Renowned Cleveland educator and pioneer
September 26, 1925 — January 9, 2022
OBITUARY
Conella Coulter was living in Kansas City, Missouri in the late 1940s when she read in the Kansas City Call, the town's black newspaper, that the University of Kansas City (now University of Missouri-Kansas City) was accepting Negroes. While she felt that her schooling at RT Coles and Lincoln High School had not prepared her properly for the rigors of college, she applied nonetheless. She was admitted, worked hard, and was graduated in 1953 with a degree in history. As she later recalled, “When I walked across that stage and received my degree, I felt like I was somebody."
She was prepared to teach, but unable to get a position in her native town of Kansas City due to her race.
Black teachers were being actively recruited by the Cleveland schools at that time, and Coulter made her way here on the advice of a childhood friend. She was hired that year as a junior high social studies teacher, retiring from the Cleveland Schools 36 years later as the only black female assistant superintendent of a big city school district in Ohio.
Coulter met her late husband, Arnold Brown, in Cleveland. She thrived as a history teacher. Later she became assistant principal at Central Junior High School in 1964, and she became an assistant superintendent of Cleveland Public Schools in 1972.
Coulter Brown was a trustee emerita of Case Western Reserve University.
After her retirement, Brown returned to Kansas City. She was a founder of the Student Aid Mentoring Ministry [SAMM]. She recently named the Judge Raymond Pianka Scholarship to assist students majoring in law-related fields.
In lieu of flowers, donations to her SAMM scholarship fund are suggested at Givelyfy.com-Community Fellowship Church of Jesus Christ.
Funeral services will be held Wednesday, January 19, 2022 at St. James AME Church, 8401 Cedar Ave. [44106] with visitation from 9-11a. The Omega Omega Service of the Greater Cleveland Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta will begin at 11a. Dr. Eric Brown is officiant.
On Saturday, January 22, 2022, a noon service will be held in Kansas City at The Community Fellowship Church of Jesus Christ, 2828 Emanuel Cleaver II Blvd., Kansas City, MO, with Bishop Saundra McFadden Weaver officiating.
Both services will be available for livestream viewing here, starting approximately 30 minutes before service time.
This obituary will be updated after we have opportunity to speak with family and friends.
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Updated at 0934.
