That personal philosophy was born out of the turmoil
of the 1960s, when Fudge and her Shaker classmates
faced the heady issues of the time, from the civil rights
movement in America to international unrest over the
Vietnam War.
Fudge recalls that Cleveland at the time was a crucible
“for Black growth and Black leadership.” Martin Luther
King Jr. was a regular visitor to the city, and Fudge
and her mother joined the protests when King led a
local boycott against Sealtest Dairy Products for its
discriminatory hiring practices.
“People would just give anything to be in his
presence, to listen to him speak, to march with him,”
she says. “Even as a kid you understood why.”
As a young teen, Fudge joined “Young Folks
for Stokes” to help Carl Stokes – uncle of classmate
Angela Stokes – in his historic campaign to become
the first African American mayor of Cleveland and the first
Black leader of a major U.S. city.
She also traveled to Washington with friends for the
Poor People’s March, held during May and June of 1968.
The marchers built “Resurrection City” on the Mall – a rainsoaked
village of 3,000 tents and wood huts – and lived
there for 42 days. The demonstration was organized by the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference under King’s
leadership. He didn’t live to see it.
“We had a great awareness of what was going on in
the world,” Fudge says. “The assassination of King was
just devastating for me and so many of my classmates, as
were the people coming home from war that we knew who
would never be the same again. It was an enlightening
time – but it was a tough time.”
Fudge and her classmates staged a walkout at the
high school when they became frustrated with the school
district’s apathetic response to King’s death.
“The walkout brought us closer together,” says Candy
Godbold, who chaired the 50th reunion activities. “Jane
Campbell once told us, ‘if the people in our class ran the
world, it would be a much better place.’”
In high school, Fudge’s leadership was more often
on display in sports – she played field hockey, volleyball,
basketball, and softball, and was a champion fencer.
(Decades later she would famously fence with comedian
Stephen Colbert on “The Colbert Report.”) She was
named best female athlete her senior year.
But she also had a reputation for speaking her mind.
That initially got her labeled a troublemaker when her
family first moved to Shaker from Cleveland’s Fairfax
neighborhood and she started at Moreland Elementary.
“I was mischievous and I got in trouble quite a bit,”
Fudge says. “I guess I had a voice then, but it was in the
wrong direction, and then that voice became a voice for
the right thing by the time I got to high school.”
Forged in the
crucible of the 1960s
Fudge leads a federal agency with
a nearly $70 billion budget proposed for 2022,
and is tasked with such ambitious goals
as ending homelessness and
housing discrimination.
Fudge excelled in athletics at
Shaker Heights High School,
1968-71.
Fudge (second row,
far right) with her
sixth-grade class at
Moreland Elementary
School, 1965.
Shaker Heights
High School
senior year, 1971.
Fudge (bottom left) with
her Ohio State University
sorority sisters of Delta
Sigma Theta, 1972.
40 SPRING 2022 | WWW.SHAKER.LIFE
/WWW.SHAKER.LIFE