Judith C. Hill. Illustration by Bryan Hickman.
What did your mom do when you were growing up?
Made hot dogs for you and your friends, probably. Or delivered petitions to the White House. Answered middle-of-the-night calls from suicidal teens. Stood in court with children who had no parental support. Was one of President George H.W. Bush’s 1,000 Points of Light.
“You talk about a queen and a warrior,” said Judith Michelle Hill, daughter of Judith Hill. “That was Mommy.”
In October, Harrisburg City Council gave secondary names to two sections of N. 6th Street, honoring civil rights activists and youth advocates who quietly achieved the monumental. The intersection of 6th and Harris streets is now Judith C. Hill Way, dedicated in December. The block from Forrest to Woodbine streets became Rev. Billy Gray Way, near the Camp Curtin YMCA, where Gray made only a portion of his outsized impact.
Judith C. Hill
Judith C. Hill Way commemorates the woman who grew up nearby, left the city, and returned to make an indelible impression in education, politics, civil rights, faith and civic life.
“Several members of Harrisburg City Council are literally standing on the foundation that Ms. Hill has set for us as the first Black woman to serve as a member of the legislative body for the City of Harrisburg,” said City Council President Danielle Bowers, who helped lead the commemoration.
Judith Hill was born in Harrisburg in 1928, the daughter of a Bethlehem Steel worker. She graduated from Virginia Union University, an HBCU. For a time, she lived in Montreal but returned to Harrisburg in 1966, teaching in the Harrisburg School District.
Just a few of her leadership roles: Camp Curtin YMCA. Camp Curtin Memorial-Mitchell UMC trustee. Central Pennsylvania Council of Churches. OIC counselor and lead instructor. Proud member of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority.
“She wasn’t afraid to lead,” said her son, Jeffrey Hill of Harrisburg. “She was the president of just about every group she got involved in.”
Hill understood and leveraged the intersection of activism and politics. She was a Republican, forging deep ties and friendships with Pennsylvania power, including U.S. Rep. George Gekas and Gov. Dick Thornburgh. U.S. Secretary of Transportation Drew Lewis appointed her as staff assistant to the director of civil rights.
“We saw them really focus on making things happen in the community and following through on it, and making sure they were leveraging for the benefit of the youth,” said Judith Michelle Hill of New York, of her mother and her colleagues.
Linda Cammack served with Hill on the Harrisburg School Board when the mayor took control of the district. Hill “spoke what was on her mind,” and Cammack, a fellow teacher, followed her “no-nonsense” example.
“She was a staunch, strong African American woman,” said Cammack. “How family is supposed to be. What you say and don’t say. What you do and you don’t do. How you carry yourself professionally. She made an impression on a lot of people.”
When the district appointed Hill as dean of students, she advocated for the students’ requests for more Black history classes, more relevance, more Black teachers.
Politically, Hill preferred working behind the scenes, but after helping Wesley Plummer’s successful campaign to become City Council’s second Black member, he urged her to run.
Jeffrey Hill remembers her campaign, when students handing out fliers trailed her “like she’s the Pied Piper.” Judith Michelle Hill called it an easy win “because she was already so well integrated into the community and a teacher and in the church.”
Even after suffering multiple strokes, Judith Hill—the woman whose raucous laugh made everyone else laugh—retaught herself to write and speak. She died in 2014.
“She was very independent all the way to the end,” said Judith Michelle Hill. “She was a fighter. That’s probably the best tribute I could say to her.”
“What my mother left for us,” added Jeffrey Hill, “was a wonderful person to model ourselves after.”
Rev. Billy Gray
Forty tuxedos. Billy Gray changed the trajectories of countless young lives, but everyone also remembers the snappiest dresser in town, from his pocket handkerchief to the shoes matching every suit. After his death, 40 perfectly matched tuxedo sets were hanging in his custom-built closet.
And when City Council named part of N. 6th Street in his honor, his grandson was wearing the last pair of shoes he bought but never wore.
“He was big on people growing,” said his daughter, Marla Estriplet, of Susquehanna Township. “To progress, to live better and do better, and to look in a mirror and feel better about themselves.”
Rev. Dr. William M. Gray Sr. grew up as the son of an Army nurse—unprecedented for a Black woman at the time, but she was “a driven person” who insisted that her children get an education, said Estriplet.
World War II interrupted Gray’s education. He joined the Army at age 16. As an MP, he guarded liberated concentration camps, a witness to the interment of victims’ bodies.
Coming home to Harrisburg, he returned to William Penn High School. Like other GIs, he could have left the classroom behind and gotten his GED, but he always preached finishing what you started. He wanted a degree in honor of the cheerful sister who died at 18 from pneumonia, Estriplet said.
In Europe, Gray received respect from Europeans as a soldier and an American. He didn’t get that love in the United States, he would tell his daughter.
“It opened his eyes to the different opportunities you don’t even imagine you could have,” she said.
Gray’s list of firsts includes the first Black Red Cross lifeguard and first Black swimming instructor at the YMCA. With the military, he boxed in England, France and Germany. In the states, he was a Golden Gloves champion, boxing at flyweight.
“He didn’t do minor things,” says Estriplet. “In most instances, he was always the first Black to do something because he wanted everyone to say you can come above what people say about you, you can come above the expectations others have of you.”
Reading at least 10 daily newspapers from around the country, Gray replicated the civil rights protests he read about. Some people remember him leading bus trips to desegregate Hersheypark. When the Ku Klux Klan burned crosses at homes being bought by Black families on Herr Street, Gray led marches there that opened the neighborhood.
Gray marched with Martin Luther King Jr., but Estriplet also laughed at the story of her dad “failing” a crucial test of that era, when aspirants to join sit-ins had to show they could endure, stoically, the kind of brutality and vitriol they would encounter. At Gray’s mock sit-in, a white actor spit at a Black woman, and—well, he was a fighter. Enraged, he jumped up, ready to duke it out, and had to be restrained.
“It didn’t matter that the guy was an actor and was helping,” Estriplet said. “In that instant, my dad forgot what he was doing, and he lost it.”
It’s hard to encapsulate Gray’s efforts. Associate pastor and deacon for the Second Baptist Church of Harrisburg and president of the Interdenominational Ministers Conference. Scoutmaster. Free SAT tutoring and job-search help, including for ex-prisoners, through a YMCA youth program. Teaching kids to fish and swim in the Susquehanna River. Taking local youth to New York City and a show at the Apollo Theatre. Organizing college nights and HBCU bus tours, which Judith Hill helped chaperone.
The underlying message: Opportunities beckoned.
“They were the bright star behind me choosing North Carolina Central University,” said Cammack.
Gray died in 2013 and is buried in Indiantown Gap National Cemetery. Estriplet believes her dad’s message today would be, “You can still become greater.”
“You have an opportunity clear up until the time you breathe your last breath to do great things,” she said. “And it’s not about doing great things for fame or for money. It’s about doing great things for one another, so that someone else can see your achievements and know that it can be done and never give up.”
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