Charles Bennie “C. B.” Redd

Charles Bennie “C. B.” Redd (1913-1982) was born in the Roganville community in Jasper County, Texas. His father, Charles Redd, Sr., was the son Charlotte Bryant. His mother, Bettie Bryant, was a from the same Bryant family.

Charles Redd was an educator, but education was not just a career for C. B., it was a way of life. He received his bachelor’s degree from Huston Tilotson College and a master’s degree from Texas Southern University. He also studied at New York University and North Texas State University. He was affectionately known as “Professor Redd”. 

During his 44 years as an educator, Professor Redd taught at Bishop and Butler Colleges. Most of his career as an educator, however, was served in Texas public schools including schools in Texas City, Lamar, and Longview. Denton ISD was where he spent the last 29 years as a school administrator. While in Longview Professor Redd was the principal at Fredonia Colored School, a Rosenwald school located in the Fredonia freedom colony near Kilgore, Texas. Longview is where he met and married his wife, Estella Timms (also a teacher in Kilgore and Denton), and where their son, Charles Redd, Jr. was born. 

C. B. Was a member of many social and civic organizations that included Omega Psi Phi fraternity, High Noon Lions Club, Masons Lodge, Texas Secondary Principals Association, and Boy Scouts of America. He was also a licensed real estate broker. 

On May 18, 1982, while in Palestine, Texas on personal business, 68 year old Charles Bennie Redd was found slumped over the steering wheel of his parked car. He was thought to have died of natural causes. Charles B. Redd, Sr. is buried in Roselawn Memorial Park, Denton, Texas.