One of the most impressive murals in Farmville’s outdoor art gallery, is the one of the H.B. Sugg school at the pocket park across from Lanoca Coffee on Main Street. The life-size image is painted with a unique perspective so that when standing in front of it and gazing at the front doors, it appears that people are going in and out of the building. And if one looks closely and uses his or her imagination, one might see a Grammy-winning singer in this snapshot of history.
But of course, at the time she taught at H. B. Sugg school in Farmville, North Carolina, Roberta Flack wasn’t famous. She was known as Miss Flack, the twelfth-grade English teacher and the music instructor for all grades. “When I first met Miss Flack, she looked too young to be a teacher,” says Farmville resident Alma Cobb Hobbs, one of Flack’s students at the time.
Roberta Flack, grammy winner and one-time teacher in Farmville, NC, recently passed away from ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, at the age of 88. When she taught at H. B. Sugg school, she was just 19 years old.
Born in Black Mountain, NC and the daughter of musicians, Roberta Cleopatra Flack made a stop in Farmville, NC on her way to fame and fortune.
If not for her outstanding academic career at Howard University in Washington, D.C., she may never have found her way to the town known today for its cultural pursuits and the largest outdoor out gallery in eastern North Carolina. A classically trained pianist, Flack played the piano so well that at the young age of 15 she received a full scholarship to Howard University.
While pursuing her college degree, she met another student about her age at Howard University. Clarence Knight, Jr. was a native of Farmville and 16 years old at the time. They bonded over their love of music and connected because of their young age. After graduation, Knight took a teaching job at Falkland and had committed to it when H.B. Sugg reached out to him with an offer of employment. Honoring his original commitment and without hesitation, he recommended his good friend, Roberta Flack, who also had just graduated from Howard.
The school hired Roberta Flack without even an interview, and so Farmville played a role, if only a minor one, in the future star’s trajectory. The school where Flack taught in 1959-1960 and the home where she lived still stand in Farmville today. The mother of her friend Clarence Knight, Jr. offered her a place to stay while teaching in Farmville. Every morning for a year, Flack simply walked across the street to teach her music classes and her senior English class at H.B. Sugg.
“We thought she looked like a movie star,” said Alma Hobbs, who is a Farmville native and current Town Commissioner, “and she could really play the piano.” As a student at the H.B. Sugg school, Hobbs remembers the influence Flack had on her life.
“Miss Flack believed that all voices can blend and everyone had a place in the choir,” said Hobbs. “She shared her love of music with us and introduced us to spirituals and classical melodies and all kinds of music. Everyone had the opportunity to learn,” recalls Hobbs, “and to understand music appreciation.”
Hobbs enjoyed the piano playing and the music lessons so much that she says Flack’s teaching greatly influenced her. When she went to college, she wanted to be a pianist and major in music.
According to Hobbs, the school choirs participated in a number of music competitions during Flack’s tenure and they won every one of them. “She was an amazing talented teacher and choir director,” says Hobbs. “It was a blessing knowing that I had the opportunity to interact with an extraordinary musical talent who became a legendary composer, musician and artist.”
Little known before her early 30’s, Flack practically became an overnight star when her song “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” was showcased in the movie “Play Misty For Me” in 1971. The song topped the Billboard pop chart in 1972 and received a Grammy for record of the year. In 1973, Flack became the first artist to win consecutive Grammy’s for best record with “Killing Me Softly.”
In an interview on NPR heard on “News and Notes” on April 21, 2006, Flack told the interviewer that “the first time she remembers achieving success was not in the recording studio but inside the classroom.”
Flack recalled teaching music to kids from pre-school to 12th grade since it was the only Black school in the area. “I taught every one of them something musical,” she says.
When the H.B. Sugg school mural was unveiled a few years ago, people said it depicted students walking in the front door to learn and walking back out several years later ready to succeed. That notion surely was true for teachers too.
Looking at the mural – this amazing snapshot of history – one can imagine a young Miss Flack entering those doors to teach and inspire students to love music. And then one can imagine Robert Cleopatra Flack walking out of those doors, taking her love of music and feeling of success on her own trajectory to fame and fortune, leaving all of us with the knowledge that small towns can indeed sing with success.
