Town of Grifton, NC

Town of Grifton
528 Queen Street
P.O. Box 579
Grifton, NC 28530
(252) 524-5168

Mattie Dixon

Mattie J. Caple Dixon was born in 1903 in Grifton and attended school in the building that is now the Grifton Historical Museum. She was inspired by a teacher who said that one should always set a good example because you never knew how much what you said or did might influence another person.

Mattie attended Tar River Institute in Greenville and Elizabeth City State Teachers College, was certified as a teacher in 1928, and taught for nine years. She also was a teacher’s aide for 2-1/2 years, and after her husband died she raised her two daughters and several grandchildren by doing domestic work.

She was a strong leader in the black community and in the Grifton Chapel Free Will Baptist Church, and a strong advocate of the importance of working to attain a good education. In the early 1970’s just after integration when outside agitators tried to stir up racial conflict in Eastern North Carolina, Mattie refused to let “outsiders” tell her how to act and her leadership helped keep Grifton calm.

In 1971 a vacant lot on Gordon and Main Streets was developed as a Minipark and named “Mattie’s Minipark” in honor of Mattie who had first suggested the need for a place for children in her area of town to play.

In 1974 she was honored as one of five outstanding Pitt County women invited to appear on a panel “Then and Now: Pitt County Women Through 200 Years” as part of the City of
Greenville’s celebration marking the city’s 200th birthday.

In 1976 she was named a Girl Scout “Hidden Heroine” by Brownie Scout Troop 36 of Grifton and included in a scroll at Girl Scout national headquarters of women who had made a significant contribution to the quality of life in their communities.

She was a charter member of the Grifton Historical Museum committee in 1976 and that year gave a brief address prior to the Shad Festival parade as a representative of Grifton citizens age 70 and older who were honored at that year’s festival in celebration of the Bicentennial.

She was selected as Outstanding Citizen of Grifton for 1976 by the Grit ton Chamber of Commerce for her civic consciousness over half a century and her leadership in bringing races together and getting people to work together for a better Grifton.

Her views on the importance of the races working together are summed up in a statement she made in a newspaper interview around 1979 or 1980, referring to community cooperation across racial and economic lines in Grifton: “When we work together, we throw away the color of the skin and look at the person inside.”

--written by Janet Haseley

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