Black educator awarded Black educator awarded (February 13, 2004)

Local activist Rosalind Bivings presented this year's Carter Woodson Award, in celebration of Black History Month, to longtime Mountain View resident Harvey Cole at Tuesday's city council meeting.

Born in Mississippi in 1927, Cole came to the Peninsula to accept a job at Stanford University, but when he started looking for places to live, people steered him to East Palo Alto.

"Most people told him that Mountain View was the armpit of the Peninsula," Bivings said. Nevertheless, Cole preferred Mountain View to other cities, and he was one of the first black people to buy a home by architect Joseph Eichler. The award-winner lives in the same house today.

Cole is committed to education and wants black children to study science, Bivings said. He taught at Ravenswood High School, Woodside High School and Canada College, and he currently volunteers at the Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers Project at Stanford University.

Speaking to the city council, Bivings said, "You should be impressed that he is one of our residents."

-- Grace Rauh

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