SALISBURY -- Rev. Miles Fisher was the pastor at White Rock Baptist Church in Durham, N.C. from 1933 to 1965.
"At that time, Durham was very segregated in terms of where blacks lived so people would come from all over town to attend the church,” said his daughter, Dr. Ada Fisher.
White Rock Baptist was one of the largest churches in the state with 1,500 members. During the civil rights movement, Fisher said her father played a more behind the scenes role, letting his church take the spotlight.
"I remember when Martin Luther King came. I sat on the we had a baptismal pool at the front of the church so I sat at the edge of the baptismal pool and listened to him.”
Dr. Ada Fisher, the youngest of six, was just a teenager in the 60's. But she witnessed her home become a headquarters for many community organizers
"So we would have on sundays anywhere from 10 to 14 people eating dinner and I hated it because I had to wash the dishes but I got a chance to listen to some very interesting conversations.”
Fisher said these onversations that laid the ground work for some of what we see in history books today.
"They were developing strageties that allowed the people who were out there in front, being arrested and hosed down to succeed and create opportunity,” said Fisher.
Rev. Fisher died in 1970 just a few years after retiring from the church. Fisher said it's his perspective on civil rights that will always stay with her.
"I never assumed I was a second class citizen. My daddy never assumed he was a second class citizen. We assumed we had the right to be there and because we had the right to be there we were going in that door whether they wanted us or not,” said Fisher.