Yesterday was the end of a week long 50th Year Celebration of the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham.
So it seems like a good idea to pull together in one place the links to previous posts I've made of my memories during the Civil Rights Era. I lived and went to school in Birmingham, Alabama, until after I married in the 60's and then taught nearby when Integration was just beginning. So I think my memories represent some unique views on the events of that time. With that said, here are some posts you might want to read. Your comments are certainly encouraged!
See Dick See Jane
Jim Crow Rides the Train - Chicago Train Memories Part II
Historic High School Memories Part I
Historic High School Memories Part II
Integration Memories Part II - Stand in the Schoolhouse Door
Integration Memories Part III
Black Like Me
Integration Memories
Integration Memories - A Final Look
If you are old enough to have memories of that era, I would love to hear from you. I realize some of my old students may read some of these posts, but I have written how things seemed to me at the time.
I have grown to love the community we have lived in for the last 42 years and have tried my best to be equally considerate of every student I ever worked with, regardless of racial or economic background. I can only hope that they would agree with me on that.
Showing posts with label Integration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Integration. Show all posts
Monday, September 16, 2013
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Integration Memories - A Final Look
Now that we've had a little fun with my one and only time to try out dating more than one boy at a time, it's time to pick up my story again where I left off. We had moved to a small rural area, not too far from Birmingham, with our newly adopted baby daughter, and not long after, I had gotten pregnant with our second daughter.
When the next school year started, the High School principal came to me, all but pleading with me to come teach Chemistry. It was two weeks before school was to start, and their Chemistry teacher had quit to join the faculty of the newly opened "White Flight" academy in the next town. One of the ladies from our church agreed to stay at our house with the girls, so I took the job.
That turned out to be a harder year on several fronts than I had ever expected. We were too new to the community to realize just what had been going on the year before. Things had been moving at a much slower pace out here in the country than I had realized. It seemed that this year that I had so easily agreed to teach in was only the second year that the "Black High School" had been closed and turned into an integrated elementary school. This was the second year that the "White High School" was totally integrated, and they had had boycotts and riots the first year! You'd think somebody at church would have warned me what I was getting into, but it was such a touchy subject, with many church members being those who founded the Academy, and others being public school teachers, that I guess no one wanted to discuss such matters.
Anyway, I walked in blind to a hotbed of high school hormones and racial hatreds, ready to find offense at the least remark or slight. Besides that, the Chemistry lab was in horrible shape. To say the least, I was not impressed with the skill of my predecessor, based on the terrible condition in which the chemicals were stored. But the lab was a minor problem, compared to the ill prepared students and the generally pervasive anger on the part of Black and White students alike.
Because this was a small rural area, there was only one class of Chemistry one year, and one class of Physics the next. So what did I teach the rest of the day? Anything and everything that nobody else wanted to teach! I ended up with a different preparation each period, ranging from 7th grade up, as the Middle School was attached to the High School.
The classes were all over crowded. One class in General Science, a required subject for graduation, did not have any text books until the second semester. I improvised with units about the way automobiles worked and such, for these students were not the brightest in the world, as they could not pass Biology.
Just as I had been at my other High School, I was stuck off on the end of a corridor, all by myself. This seems to be a common place to put Chemistry rooms. I guess it's in case of fire, etc. It did mean for me, though, that I'd better be able to handle these big country kids, who were filled with hate for all things connected with school, all by myself. Thank goodness I'd had a few years of teaching under my belt!
I survived the school year with only a few major incidences. One of the girls in that General Science class got into a major knock down drag out fight with another girl outside my classroom one day, which I had to try to break up. They were surrounded by a ring of boys by the time I got out there to deal with it, and when I broke through the ring, I saw why! They had shredded each other's clothes down to their bras!!! I don't know how I did it, but I did get them to stop, and I pulled them into the nearby gym locker room, sending for help. It turned out that they were fighting, because one of them had aborted a baby by the other one's boy friend.
The other incident actually happened to a girl on the way to my isolated class, and I only had to deal with the aftermath. When she came to class, she had been stabbed in the arm. Did I mention these were rough kids???
One student, who sticks out in my mind after all these years, had come back to finish High School after serving in Vietnam! Smoking was allowed at that time in this county, and of course, being isolated, the designated smoking area was behind my classroom. Some days he would shake so badly in class that I would let him go get a few puffs of a cigarette just to get him through. I was naive to drugs at that time. It would never have occurred to me that he might be smoking something else. But I felt sorry for him. He was obviously emotionally damaged, didn't fit in, and yet wanted to make something of himself. I don't know what became of him, but I hope he turned out OK.
