Peace stood at the lectern when the time came for her to speak.

“Hallelujah,” she said. “Halle­lu­jah, hallelujah. I am so happy to­day. I am so thankful to this university, and if you ever, ever need anything from me, if I’m breathing, you just ask.”

Peace took most of her time behind the lectern to spotlight librarians she’d worked with over the years, and to point out the way they reflect the progress of post-segregation Fort Worth.

“Those two women were different colors. Did you notice that? Did you? Did you see them hug? There is so much joy in the world,” Peace said.

The teacher also welcomed the first Hazel Harvey Peace Professorship recipient, Dr. Barbara Stein Martin.

Martin told her peers and ad­mirers that UNT will honor Peace by touching the lives of children with literature and ideas.

“We are grateful to be able to have this professorship in your name,” she said.