His Life · Chapter 8 of 8 · 1980s – 2007
Later Years & Legacy
Astronomy, photography and a garden. Two oral histories recorded in his own voice, and a family legacy of healing that runs from Wetumpka to Kansas City to a Meharry scholarship.
He never really retired from curiosity. According to his obituary, late in life “Doc” Rodgers “mixed public service with private learning.” He took up astronomy, photography and gardening, and kept urging people to register to vote into the 1980s.1 His niece said, “He was open to relationships with all ages of people.” Anniston’s mayor, Chip Howell, remembered going to him for advice. “He was a very genuine, caring individual who could see not only how something might affect a person, but the bigger picture.”2
Agnes died in 1993. His brother Samuel died in December 1999, and his sister Frances did not outlive him either.
Two recordings
Twice in his last years, someone came to his home with a tape recorder, and both recordings survive. They are the reason this site can let you hear him.
The first was on April 12, 1995. Shaun Simmons, a student of Dr. Suzanne Marshall at Jacksonville State University, sat down with him at 1001 Claxton Street for about an hour. He was seventy-nine. He forgot some dates and said so, but his sense of the stakes was clear.
“I’m almost eighty, and sixty years of my life was spent under one hundred percent Jim Crow laws — down to the drinking fountain.”
The second was on April 17, 2002, for Frederick Burger’s research collection, now held by the Public Library of Anniston-Calhoun County. He was eighty-six. He told Burger about his grandfather’s birth in slavery, the NAACP mail, the Buffalo Soldiers and the banks that ruined Thomas Jackson, and he heard his own 1956 Chattanooga speech read back to him. When Burger asked about the literacy tests used to turn away Black voters, the historian in him showed:
“I wish some of those tests had survived so we could see what they looked like; I don’t know if any of them survive.”
December 2007
Dr. Gordon Alexander Rodgers Jr. died in December 2007 in Douglasville, Georgia. He was ninety-two. His funeral was held at Haven United Methodist Church in Anniston.3 The Birmingham News began its obituary with a line that suits him: “Whether it was from a balcony in Cuba or a dentist’s office in Anniston, Dr. Rodgers witnessed a lot of history.”
What he left
Two brothers, two firsts. While Gordon was integrating Anniston’s city government, Samuel was changing medicine in Kansas City. Dr. Samuel U. Rodgers helped lead a 1947 protest by Black resident physicians there. In 1968 he opened the Wayne Miner Neighborhood Health Center, the first community health center in Missouri. It was renamed for him in 1988 and still serves Kansas City as the Samuel U. Rodgers Health Center.4 Gordon talked about it the way an older brother would.
“But the one my brother organized in Kansas City is the only one in the whole United States which has survived all kinds of turmoil and competition from the medical society …”
Three generations at Meharry. His father graduated from Meharry Medical College in 1908. He graduated in 1941, and his daughter Dr. Beverly Rodgers in 1987. Beverly later established the Dr. Gordon A. Rodgers Sr. and Jr. Legacy Scholarship at Meharry to honor her grandfather and her father and to help dental students from Alabama.5
Four children. He was survived by Gordon Alexander “Flash” Rodgers III, Cheryl Rodgers, Dr. Beverly Rodgers and Michelle Rodgers Sands, and by grandchildren. One of those grandsons built this site.
A town that votes. He always came back to the vote, and in 1995 he did not think the work was finished. “We’re still working on it,” he said. At the end of that first interview, Shaun Simmons thanked him, and he looked back over half a century.
“Very good, Shaun. I’m glad you came by. I mean, after fifty-five and sixty years of doing something, so many things have come through your mind, and your body is focused on things that — you have to scratch your head to come up with some facts, and some things you just forget. But they’re all pleasant, and I would gladly do them all over again.”
Footnotes
-
William Thornton, “Gordon Rodgers, Anniston dentist, civil rights leader, activist dies at 92,” The Birmingham News, Dec. 27, 2007. ↩
-
Frances Parker and Mayor Chip Howell, both quoted in The Birmingham News, Dec. 27, 2007. ↩
-
The Birmingham News, Dec. 27, 2007, which says he died “Friday.” The exact date and his burial place have not yet been confirmed from a primary record. If you can help, please let us know. ↩
-
Samuel U. Rodgers Health Center history. Samuel died December 19, 1999. ↩
-
Meharry Medical College scholarship listing. The family confirms that the scholarship honors Dr. Beverly Rodgers’s grandfather (Sr.) and father (Jr.). ↩