The worst part of the school year for me, though, was leaving my own house every morning. Our older toddler would cling to my legs and beg me not to go. This didn't just happen at first, but it lasted off and on for the whole school year! She never got used to me being gone. Of course the little one couldn't have cared less. Anyway, between the teaching situation being an absolute nightmare, and our own child being so miserable, there was no way I was going to go through that again. I gave my notice at the end of the year, leaving the principal plenty of time to find a proper replacement.
From a student, myself, locked in the auditorium of Phillips High School while a Black man was being beaten for daring to try to enroll his children in a White school, to watching my Governor step aside as the first Black students entered the University of Alabama, to teaching the first Black children a school had ever had, to teaching in a school the first "peaceful" year it was fully integrated, I saw the whole cycle of the Civil Rights Movement up close and very personal.
I did go back to teaching full time when our children went to Kindergarten, and I taught at that very Elementary School that had once been the Black High School, some years before. Things had changed considerably by then. The White Flight Academy was flourishing, and the parents who had stayed with the public school system, for the most part, had reconciled themselves to integration. The children were generally used to it, unless their parents poisoned their minds, and I enjoyed teaching there, with Black and White children together, for 25 years.
When the next school year started, the High School principal came to me, all but pleading with me to come teach Chemistry. It was two weeks before school was to start, and their Chemistry teacher had quit to join the faculty of the newly opened "White Flight" academy in the next town. One of the ladies from our church agreed to stay at our house with the girls, so I took the job.
That turned out to be a harder year on several fronts than I had ever expected. We were too new to the community to realize just what had been going on the year before. Things had been moving at a much slower pace out here in the country than I had realized. It seemed that this year that I had so easily agreed to teach in was only the second year that the "Black High School" had been closed and turned into an integrated elementary school. This was the second year that the "White High School" was totally integrated, and they had had boycotts and riots the first year! You'd think somebody at church would have warned me what I was getting into, but it was such a touchy subject, with many church members being those who founded the Academy, and others being public school teachers, that I guess no one wanted to discuss such matters.
Anyway, I walked in blind to a hotbed of high school hormones and racial hatreds, ready to find offense at the least remark or slight. Besides that, the Chemistry lab was in horrible shape. To say the least, I was not impressed with the skill of my predecessor, based on the terrible condition in which the chemicals were stored. But the lab was a minor problem, compared to the ill prepared students and the generally pervasive anger on the part of Black and White students alike.
Because this was a small rural area, there was only one class of Chemistry one year, and one class of Physics the next. So what did I teach the rest of the day? Anything and everything that nobody else wanted to teach! I ended up with a different preparation each period, ranging from 7th grade up, as the Middle School was attached to the High School.
The classes were all over crowded. One class in General Science, a required subject for graduation, did not have any text books until the second semester. I improvised with units about the way automobiles worked and such, for these students were not the brightest in the world, as they could not pass Biology.
Just as I had been at my other High School, I was stuck off on the end of a corridor, all by myself. This seems to be a common place to put Chemistry rooms. I guess it's in case of fire, etc. It did mean for me, though, that I'd better be able to handle these big country kids, who were filled with hate for all things connected with school, all by myself. Thank goodness I'd had a few years of teaching under my belt!
I survived the school year with only a few major incidences. One of the girls in that General Science class got into a major knock down drag out fight with another girl outside my classroom one day, which I had to try to break up. They were surrounded by a ring of boys by the time I got out there to deal with it, and when I broke through the ring, I saw why! They had shredded each other's clothes down to their bras!!! I don't know how I did it, but I did get them to stop, and I pulled them into the nearby gym locker room, sending for help. It turned out that they were fighting, because one of them had aborted a baby by the other one's boy friend.
The other incident actually happened to a girl on the way to my isolated class, and I only had to deal with the aftermath. When she came to class, she had been stabbed in the arm. Did I mention these were rough kids???
One student, who sticks out in my mind after all these years, had come back to finish High School after serving in Vietnam! Smoking was allowed at that time in this county, and of course, being isolated, the designated smoking area was behind my classroom. Some days he would shake so badly in class that I would let him go get a few puffs of a cigarette just to get him through. I was naive to drugs at that time. It would never have occurred to me that he might be smoking something else. But I felt sorry for him. He was obviously emotionally damaged, didn't fit in, and yet wanted to make something of himself. I don't know what became of him, but I hope he turned out OK.
The worst part of the school year for me, though, was leaving my own house every morning. Our older toddler would cling to my legs and beg me not to go. This didn't just happen at first, but it lasted off and on for the whole school year! She never got used to me being gone. Of course the little one couldn't have cared less. Anyway, between the teaching situation being an absolute nightmare, and our own child being so miserable, there was no way I was going to go through that again. I gave my notice at the end of the year, leaving the principal plenty of time to find a proper replacement.
