Duke Energy is celebrating Black History Month by highlighting people who helped inspire change at the company. Help us improve our records by sharing your knowledge of Duke Energy or legacy company Black achievements. You can send us an email at illumination@duke-energy.com.
John S. Stewart
John S. Stewart (1910-1995) became the first Black American to serve on the board of directors at Duke Power Company. It was 1975, the same year the Vietnam War ended.
Stewart – who went by “Shag” – was president and CEO of the Mutual Savings and Loan Association in Durham, N.C.
Bernadette Jones
After graduating from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, Bernadette Jones served the Durham, N.C., region as a home economist. And not only that – Jones was the first Black woman to hold this role at Duke Power Company.
Jones’ quote from 1973 that we can all associate any task with: “Change it around a little, because what you will make won’t ever look just like that picture,” she said. “If you put your own touch on the craft, you won’t be disappointed in the finished product.”
Lisa Crutchfield
Lisa Crutchfield made history in 1997 when she became the first Black woman at Duke Energy to earn the role of vice president – the same year Duke Power bought PanEnergy, a natural gas company, to form Duke Energy Corporation.
Crutchfield, who led Energy Policy & Strategy at the company, reached out to then-CEO Bill Grigg to ask if he was interested in hiring her. And the rest is history!
Edward Greenlee
Edward Greenlee was the first African American bus driver for Duke Power Company in the Greensboro, N.C., region. The opportunity presented itself in 1965, after Greenlee served 20 years as a mechanic’s helper at the Transit Department.
“The hardest thing about it [bus driving] is trying to stay on schedule,” Greenlee said in the March 1980 issue of Duke Power News, “while trying to treat the people like the company wants you to treat them. It’s hard to try to satisfy everybody.”
Hilda Pinnix-Ragland
In 1995, Hilda Pinnix-Ragland became the first Black woman to get promoted to district manager of Distribution Operations at Carolina Power & Light (CP&L).
Three years later, she earned the role of vice president of economic development, becoming the first Black woman at CP&L to serve at the VP level.
“If you blaze a trail for yourself alone, you’ve done nothing,” Pinnix-Ragland said. “If you blaze a trail and widen it for others to walk through, around, under, and you walk beside, then you’ve made progress. But it’s up to each of us to bring others along, to ask them to do the same. And then to be bold, have courage and get into some good trouble.”
Jonnie Terry
Jonnie Terry was “looking for something interesting and different” when she became a meter reader at Duke Power Company in 1972. This solidified her place in company history, as Terry was both the first woman and first Black woman at the company to serve in this role.
“All I wanted was a chance to prove myself,” Terry said. “I applied for the job not asking for any favors.”
