Sally Ophelia King

Sally Ophelia Tatum King was born the third of eight children to Annielue and Braxton Tatum on April 27, 1928 in Spring Hill Community, Arkansas, an all-Black settlement 8 miles southwest of Stephens.

Ophelia had a happy childhood growing up on her family’s farm where she worked alongside her siblings and parents chopping and picking cotton, husking and picking corn, and raising other products for the market, but she enjoyed sewing the most. Her family owned their own land, a novelty for many African Americans for the time, and that land remains in the family to this day. Though raised on a farm (perhaps because of it) Ophelia hated farm work. Even as a teenager she told her younger sister Gracie that if she found out that any boy who wanted to court her was a farmer, she would refuse to continue talking with him. She would sew to avoid farm work.

Though money was often in short supply, her parents were determined that she and her siblings would have high school and college educations, all of whom attended Springhill School through 8th grade; and 9th through 12th grades at what was called “the Colored School” in Camden, Arkansas. Some years later Black leaders renamed it Lincoln High School.

Because the roads from Spring Hill to Camden were too rough to navigate well enough to get to school on time, during high school she would spend weekdays during the school year boarding with a family in Camden. Besides, even if the roads had been more navigable, her parents didn’t buy their first vehicle until 1949 and by that time she had already graduated from high school. On Fridays, she would return to Spring Hill and work on the family’s farm on Friday evenings and Saturday, and then return to Camden for school on Monday. Her boarding expenses were paid by helping with the household chores of her host family and bringing produce from the family farm to the host family for her and their consumption.

After graduating high school, she enrolled at AM&N College in Pine Bluff, Arkansas where she graduated with two Bachelor’s degrees in Home Economics and Elementary Education. Despite having received her elementary, high school and college educations from all racially segregated Jim Crow schools, she was the first Black school teacher in the Pine Bluff School District where she began her career of 36 years teaching at the all-White Broadmoor Elementary School.

In her freshman year at AM&N, she would meet the love of her life, A.J. King, Jr., and they married in 1949. On August 24, 1950 they welcomed their daughter, Hope LaBarriteau King. A.J. and Ophelia would remain married until his death on November 22, 2010.

She was an avid sports fan of the AM&N/UAPB Golden Lions and the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville Razorbacks (from which A.J. got his Masters and their daughter Hope attended the first two years of college), and loved attending AM&N’s homecoming festivities with her sister, Gracie. One of her other favorite pastimes was sewing, and she enjoyed going to the movies every Friday night with her husband. When they were saving up for a house, she and A.J. would go on vacation just once a year to DeWitt and Hot Springs, Arkansas. During much of her adult life she was a homebody, enjoying the company of her siblings, and a few close girlfriends with whom she regularly attended movies.

Witnessing the demands that a large family placed on her mother, she determined that she would only have one child, Hope Labarriteau. She and Hope were more than mother and daughter. They were “peas and carrots.” In other words, they were best friends, and she spared no effort to give Hope the things that other children had, even at great sacrifice to herself. Because she was an excellent seamstress, she made sure that Hope was one of the best dressed girls in her high school. Most of Hope’s clothes during childhood were homemade, but no one would know it because Ophelia was that good of a seamstress, having learned to sew on a foot pedal Singer sewing machine that her mother owned.

Her faith formation began very early. For most of her childhood she attended her mother’s church, Church of God in Christ in Springhill, a holiness church and according to her sister Gracie, it was a church where “speaking in tongues” was a common practice. Because she never learned to speak in tongues, she shared with her Gracie that she did not feel qualified to become a member of that church. Instead, as a high schooler, she professed a faith in Jesus Christ and joined the Shiloh Baptist Church in Camden, Arkansas, where speaking in tongues was tolerated but not required. After she married and became a mother, she joined the St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church in Pine Bluff where she remained a member until her death. However, after she moved to live with her daughter and son-in-law in Little Rock, she regularly worshiped at Mosaic Church of Central Arkansas where Hope and Woodson were members.

Hope was very loyal and dedicated to her mother. Because of their very close relationship and as she entered her twilight years, Hope, along with the very capable assistance of Hope’s daughter, Fwatula, cared for Ophelia for the last 12 years of her life. Hope never left her mother unattended during her final months of illness, unless she first made sure someone was there to attend to her needs.

In addition to her husband and parents, preceding Ophelia in death are her sisters, Odessa Paris (George) and Hattie Nash (Marion); and brothers Clinton Tatum (Jackie) and Clifton Tatum (Willie Margaret).

Left to celebrate her life is her bestie, Hope and her husband, Woodson Walker, and their five children: Yedea Walker, Ajamu (Nucomme) Walker, Fwatula Walker, Ajani (Shannon) Walker, and Chike (Le’Shera) Walker; a stepson, George King and his wife Barbara, and their children: Bethany (Richard) Wilkes, and Brandon King; 8 great grandchildren: Quintin, Inaja, Olivia, Sally, Tehila, Daria, Andrew, Nehemiah, and Ajani II; her brothers, Kenny Tatum (Patricia) and Braxton Tatum, Jr. (Helen), her sister, Gracie Hill (Alfred), and sister-in-law, Willie Margaret, and a host of nieces, nephews, and Godchildren. And as A.J. would say, they all “love her madly”.

A funeral service for Sally will be held Wednesday, October 19, 2022 at 10:30 AM at Griffin Leggett Healey & Roth, 5800 W 12Th St, Little Rock, Arkansas 72204.

Sally will be laid to rest in Arkansas State Veterans Cemetery, 1501 W Maryland Ave, North Little Rock, Arkansas 72120-2743.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.griffinleggetthealeyroth.com for the King family.