From a student, myself, locked in the auditorium of Phillips High School while a Black man was being beaten for daring to try to enroll his children in a White school, to watching my Governor step aside as the first Black students entered the University of Alabama, to teaching the first Black children a school had ever had, to teaching in a school the first "peaceful" year it was fully integrated, I saw the whole cycle of the Civil Rights Movement up close and very personal.
I did go back to teaching full time when our children went to Kindergarten, and I taught at that very Elementary School that had once been the Black High School, some years before. Things had changed considerably by then. The White Flight Academy was flourishing, and the parents who had stayed with the public school system, for the most part, had reconciled themselves to integration. The children were generally used to it, unless their parents poisoned their minds, and I enjoyed teaching there, with Black and White children together, for 25 years.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Integration Memories Part III
When I graduated from college my first teaching job was not in a situation I particularly liked, but teaching jobs were not easy to find at that time, so I was glad to get it. I taught 8th grade science all day long, without any help. They gave me a textbook and an empty classroom and said teach. That was it. I felt totally isolated, as this was long before new teachers had mentors or any help at all.
So I jumped at the chance the next school year to get out of my contract two weeks before school started to take over as Chemistry and Physics teacher at the school where I had done my student teaching. I was already familiar with the lab and the textbooks, and I knew my way around the school and liked the faculty. So what if school was just two weeks away. I was tickled to death. And the year passed very quickly, with no hitches at all.
The next year, however, had a slightly different start. When we had the faculty meeting before the students came, I found out that, because I taught college prep subjects, I would be one of the teachers to have the first Black students to ever go to a White school in this city. This particular country town was one with a strong KKK influence, and everyone was expecting trouble. Mind you, I had finished college in a hurry, and had only been teaching two years, so I wasn't much older than these Juniors and Seniors I was teaching. This was quite a responsibility they were putting on my shoulders, and I was very nervous about it.
I had some very good reasons to be nervous, too. The plan was that at each class change, every teacher would step out into the hall, to watch for any problems as the Black students moved from one room to the next. That worked fine for most classrooms, but it didn't help me at all. The Chemistry classroom was on the second floor of the old school, on a wing that only had one other classroom on it, with its own stairwell, stuck way off on the backside of nowhere. To make matters worse, there was an outside door at the bottom of the stairs. It was decided that the outside door needed to be chained shut. I was not to let the Black students out of my sight for any reason at all while I had them in my class, hall, or stairwell, so there were a few times that I actually wet my pants!
The four students I inherited were all the top of their class and could handle the work with not problems at all. They were scared out of their skulls most of the year, and as I recall, none of the white students spoke to them the whole school year.
The police were able to deal with the trouble makers outside the building, and we were able to continue on with the business of education inside the building, but it was anything but a normal year. It was certainly a year I won't forget, and once again I was there when the clash of the old ways and the new ways met full force.
So I jumped at the chance the next school year to get out of my contract two weeks before school started to take over as Chemistry and Physics teacher at the school where I had done my student teaching. I was already familiar with the lab and the textbooks, and I knew my way around the school and liked the faculty. So what if school was just two weeks away. I was tickled to death. And the year passed very quickly, with no hitches at all.
The next year, however, had a slightly different start. When we had the faculty meeting before the students came, I found out that, because I taught college prep subjects, I would be one of the teachers to have the first Black students to ever go to a White school in this city. This particular country town was one with a strong KKK influence, and everyone was expecting trouble. Mind you, I had finished college in a hurry, and had only been teaching two years, so I wasn't much older than these Juniors and Seniors I was teaching. This was quite a responsibility they were putting on my shoulders, and I was very nervous about it.
I had some very good reasons to be nervous, too. The plan was that at each class change, every teacher would step out into the hall, to watch for any problems as the Black students moved from one room to the next. That worked fine for most classrooms, but it didn't help me at all. The Chemistry classroom was on the second floor of the old school, on a wing that only had one other classroom on it, with its own stairwell, stuck way off on the backside of nowhere. To make matters worse, there was an outside door at the bottom of the stairs. It was decided that the outside door needed to be chained shut. I was not to let the Black students out of my sight for any reason at all while I had them in my class, hall, or stairwell, so there were a few times that I actually wet my pants!
The four students I inherited were all the top of their class and could handle the work with not problems at all. They were scared out of their skulls most of the year, and as I recall, none of the white students spoke to them the whole school year.
