Kilgore Church Members Honored for Decades of Service
KILGORE, Texas (KLTV) – Three longtime members of Mt. Pleasant C.M.E. Church were recently honored by the church and the City of Kilgore for their decades of dedication and community involvement. Clora Austin, 100, Cleo Morgan, 99, and Maxine Fortson, 90, were recognized for their significant contributions to both the church and the broader East Texas region.
Clora Austin, born February 11, 1926, in Gregg County, has lived her entire life on land originally purchased by her grandfather in 1912. Her great-grandfather, formerly enslaved, acquired 500 acres in the Longview area along the Texas Pacific Railroad. “I’ve never moved away,” Austin said, explaining she remained on the original family farm, later moving across the street.
Austin’s commitment to education is also remarkable. She graduated from North Chapel High School in 1945 and continued her studies, earning a Bachelor of Science degree from Texas College and a master’s degree from Prairie View A&M University. She dedicated nearly 30 years to the field of education, specializing in special education and serving as an educational diagnostician before retiring in 1987. “I am a product of the Mount Pleasant Elementary School,” Austin reflected, noting the church initially provided education for its children when public schools were not accessible.
Cleo Morgan, also a 1945 graduate of Kilgore Colored High School, shared her experiences with segregation and the pursuit of education. She attended Wiley College in Marshall before relocating to New York to start her family. “We weren’t the right color” to attend Kilgore College at the time, Morgan stated, highlighting the racial barriers of the era.
Morgan later earned her master’s degree from Texas Southern University and embarked on a 17-year teaching career in Lubbock, during a period of school integration in the 1960s. “When they said, let’s integrate, I was sent to a school where it was well integrated,” Morgan recalled. “It was great. The kids loved it and everything was just fine.” Morgan dedicated a total of 34 years to education before her retirement in 1984.
Maxine Fortson, 90, has been a member of Mt. Pleasant C.M.E. Church for approximately 80 years, with a 20-year period dedicated to her education, and career. After graduating from Kilgore Colored High School, she pursued a nursing degree in Salina, Kansas, and later completed anesthesia nurse school in Kansas City, Missouri, where she worked for two decades before returning to East Texas in 1974.
Fortson vividly remembers the challenges faced by Black students during her youth. “Growing up and being in a segregated school, what I remember most about it was we were ten years behind in our books that we studied in,” she said. “They would bring the big yellow bus from the white school to the black school and bring us our books to study out of.”
Austin shared that the church is awaiting approval for a historical park plaque to commemorate the site’s significance in the community’s educational and religious history. “We have just been approved for historical park plaque for this site, and we’re just waiting on them,” Austin said. “We’ve already paid for it.” The church originally served as an educational institution for Black children when public schools were not available to them, and both Austin’s mother and father attended school at the original church site.
