‘Someone who was very kind and caring’
A. Reed Raymond was one of the organizers for the 2016 alumni event at Moravian, aiming to bring graduates back to offer support and advice to students, especially Black students.
A Moravian graduate in the 1970s, Raymond was the president of the college’s first African American organization, the Society for Black Initiative. He met Martin Felton at the 2016 event.
“My interactions with her, our conversations and observations were that she clearly was someone who was very kind and caring, provided a lot of support, and just shared experiences with all of us, but particularly with the African American women students that were attending Moravian now,” he said. “But clearly, knowing that she was the first, it just brought to me what a first has to endure. And observing her interacting and mingling with the students who were probably clearly over 50 years her junior, it didn’t matter. And you can just see the type of person she was, in my view, based on just being able to observe those interactions.”
Alexis Wiggley, one of the co-founders of the university’s Black Student Union, also got to meet Martin Felton during the alumni event.
Wiggley, 26, of southern Illinois, said Martin Felton was welcoming, but she only got to speak with her briefly.
“Now looking at what she’s done for the community, it’s pretty inspiring. And sometimes you look back and you kind of wish you asked the right questions, asked better questions,” she said. “If I would have known a little bit more about her, going into it, I could have really asked her questions and really kind of dove into her brilliant mind and just her experiences being one of the first, like, major Black student leaders on campus, and then taking that from campus and going out into the world and become a leader in that aspect as well.”
Wiggley, who graduated from Moravian in 2017, said looking back on Martin Felton’s time at Moravian, she saw commonalities, especially as both were active on campus.
“She just seemed like she was super involved on campus,” Wiggley said. “And at that time, I was too, so, in a way, I just kind of felt like I wasn’t walking in her footsteps, but kind of following her lead without knowing it, and just being involved and super active on campus.
“At the event, I didn’t necessarily know those things. But after, in retrospect, looking at all the things she’s done, it’s inspiring,” she said.