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Gay Beverley Caroline
As a youth, Gay played an active role in the NAACP Youth Chapter, then went on to serve the adult branch as Secretary, Membership chairman, chairman of the Speakers Bureau , President and then Vice President in charge of programs.
She became the director of the NAACP Head Start/State Preschool Program in 1973 and for sixteen years administered the program which grew during this period from five classrooms to twelve serving more then 200 children at three sites with a staff of 38 committed workers. The program was widely acclaimed as a model for other Head Start/State Preschool programs.
Gay literally grew up in Park Avenue Baptist Church where she was baptized at age 7 by Rev. W.G. Goodwin.
Gay was heavily involved in the civil rights activities of the era. A long list of picketing events in which she participated included a trip to Washington, D.C. where she was one of hundreds of NAACPers’ who surrounded the U.S. Justice Department protesting the murders of Swarner, Goodman, and Chaney, three civil rights activists in Mississippi.
She was instrumental in founding and serving on the committee which got the first minority candidate, John Sotelo, elected to the Riverside City Council.
Gay was an American Red Cross worker in Japan and the Philippine Islands after WW II working with servicemen and their families during the occupation. While serving in Japan she led a tour of servicemen to the War Crimes Tribunal in Tokyo. On trial was the notorious Japanese General Tojo. On returning to the States, Gay worked for many years as Senior Recreation Leader for Oakland and Riverside Recreation Departments.
Gay was one of four official delegates selected to represent Riverside County at the Inauguration of President Lyndon Baines Johnson and served as hostess at the Sheraton-Park Hotel, one of the four Inaugural Ball sites in Washington, D.C.
In May 2004, Gay Caroline was designated a charter member of the "We Also Served" register in the Women in Military Service Memorial in Washington, D.C.
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Many residential area agreements existed between realtors and homeowners not to sell or rent to Blacks.
In the downtown shopping district one would occasionally see the "White Only" sign and signs stating "Colored need not apply".
There were shops where Women of Color could not try on a hat before purchasing.
Gay Caroline
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