Alumni Classes
New York street bears Anderson native's name
By Charmaine Smith-Miles
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
 ANDERSON COUNTY - The Rev. Grady H. Donald was born and raised in Anderson County, but his footprints clearly were left not only in this place but also in Tennessee and New York.
While he will be remembered in all three places, New York now is home to a street named after him. East 156th Street in the Bronx in New York City officially became Grady H. Donald Boulevard on June 15, his wife, Clara Donald told the Anderson Independent-Mail Tuesday.
Ms. Donald, who helped unveil the sign, said she wasn't surprised when she learned the mayor of New York City had signed a resolution approving the name change.
"He just did so many things," Ms. Donald said. "It was very, very touching to me. In my heart, I wish he could've been here."
While the Rev. Donald was born in Belton in 1929, he and his family had lived in the Bronx since the mid-60s.
He started a church there, created programs that helped people fighting drug addiction and started a program that provided affordable housing to lower-income families in the Bronx. He also started a Head Start operation that provided preschool services to children from needy families. For 18 years he served as a chaplain at Rikers Island correctional facilities. He also began Greater Victory Baptist Church in the Bronx in 1971.
That church sits on the street now named after him. He served as the pastor for 27 years. He died at the age of 73 in November 2002.
His life that he used as a ministry began in Anderson.
He attended Shiloh Baptist Church on Abbeville Highway and was raised by Ella Calhoun Donald and Alonzo Donald. He was one of 13 siblings. One of his brothers went into ministry, and so did his nephew Johnny Donald Jr., who leads Strait Christian Church in Anderson.
Grady Donald was 14 when he decided he wanted to go into ministry, said his niece, Annie Earl. She said the influence of his mother and the Rev. Leroy R. Best guided her uncle to the pulpit.
"Pastor Best led such a life that I think my uncle wanted to follow in his footsteps," Ms. Earl said.
After graduating from Reed Street High School in Anderson, the young Grady Donald enrolled at Benedict College in Columbia. Then he went on to the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tenn., on a scholarship that he earned in Greenville. In 1950, he was ordained a minister.
While in Nashville, he met his wife, Clara, and became active in the Civil Rights Movement.
He was one of the original Freedom Riders there. He organized the Nashville Christian Leadership Council, a group of ministers who led the city's civil rights movement in the 1960s.
On one of the Freedom Rides, he and others took a bus to Jackson, Miss., protesting the fact that at the time blacks were not allowed to ride at the front of busses or other forms of public transportation. When the group arrived in Jackson, all of the members drank from a white-only fountain and were arrested as a result.
Grady Donald served 12 days in jail as a result.
"My uncle - he really was an amazing man," Ms. Earl said.
Source: http://www.andersonindependent.com/news/2007/jul/11/new-york-street-bears-anderson-natives-name/
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