Judge James Bryan McMillan
Born in Goldsboro, NC on December 19, 1916, James Bryan McMillan was the second son of Robert Hunter McMillan and Louise Outlaw McMillan. His father was bedridden with arthritis and died in 1930, when Judge McMillan was 14 years old. His mother had to relocate her family of four children back to the McMillan farm in Robeson County, NC.
Judge McMillan graduated from Lumberton High School in 1932 at the age of 15. He went on to attend Presbyterian Junior College (now St. Andrews University) and graduated second in his class in 1934. During this time of the Great Depression, he worked in a tobacco warehouse during the summer and did janitorial work, as well as other odd jobs to help defray the college costs. Judge McMillan went on to attend UNC Chapel Hill and graduated in 1937 with a degree in Economics. From there he entered Harvard Law School and graduated 3 years later in the top one fourth of his class.
Judge McMillan worked on the staff of the North Carolina Attorney General until the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor, after which he enlisted in the US Navy. He attended an officer training program at Notre Dame and upon completion, was commissioned an Ensign. During World War II, the Judge was a bomb disposal and communications officer. He was assigned to advanced bases in North Africa campaigns and the invasion of Sicily. He also had short tours of duty in Hawaii, with his last tour of duty in Washington, DC, in the Office of Chief of Naval Operations. It was during this tour of duty in Washington that he met and married Margaret Blair “Margie” Miles in 1944. McMillan was honorably discharged as a senior Lieutenant in January of 1946.
Arriving back in North Carolina, still in uniform, he approached Fred Helms of the law firm Helms and Mullis and became an associate of that firm in 1946. Judge McMillan worked in the firm for the next 22 years and became a partner making the firm Helms, Mullis, McMillan, and Johnston. He was one of the most effective civil trial lawyers in the state with most of his work being insurance defense work. During this time from 1947 to 1952, he also served as Judge pro-tem of the Charlotte City Court, which was a part time job. He worked in the early 60’s to promote Judicial Reform and as a result of the Judicial Reform movement, North Carolina had one of the most progressive statewide court systems in the nation.
In 1968, Judge McMillan was nominated and then appointed by President Johnson to the Federal Judiciary for the Western District. He was known as a no-nonsense judge who tried cases rather than managing court dockets. Judge McMillan, along with Judges Woodrow Jones and Robert Potter ran one of the most productive federal court districts in the country. It was during this time in the turbulent 70’s, that he was called upon to implement the civil rights legislation of the 60’s and presided over his most visible case. In Swann vs. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, he ordered the board to use all resources including bussing to desegregate the public schools. This controversial ruling was ultimately unanimously upheld by the US Supreme Court. Judge McMillan took senior judge status in 1989 and later retired from the bench due to poor health.
During his life he received many accolades to include UNC’s Order of the Golden Fleece, The John Johnston Parker Award, the NC Bar Associations highest award, and the ACLU gave him its Frank Porter Graham award to name just a few. He was also the recipient of numerous honorary degrees.
Judge McMillan’s first wife of 41 years, Margaret, died in 1985. In 1987, he met and married Holly Smith Neaves of Elkin, NC. Judge McMillan died on March 4, 1995. He was survived by his second wife Holly Neaves McMillan, his son James Bryan McMillan of Thomasville, NC, and daughter Marjorie Miles McMillan Rodell of Denver, CO.
Dr. John Lisker Tart
Dr. John Lisker Tart was born on October 30, 1927, in Wayne County and found his passion in high school when he became a member of the Future Farmers of America. In 1944, he was elected the FFA’s North Carolina student president and because of war, the state was unable to hold its national convention, and it was decided that he would serve two terms as president. He is the only individual to ever serve two terms as state FFA president.
He went on to continue his education at North Carolina State University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in 1950 and his doctorate in education in 1969. His career started as an agricultural educator at Eureka High School before moving to Grantham High School. He shared his passion for farming and FFA with his students, some of whom went on to become state winners in prepared public speaking and parliamentary procedure. One of his students became state FFA president and national FFA vice president. He went on to create the Dr. John L. Tart Family FFA Parliamentary Procedure Endowment, which still benefits and teaches students today.
He continued his career as an educator and became the founding president of Johnston Community College in 1969 and maintained that position until his retirement in 1998. While there, he expanded enrollment and created a nonprofit college foundation to support students and create scholarships. The John L. Tart and Majorie S. Tart Scholarship Endowment is still responsible for helping many JCC students pay for their education. The Tart Building stands on the campus today as a reminder of Dr. Tart’s love of education and contributions to the school. As well as an educator, he was also a farmer on the 300-plus acres of Tart Farms in the Grantham community where he lived with his wife of 66 years, Marjorie, and their three children.
His passion for education led him to serve as a member of the North Carolina State Board of Education for eight years. He also became an advocate for farm protection by serving as a North Carolina Legislator for four years and a Wayne County Commissioner for eight years. He also made a huge impact on his local community by being a member of the Mill Creek Masonic Lodge #125 in Newton Grove, the Grantham Grove, and served as secretary and treasurer of the Grantham Volunteer Fire Department. He was also a member of the Selah Christian Church, where he served on the board and as a Sunday school teacher for over 65 years.