The police were able to deal with the trouble makers outside the building, and we were able to continue on with the business of education inside the building, but it was anything but a normal year. It was certainly a year I won't forget, and once again I was there when the clash of the old ways and the new ways met full force.
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Integration Memories Part II Stand in the Schoolhouse Door
When I graduated from Phillips, I went to the University of Alabama as a Chemistry Major. I was madly in love at the time and determined to graduate as quickly as possible, so we could get married as soon as I graduated. Freshmen were not allowed to have cars on campus at that time, and I didn't have a car, anyway, so I rode the bus home every weekend to date. That meant I really didn't have a social life on campus. I went to class, studied my head off from a full class load, and slept. That was about it. I took classes in the summer at UAB and Samford in Birmingham, and even one by correspondence, so that I graduated in 3 years, instead of 4.
But integration caught up with me again in college. I was there when Governor Wallace made his famous Stand in the Schoolhouse Door, in an attempt to bar two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from entering the University of Alabama on June 11, 1963. I watched as Governor Wallace made his speech, then stepped aside, as the National Guard escorted them into Foster Auditorium to register. I could see the steps of Foster Auditorium from the windows of my dorm, which has long since been torn down.
I was supposed to go to classes on campus that summer, but Mama and Daddy remembered how much trouble there had been when Autherine Lucy had tried to enroll in 1956. So I went to Samford that summer, instead.
The University had made every effort to see to it that they would both be safe. James Hood was housed in the Athletic dorm, where the staff would be able to provide close supervision, and the athletes had every reason to follow the rules. Vivian was given a dorm monitor's suite, usually used by graduate students, so she would have her own bathroom. Both students were followed by guards everywhere on campus until it was no longer considered to be necessary.
There may have been some incidents on campus, but I don't remember any. The time was ripe for them to be there. All the girls who lived in dorms ate in the cafeteria in the dorm that Vivian lived in, so I did see her from time to time. I knew a few girls who were friends with her, but mostly I was too busy studying and going to classes and lots of labs to be involved with the whole deal. I do remember being in an elevator with her once on campus and feeling strange, like I should say something, but stupid, like why should I speak to a total stranger, black or white.
So my life continued to cross paths with the Civil Rights Movement, as it would again several more times.
But integration caught up with me again in college. I was there when Governor Wallace made his famous Stand in the Schoolhouse Door, in an attempt to bar two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from entering the University of Alabama on June 11, 1963. I watched as Governor Wallace made his speech, then stepped aside, as the National Guard escorted them into Foster Auditorium to register. I could see the steps of Foster Auditorium from the windows of my dorm, which has long since been torn down.
I was supposed to go to classes on campus that summer, but Mama and Daddy remembered how much trouble there had been when Autherine Lucy had tried to enroll in 1956. So I went to Samford that summer, instead.
The University had made every effort to see to it that they would both be safe. James Hood was housed in the Athletic dorm, where the staff would be able to provide close supervision, and the athletes had every reason to follow the rules. Vivian was given a dorm monitor's suite, usually used by graduate students, so she would have her own bathroom. Both students were followed by guards everywhere on campus until it was no longer considered to be necessary.
There may have been some incidents on campus, but I don't remember any. The time was ripe for them to be there. All the girls who lived in dorms ate in the cafeteria in the dorm that Vivian lived in, so I did see her from time to time. I knew a few girls who were friends with her, but mostly I was too busy studying and going to classes and lots of labs to be involved with the whole deal. I do remember being in an elevator with her once on campus and feeling strange, like I should say something, but stupid, like why should I speak to a total stranger, black or white.
So my life continued to cross paths with the Civil Rights Movement, as it would again several more times.
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Historic High School Memories Part II
I have a couple of distinct memories from the Civil Rights era that are very telling of the times.
One of my girlfriend's at Phillips father was a preacher who was an outspoken advocate for integration, and a lot of the students at Phillips made her life miserable. I tried my best to remain friendly to her, but I remember how hard it was. I was afraid to associate with her, but angry that everyone was taking her father's views out on her. I don't think I did a very good job of being a good friend to her, but I did my best at the time.
The other incident that sticks out in my mind is another one that I look back on, and I'm not proud of myself at all. The one friend that I had gone to elementary school with rode home with me on the bus after things had settled down a bit. The buses were still segregated at that time, but there was still a lot of demonstrating going on.
When we were not too far from where she would have gotten off the bus, some other school kids decided to get cute. They took the board that said "Colored," that divided the front and back of the bus, and they moved it several seats behind some Black passengers. We saw them do it, but didn't dare say anything. The next thing we knew, the bus driver had pulled the bus over, and was coming down the aisle, yelling hateful remarks to the Blacks! (Of course that's not what he called them, but I don't use that kind of language.) We thought he was going to get onto the kids, but instead he just assumed that the Colored folks had moved in front of the board.
