WSSU Foundation, Finance Director set to Retire after 17 years of service

07:07 AM Est.

Gordon Q. Slade Jr. mind is on his garden sanctuary that he is building for his family in his backyard, as for he prepares for retirement from Winston-Salem State University after serving as the Finance Director for the Foundation for the last seventeen years. Gardening takes me back to the beginning, since a young boy, says Mr. Gordon who developed the skills of hard work as a youngster by working on the tobacco and poultry farms.

When I worked the farms, I would always tell my self that I would one day purchase this here farm. His job from about 13 years old to the age of 16 was to collect eggs and feed chickens, “it was me and just the chickens,” he said. That farm in his hometown of Brown Summit, North Carolina was Slade’s inspiration to be the business proprietor that he would become over time.

Prior to Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483. 1954 most schools throughout the Carolinas where segregated, which was normal for our people just like it would be for any other country thoughout the world , the Japanese would go to Japanese schools, Chinese would go to Chinese Schools, Indians— the Indian institutions, this is how you develop a form of Nationhood, through eduction and educating your own. Haile Selassie I the former Emperor of Ethiopia, who is proclaimed to be a direct descendant from the Line of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon, son of King David, him primary goal to restore Ethiopia, was through a sound education system, whereas the Ethiopians would teach the Ethiopians!

“Afraka for the Afrakans.” -Marcus Mosaiah Garvey

In his thesis, Challenging The South’s Black-White Binary: Haliwa-Saponi Indians and Political Autonomy, Marvin M. Richardson stated that the Indians also worked against the avowed goals of the civil rights movement, like school integration, by developing and supporting Indian-only political and social institutions, such as a segregated Indian school, church, and tribal organization.

“The term “colored” was ambiguous and referred locally to non-whites, including blacks and Indians. Though the Meadows Indians recognized the “colored”-white binary, and initially accepted the “colored” moniker, they still tried to maintain their distinctiveness from “Negro” or “black” within this classification system. But during the civil rights era some Indians shunned the colored classification to articulate a distinct identity as Indian. “

-Marvin M. Richardson, Challenging The South’s Black-White Binary: Haliwa-Saponi Indians and Political Autonomy, pg. 3

Mr. Gordon, initially attended Brown Summit School and he did not integrate until the mid 1960s when he went to high school. At The Brown Summit School it was evident that the teachers cared for the students and had their best interests at heart.

“I liked that school, I knew everybody,” he said. At the Brown Summit School, Slade was very successful academically.

Around his 9th grade year, which would be around the year 1967 The Brown Summit School was shut down as a result of North Carolina introducing integration into the school system he then would attend Northeast High School, which was at first, an all white school.

AMER'ICAN, noun A native of America; originally applied to the aboriginals, or copper-colored races, found here by the Europeans; but now applied to the descendants of Europeans born in America. 1828 Webster Dictionary

For Mr. Slade and many other black and Indian students, being at this school was draining. There was a difference in the treatment they received at Northeast High than at Brown Summit School which was in the same district where Mr. Slade grew up and near his family church.

In our interview Mr. Slade stated that some of his siblings even dropped out and got their GED, however they all became very successful in their own way, despite how they were being treated at that school. One of his siblings, is a featured author on our site, Jimmy Slade, who is currently in Germany right now.

Mr. Gordon was once told by a teacher at Northeast Guildford that the best option for him after graduation was to work on a farm or become a factory worker his whole life, as if those was the only options the world had to offer him. However, he had other plans in mind. This day Gordon Q. Slade will be remembered as one for the first Winston-Salem State University alums to become a finance director for the university , and who is from the same region where the university has sat since 1892.

“Despite what those teachers where telling me, I was determined to go to college and be somebody” he said. This experience encouraged Gordon Q. Slade Jr, to never attend white institution and to go to a Black Institution such as Winston- Salem State. He feels that now the Pwis go after children from our communities because of their athletic talent and the money those kids can bring in for them, and he despises that tremendously, especially with his first hand experiences with integration movement, when they despised us being at their education establishments.

After high school, Gordon Q. Slade Jr. was drafted to the Navy during the War at Vietnam where as he would serve for four years. Being stationed in Long Beach, California, he was able to sail the pacific and see the world, aboard The USS Hector AR-7. In Japan there was places that Gordon could go that the so called white man couldn’t. The same white man that told him he would be a factory worker his whole life, didn’t have the access points that he did in other countries.

Once “Junior” as his folks call him , came home from the Navy, he was met with the real world. At the time he had two kids, his oldest daughter, lived in South Central Los Angeles with her mother. Mr. Slade who initially moved to the East Side of Winston after returning from the Navy, was determined to make something happen for his then small family and to create a legacy for them, as his parents who came from humble beginning thrived to do for him and his siblings. Young Junior started his sole proprietor by negotiating land contracts. In the early 80s, he sought out the opportunity to get a Post Office built in an opportunity Zone in West End, North Carolina. He said the project to build that Post Office on undeveloped land took about a year or so but it set him up for life. “It was a Small Post Office but it was Big Deal for me.”

“I had taught myself how to cut the water back on at my apartments because they were threatening to cut ours off prior to getting that deal to build the post office.” -Gordon Q. Slade Jr. one his humble starts.

