BIO
Katherine "Mother" Hickman
Katherine Hickman, fondly known to locals as Mother Hickman, was born in Louisiana and moved to Flagstaff with her family on the promise of job security in the sawmills. She and her family operated a boarding house for other Black sawmill workers and provided other assistance to families. Over the course of her life, Ms. Hickman remained influential within the community, and is honored as one of the founding members of Harbert Chapel A.M.E., one of the four historically Black churches in Flagstaff. Katherine Hickman loved to teach children, and established one of the first reading programs in the Southside neighborhoods at Cogdill Recreation Center, and was a Head Start teacher for many years.
“She had all these children and there were other women in the neighborhoods working, so she would just take their kids and tell stories and sing with them. [...] She’d start singing a song, then she’d start rhyming and the kids would start rhyming. She did a lot of things through song and play.”
- Carol Ola
Hickman's Daughter
“She was the type of teacher that I would want my children to sit in her lap”
- Jesse Rodriguez
Flagstaff Head Start Director
“She was one of those people who turned segregation into congregation, not just from her church but in everything that she did and touched,”
- Dr. Ricardo Guthrie
NAU Ethnic Studies Professor
April 14, 1923.
Katherine Hickman is Born!
1940 - 1946
In search of a better life.
1966
Flagstaff Head Start
April 27, 2015
Mother Hickman passes away at 92.
Katherine Hickman is born in Forest Hill, Louisiana. The south was segregated and racial violence was common. Hickman graduated from high school, challenging for black women in the segregated south, but was unable to go to college because of her ethnicity.
Katherine marries Sanders Hickman in 1940. Sanders was a logger, and in 1946 they and their children move to Flagstaff for the logging business. While Sanders was working at a sawmill on now South Lone Tree Road, Hickman would take care of the children at Brannen Homes low-income housing. Here, she bonded with the neighborhood children and used her house as a community hub.
In the mid 60's Hickman inquired about a story hour for Southside children at the Cogdill Recreation Center. In 1966, Hickman became one of the founding teachers of the Flagstaff Head Start program, and grew it from a small summer lunch program to a nine-month program. She directed Head start at Murdoch, Cogdill, Federated and Siler.
Katherine "Mother" Hickman passes away on April 27th, 2015 at her home in Flagstaff. She is buried at Citizens Cemetery in Flagstaff. By the end of her long life, her family had grown to 32 grandchildren, 50 great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren. A passionate educator, religious leader, and activist for equality she left a legacy in Flagstaff that will not soon be forgotten.