Edward Anderson Chance

Edward Anderson Chance, Sr., was born in his family home in Parmele, North Carolina on October 16, 1932. He was the youngest son of William Claudius Chance, Sr. and Julia Johnson Chance, and baby brother to Claudius, Jr., Warren, Harold, Anson, Anice and Wilbur. Affectionately known as Eddie, and later Ed, he was raised in a nurturing, close-knit family who instilled in him a sense of self-worth and value, and he was always encouraged to pursue his dreams and aspirations.Ed attended W.C. Chance School, the educational institution founded by his father and where his mother taught for elementary and high school. He was a good student who excelled in English, mathematics, science and oration. As a teenager he was a member of the school’s winning basketball team. He was baptized at the Mt. Olive Branch Baptist Church.From and early age, Ed had a love and appreciation for travel. He enjoyed visiting his maternal grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins in Charlottesville, Virginia, and summer vacations with his Aunt Virginia in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.At the tender age of sixteen, Ed attended his parent’s alma mater, Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia. There he joined R.O.T.C., was a member of the Pershing Rifles, the Omicron Social Club and was a student tutor. His college career was briefly interrupted when Uncle Sam came calling in 1953. For two years he served as a corporal in the U.S. Army, 36th Field Artillery, Battalion at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. Ed said of his military days, “ The mostValuable lesson I learned was to take care of myself. The army was a real wake-up call.” Upon receiving an honorable discharge, Ed returned to Hampton Institute on the G.I. Bill and graduated in 1956 with a BS degree in social science.Like numerous southern-born African Americans Ed, would travel north in search of job opportunities that were denied him in the south. Soon after graduation, he came to Baltimore, Maryland and went to work for the city’s Department of Public Welfare as a caseworker. It was there that he met his wife, the former Shirley Chase. In 1959 he enrolled at Howard University School of Social Work in Washington, D.C. At the urging of his brothers, he moved to New York City for a while and got his first job as a psychiatric social worker at Brooklyn State Hospital. From that experience Ed realized that social work was much more than a job-it was his calling. After a year in New York he returned to Howard and earned his Masters of Social Work degree in 1961. While Ed had every intention of returning to New York, he happened to get a job as a social worker at Spring Grove Hospital Center a few months before receiving his degree, and settled into a 38-year career.He also settled down. He and Shirley married and had their first child, Julia Anne, in 1962. Five years later, Elise Chinyere was born, and five years after that, his only son and namesake, Eddie, Jr. rounded out the Chance family.As a black son of the south, Ed was keenly aware of the racial inequities and injustices of his time. From his father in particular, he learned that segregation was not only immoral, but also unconstitutional. In 1948, W.C. Chance was arrested in Emporia, Virginia when he refused to go to the Jim Crow section of an interstate train. He sued Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and won a decision by the U.S. Fourth District courts of Appeals, outlawing segregated interstate travel.The rich legacy for advocacy in human and civil rights inspired Ed to join the Baltimore Chapter of the Congress for Racial Equality (C.O.R.E.) where he worked as a community organizer and later became Chairman. In 1963, he rallied local and national clergy, students and other in two days of non-violent protest at Gwynn Oak Amusement Park where 283 demonstrators, including himself, were arrested. The resulting desegregation of the park represented a major milestone of the Civil Rights Movement in Maryland. Ed also served on the Maryland Committee for the historic March on Washington.Throughout his adult life, Ed remained active in civil rights and social causes as chairman and president of the Baltimore chapters of the Black United Front and National Association of Black Social Workers respectively. But the cause that he fought the hardest was the one for the just and humane treatment of his son Eddie who is developmentally disabled.Among his many achievements and honors, Ed became Spring Grove Hospital’s first black Director of the Social Work Department in 1967 and was awarded a Distinguished Service Award by the Maryland State Conference, NAACP in 1998. Governor William Donald Schaefer appointed him to the Baltimore City Foster Care Review Board in 1987. He was a very proud member of the Hampton University Alumni Association, and the Howard University School of Social Work Alumni Association. He co-founded the Carol Wilson Caldwell Legal Scholarship Foundation (in honor of his late niece) and co-founded the W.C. Chance/East End Schools Alumni Association, serving as first president from 1981 to 1992.Intelligent, charming, humorous, opinionated, spiritual, compassionate, loyal, tenacious, tolerant…These are only a few words that sum up Ed Chances great qualities. He was and aficionado of jazz, an avid sports fan (especially of basketball and football), and a master par excellence of crossword and jigsaw puzzles. He loved literature and understood the power of the written word. He was an excellent writer and poet. Moreover, he was a loving and devoted son, brother, husband, father, grandfather, uncle and cousin, and dear friend to many. Though he will be greatly missed, he enriched our lives and his spirit lives on in our memories.

Tributes

Edward Anderson Chance

October 16, 1932 - January 30, 2003