“The darkest hour is right before dawn.” -Napoleon Hill

“Winning that contract to build that post office was major for me,” Slade said “I had to drive to Atlanta to bid on the contract and then come back to Carolina to find contractors who was willing to build it, and I ultimately became the project manager. This gave him experience in construction management and soon after he became the project manager to build a bridge over the Dan River near Madison, North Carolina. It seems like the work came in abundance after he accomplished to get that Post Office built.

That experience created the opportunity for him to begin his career at St. Peters Church on Highland Ave, in East Winston, who at that time was reverend by the Late Bishop R.K. Hash. ”During the early 80s, the church was really small and they didn’t really have an accounting system so I was able to develop one that they in fact still use today.” Mr. Gordon said; Here he would meet his life partner, my grandmother, Darrell Louise Jones and where they got married and where they christened their son. This church still stands today on the corner of 12th and Highland Ave in East Winston across from the Career Center.

Carlos A. Jones in his 1975 A Tale of Two Cities talks about how Gordon Q. Slade Jr. early in his career with St. Peter’s was able negotiate the deal for the church to purchase the land which was in reality about 50 acres in the southeastern section of Forsyth County and begin constructing the church complex, which still is fully operating today near Old Lexington Road. Hosanna! People From all over the world have came to this church, including Oprah Winfrey, Bishop TD Jakes, Maya Angelou, Martin Luther King, if he were living, and many others. Their ministry impacts nations all over the world. Currently they have a food bank and community garden at their We Care House which is doing some phenomenal work throughout the city.

On page 106 in Nature Knows No Color Line by J Rogers states that Saint Peter was the foremost saint and founder of the Catholic Church, and is shown as a jet-black negro.

Throughout his career at St. Peter’s Mr. Slade attended Winston-Salem State University, which was his ultimate goal before he was drafted to the Navy. “Being from right up the road I would always hear about the university, which was then called Winston-Salem Teachers College.” Mr. Gordon graduated from WSSU in 1993, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting. After graduating from WSSU Mr. Gordon began to teach an accounting course at Forsyth Technical Community College and eventually become a CPA himself. “I would work at St. Peter’s in the day and teach at Forsyth Tech in the evening, and do my CPA classes on the weekends.” said Mr. Gordon.

In spring of 2006 Mr. Gordon left St. Peter’s to become the finance director for the Winston-Salem State University Foundation. “My first project coming in was the development of Foundation Heights, a dormitory for the upperclassmen, located at the intersection of Mlk Blvd and Reynolds Park Rd.” His background as a self made project manger well prepared him for this opportunity and his 17 years term at the university.

The switch from Forsyth Tech to Winston-Salem State was not a regretful change at all for Slade. He stated that he was grateful for his decision because he was then able to work more freely and confidently with the foundation. Need I mention that Gordon Q. Slade Jr. survived colon cancer twice, the latter being right around the time he got the job at WSSU.

“I was able to really use my mind and creativity,” he said. Based on his prior experience at white institutions, Slade highlighted how important it is for the culture to share our gifts and talents God gave us with institutions that appreciate it more such as WSSU.

Some of the most profound moments at Winston-Salem State for Slade was working on campus, it seemed like students were really happy to be there and that professors took interest in their students' success. “You didn’t have to be anyone special for that to happen, whereas at the Pwis you did ” he said. Working in Blair Hall, I would be able to hear the students on the yard, as they call it, in between classes, and the band during homecoming, and it gave me a since of pride for the work that I was doing for the university and the students.

As Slade now transitions into financial independence, he looks back and appreciates how much his talents were acknowledged and accepted at Winston-Salem State. Whereas, it may not have been the same anywhere else.

Slade explained that a person can do almost any task they put their mind to, but it does take a lot of hard work, effort and knocking on doors to get there. He said, " I have the same motivation I had when I was that kid hustling on that chicken farm.”

“Some people say that I did a really good job at Winston-Salem State and at St. Peters...let's say I did do a good job, what makes me happy is to know that I didn’t take my gifts and my talents that God gave me to somewhere that wouldn’t make a difference.”

-Gordon Q. Slade Jr reflection on his long career since returning home from the Navy in the mid seventies.

As we closed out our interview Gordon Q. Slade Jr. said that he left an endowment at the University in the name of him and His Late wife The Gordon Q and Darrell Louise Slade Endowment, whereas students will receive scholarships from its interest it returns.

Restorical Facts; A fact giving for the purposes of restoring a sovereign nation.

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In 1904 Congress designated funds to erect a Post Office and Federal Building in Shalom [Salem], later to become Winston-Salem in 1913. The post office was designed by James Knox Taylor the Department of the Treasury, it’s supervising Architect . General Supply and Contracting Company won the contract bid [similar to how Gordon Slade Jr. did in the early eighties] and began construction on February 20th, 1906 and completed the project the following year in 1907 near West Fifth and Liberty St. northwest Corner .

ref. “The Public Building; It will be Erected” April 22,1905; Rondthaler, The Memorablia of Fifty Years:1877-1927, page 238. Winston-Salem Architectural Heritage Pg 93