In 1984, Governor Jim Hunt awarded Dr. Tart the Order of the Long Leaf Pine and in 2014, the North Carolina State Future Farmers of America Foundation awarded him the Lifetime Achievement Award.
He passed away on April 11, 2015, surrounded by his family, leaving behind a legacy of education, farming, and advocacy that is being carried out by his children and grandchildren and will be felt by future generations for years to come.
Dr. Edmund Wyatt Gordon
Dr. Edmund W. Gordon was born on June 13,1921 in Goldsboro. He grew up in the segregated community and was raised by his father, a well-respected Jamaican-born physician, and his mother, an elementary school teacher. He was first ordained as a deacon in the Presbyterian Church as an adolescent, was a member of the Boy Scouts, and graduated from Dillard High School at the age of sixteen.
He attended Howard University, where he earned a degree in Zoology in 1942, and Social Ethics in Divinity in 1945. Upon his graduation from Howard University, he was an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., and served as a field missionary for a small congregation in Omaha, Nebraska. It was in Omaha that he first met his wife, Dr. Susan G. Gordon, a pediatrician. After realizing that his divinity training was not adequate preparation to effectively counsel people, he decided to study psychology. He earned a master’s degree in Social Psychology from The American University in 1950 and Ph.D. in child development and guidance from Columbia Teachers College in 1957. During his psychology education, he notes Alain LeRoy Locke, Herbert G. Birch, and W. E. B. Du Bois as influential mentors.
In the early 1950’s, after realizing there were no mental health facilities for children, Dr. Gordon, along with his wife Susan, established the Harriett Tubman Clinic for Children in Harlem, New York. In 1959, he accepted his first teaching position in academic psychology at Yeshiva University. He would then go on to teach at Columbia University, Yale University, City University of New York’s City College of New York, and serve as scholar in residence at the State University of New York’s Rockland Community College.
In 1965, Dr. Gordon was selected as Director of Research and Evaluation as part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty” to help design and evaluate the Head Start Program, aimed at providing early childhood education and family services to under-resourced families. He also conducted research that would later be used to prove to the Supreme Court that school segregation had harmful effects on children. He understood the importance of strengthening the families and communities that children come from to improve opportunities for learning very early on.
In the 1990s, Dr. Gordon, along with his wife, Susan, established Gordon and Gordon Associates in Human Development. Together, through Gordon and Gordon, the Drs. Gordon consulted and provided educational expertise across the country. They led the integration of schools in East Ramapo, New York; created a Psycho-Educational Diagnostic Clinic for children, referred to the Ambulatory Pediatrics Division of the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center; and launched the Gordon and Gordon Associates in Human Development and the CEJJES Institute, located in Rockland, New York. At the Teachers College, Columbia University, he founded the Institute for Urban Education in 1973, and he was Vice President of Academic Affairs from July 2000 until August 2001 and Interim Dean. In 2006, he was appointed Senior Scholar in Residence at SUNY Rockland Community College, an appointment that was renewed in 2010. From 2011 to 2013 he organized and mentored the (ETS) Gordon Commission, bringing together scholars to research and report on the Future of Assessment for Education. He was the Senior Scholar and Advisor to the President of the College Board where he developed and co-chaired the Taskforce on Minority High Achievement. He is the John M. Musser Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Yale University, the Richard March Hoe Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, and founding director of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education and the Institute for Research on African Diaspora in the Americas and Caribbean (IRADAC) at the City College of New York. He has also been civically involved in his home community of Rockland County, New York, through involvement with organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the Rockland Local Organizing Committee (RLOC). He is the author of more than two hundred articles and eighteen books.
Dr. Gordon has received numerous honors, awards, memberships, and fellowships for his achievements. In 2003, Educational Testing Service endowed a chair in Gordon’s honor. He was awarded the 2010 American Educational Research Association (AERA) “Relating Research to Practice Award.” In 2017, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received the American University’s Neil Kerwin Alumni Achievement Award in 2019. He was named Honorary President of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in 2021. That same year the signature event at American University’s annual Summer Institute on Education, Equity, and Justice (SIEEJ) was named the Dr. Edmund Gordon Distinguished Lecture Series. He holds honorary degrees from Yale University, Yeshiva University, and Brown University. He was elected a Fellow of many prestigious organizations, including the American Academy of Arts & Science, and has been named one of America’s most prolific and thoughtful scholars. He has also been recognized by the National Academy of Education and Educational Testing Service for his contributions to developments in education.
Dr. Gordon’s distinguished career spans professional practice, scholarly life as a minister, clinical and counseling psychologist, research scientist, author, editor, and professor. Through all these avenues, his work has heavily influenced contemporary thinking in psychology, education, and social policy. Having lived through many aspects of the Black plight in America, including the civil rights movement, landmark supreme court cases, and a number of social revolutions, he used his education and knowledge to lift up others. His research and initiatives have focused on the positive development of under-served children of color, including advancing the concept of the “achievement gap.” He strongly advocated the importance of understanding the learner’s frame of reference in the development of education action plans. His professional passion and life’s work, education for all learners, has made a profound impact in current thinking about education, psychology, and social policy to empower African American communities and other marginalized groups.