How I wish the two of us had had the courage to speak up and tell him that the kids had done it, but we didn't. For all we knew, the whole bus was about to erupt into a violent confrontation. We both ran for the exit and all but ran to her house. I think I stayed there until my parents came and got me after work, I was so scared.
I've looked back on those two incidents and wished I had been braver then. I don't know if I would be any braver today in similar situations, but I sure hope I would. I've always been ashamed of the way I let my friend at school down, and the way I didn't stand up for those people on the bus who were being blamed for something they didn't do.
One of my girlfriend's at Phillips father was a preacher who was an outspoken advocate for integration, and a lot of the students at Phillips made her life miserable. I tried my best to remain friendly to her, but I remember how hard it was. I was afraid to associate with her, but angry that everyone was taking her father's views out on her. I don't think I did a very good job of being a good friend to her, but I did my best at the time.
The other incident that sticks out in my mind is another one that I look back on, and I'm not proud of myself at all. The one friend that I had gone to elementary school with rode home with me on the bus after things had settled down a bit. The buses were still segregated at that time, but there was still a lot of demonstrating going on.
When we were not too far from where she would have gotten off the bus, some other school kids decided to get cute. They took the board that said "Colored," that divided the front and back of the bus, and they moved it several seats behind some Black passengers. We saw them do it, but didn't dare say anything. The next thing we knew, the bus driver had pulled the bus over, and was coming down the aisle, yelling hateful remarks to the Blacks! (Of course that's not what he called them, but I don't use that kind of language.) We thought he was going to get onto the kids, but instead he just assumed that the Colored folks had moved in front of the board.
How I wish the two of us had had the courage to speak up and tell him that the kids had done it, but we didn't. For all we knew, the whole bus was about to erupt into a violent confrontation. We both ran for the exit and all but ran to her house. I think I stayed there until my parents came and got me after work, I was so scared.
I've looked back on those two incidents and wished I had been braver then. I don't know if I would be any braver today in similar situations, but I sure hope I would. I've always been ashamed of the way I let my friend at school down, and the way I didn't stand up for those people on the bus who were being blamed for something they didn't do.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Historic High School Memories Part I
I went to Phillips High School in downtown Birmingham. When I started there the schools were still segregated, and, because the school was downtown, any white student in the city could go there. Since Mama and Daddy both worked downtown, and it was a College Prep High School, it was a logical place for me to go.
Daddy dropped me off in the mornings, and I rode the bus home in the afternoons. It was a huge school, and there were about 600 in our class. Coming from a little grammar school, where I had been with the same 30 or so friends for eight years, made this quite an adjustment. Only two other girls from there had gone to Phillips, too, so I was thrown into a strange place with a lot of strangers. I did make new friends, though, and settled in fairly quickly to what I expected to be four years of dating, partying, and, oh yeah, studying.
I never expected to be locked in the auditorium, along with 2,000 other students, while a "Colored" man, the Reverand Shuttlesworth, was being beaten with chains on the sidewalk, for trying to enroll his children. I never expected to have Daddy driving me to and from school and slowing down, but not stopping at traffic lights and stop signs, because demonstrators were throwing rocks at passing cars. I never expected to be ushered out to the nearby park, with everyone else, day after day, as bomb threat after bomb threat was called into the school.
You see, I went to Phillips during the height of the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham, a school less than a mile from where hoses and dogs were being used against demonstrators, and only a few blocks from the bus station where there had been such a horrible confrontation.
Daddy dropped me off in the mornings, and I rode the bus home in the afternoons. It was a huge school, and there were about 600 in our class. Coming from a little grammar school, where I had been with the same 30 or so friends for eight years, made this quite an adjustment. Only two other girls from there had gone to Phillips, too, so I was thrown into a strange place with a lot of strangers. I did make new friends, though, and settled in fairly quickly to what I expected to be four years of dating, partying, and, oh yeah, studying.
I never expected to be locked in the auditorium, along with 2,000 other students, while a "Colored" man, the Reverand Shuttlesworth, was being beaten with chains on the sidewalk, for trying to enroll his children. I never expected to have Daddy driving me to and from school and slowing down, but not stopping at traffic lights and stop signs, because demonstrators were throwing rocks at passing cars. I never expected to be ushered out to the nearby park, with everyone else, day after day, as bomb threat after bomb threat was called into the school.
You see, I went to Phillips during the height of the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham, a school less than a mile from where hoses and dogs were being used against demonstrators, and only a few blocks from the bus station where there had been such a horrible confrontation.
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