Hazel Harvey Peace

Hazel Bernice Harvey Peace (August 4, 1907 – June 8, 2008) was an African-American educator, activist, and humanitarian in Fort Worth, Texas.

Peace's father was a Pullman porter on the Missouri and Pacific Railroad, and her mother was a homemaker who also owned a children's clothing shop.

An active reader, she spent much of her time at Fort Worth's segregated Carnegie Public Library, where she could check out books, but not stay and read them.

Known locally as a "monument to black accomplishment," jazz musician Ornette Coleman, Texas state legislator Reby Cary, Harvard professor James Cash, Jr., and legendary Fort Worth journalist Bob Ray Sanders are among Peace's former students.

[3] Peace worked as a volunteer in the evenings at Fort Worth's John Peter Smith Hospital while she was also teaching at I.M.

[5] She was the chair of the Mayor's Task Force on Housing, the Near Southeast Citizens Commission, and the Near Southside Neighborhood Advisory Council.

[8] In 1992, Hazel Harvey Peace received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Texas Wesleyan University, and Fort Worth Public Library's youth center was named after her.

[11] She died on June 8, 2008, at the age of 100 and was buried alongside her husband at Cedar Hill Memorial Park in Arlington, Texas.

[12] Peace made a lasting impact on Fort Worth and the educational community, leaving the proceeds of her estate to Howard University, Texas Wesleyan University, the Fort Worth Public Library Foundation, and Our Mother of Mercy Catholic Elementary School.