Nettie Coad

Nettie Coad was the first person to bring The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond to Greensboro, NC. She invited us through her work in her neighborhood and with inequities in health care. Our work in Greensboro took hold, and due largely to her understanding of how and who to organize. She was one of the first people to bring a mayor and council members through the Undoing Racism® workshop. Her organizing and leadership development led to several members of the community becoming core trainer-organizers with PISAB.  

By all accounts, Ms. Nettie Coad embodied what it means to be a humanistic, anti-racist organizer. She was a strong force of building a net-that-works: she took her time to be with people, to listen, to educate and to care for her community. 

She founded the Ole Asheboro Street Neighborhood Association, through which she made tremendous changes to the neighborhood. 

In an article printed in the News & Record after she transitioned, former Greensboro Mayor Keith Holliday shared:

“She was a friend first. She was just so much more than a mother. She was my rock. She was that person who has always been the stabilizing force in the family. Confidante. Mentor…When Nettie spoke, everybody listened. You knew whatever words came out of her mouth would be truthful and dynamic. This woman was a brilliant woman who was very cagey, very wise, and she would know when to talk and when not to talk.”

At age 76, just before she passed while in the hospital with cancer, Ms. Nettie was still organizing and making plans with friends about how to address health disparities in the Black community.

— Thanks to Dr. Kimberley Richards and Ron Chisom for sharing our history