Segregation - Integration Memories

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.

MY Generation's SPUTNIK Moment!

In 1957, when the Russians launched Sputnik, I had just started High School the month before. That was the height of the Cold War, and there was no way that red blooded Americans, such as myself, were going to let the Russians beat us at anything! I was already set to be on the College Prep track, as it was called then, but I made up my mind to take as many math and science courses as possible (not the usual thing for a girl to do back then). I also took Drafting, and was the only girl in that class for 3 years! I had big plans of doing my part to help America one-up Russia in the Space Race.

For MY generation, Sputnik moment meant out doing and beating the Russians on every front. We were determined to show that we were the best nation on this earth. And we did!! I even took Russian in college, thinking it would be a valuable skill as a scientist in that era. I majored in Chemistry and minored in General Science, with lots of math courses thrown in as prerequisites.

I hope that's what President Obama had in mind, that kind of pride in America and determination to be the leading nation among the world powers, when he chose to say that we are in a Sputnik Moment in his State of the Union speech last night.

And I hope that's what it means to the youth of today hearing that phrase. But, frankly, I don't think there is any way the younger generations can possibly understand the strength of will that the American people exerted at that time to take back the lead in the Space Race. We need that same fervor to defeat this attitude that many in office seem to espouse that America has lost it's way, that it is no longer the best country in the world to live in.

So, I can only hope that the young people of today will find their OWN Sputnik Moment, when they act individually and collectively as Americans to bring our country to it's place in the world as the BEST, period.

Snap Jack Memories

Michael wrote me the other day asking for help finding more information about Snap Jack or Flag Flyer Tom McCan shoes. I was able to find this page of memories about these shoes from the 50's that I thought you might enjoy seeing.



















Being female, I don't have any memories of this brand of shoes, but looking at this Carl Perkins photo where he's holding his Snap Jack Blue Suede Shoes surely brought back memories. Blue Suede Shoes was one of my first 45's, and I can still see that yellow Sun Records label going round and round on my record player.

A Tank of Gas

My hubby tells stories of him pooling his change with his buddies on Friday and Saturday nights to put a dollar's worth of gas in his friend Johnny's old car, so they could drive around and hang out together. They would go to Sky Castle's and one of them would order a coke while they sat and talked, and when the waitress would be about to shoo them out, another one of them would order something. It was all like a scene out of Happy Days! That was way back in the 50's, before we met and started dating.

I was reminded of his stories when I saw this in the newspaper the other day:

When I was in high school in the 60's, I could fill up my car with $2 worth of gas. Interestingly, I couldn't afford a tank full of gas back then, either.

So, is gas really all that high even now? I'm not so sure. Our first apartment was $52.50 a month. Our first home cost us $101 a month, and it was all we could do to qualify for the payment. My first teaching job paid a whopping $265 a month, after paying for college to get it. When you put the prices of everything else from way back then in perspective with what those things cost today, gasoline probably is right about where it should be. Not that I like paying $4.00 a gallon, mind you. But considering how much money everything else costs, I think our reaction to gas prices may be more emotional than intellectual.

Any thoughts???

How Can a Teen AFFORD to Date???

When we were dating, way back in the 60's, we often went to a movie in downtown Birmingham. We always got the biggest popcorn bucket they had and ate out of it together. At the time, that seemed so romantic. We still go to movies from time to time, but now we go during the day and get the Senior discount. LOL And we do NOT buy anything from the concession stand!

We went to the movies today at a Rave Theater and really had a good time. It was just too hot to go Estate Sale hunting on our Date Day, so seeing a movie seemed like a "great date" idea. I laughed and laughed, even cried a little, thoroughly enjoying Hairspray.

DH stopped in the restroom before we left, so while I was waiting for him, I started looking at the prices of the concession stand snacks. When we were dating, the boy paid for everything. I don't know if boys do that anymore or not, but I can certainly understand where the change to going Dutch came from. Not only are the tickets to the movie very expensive, but treating a date to popcorn, a large drink, and maybe a candy bar, is downright expensive.

I noticed that the three largest Combo suggestions did NOT have a price on them. After DH listened to my outrage, we started consciously looking to see if the prices were shown anywhere at all. They were not.

By now, the floor manager noticed that we were obviously discussing something in a very upset way, and came to ask if there were a problem. We let him know that we were not at all happy with the lack of prices. The very idea of having a young fellow, eager to impress his date, and she picks one of these combos, without either of them knowing how much it is going to cost? Can't you just see that fellow telling the cashier that he can't afford it, after his date has picked it out? How embarrassing!!

By now, the big boss had come to see what we were all hot and bothered about, and his "reason" for not posting prices on those most expensive choices (he said the most expensive was in the neighborhood of $18.00!) was that they had promotions with different candy companies, so the price varied from time to time. I pointed out to him that the price marquee was electronic, and could be changed at the touch of a button. He then changed the reason to it was a company policy that he had no control over. That's when we asked how to contact the company.

I've complained before to Krystal's headquarters for not having handicap accessible bathrooms in a Birmingham location, and to a large local Realtor, Engel Realty, for not having handicap accessible outside doors on a medical building of all things, so I'm quite willing to complain to the Rave Theaters!

I've written an email to them, offering to post their reply. That should be interesting!

In the meantime, I think our grandson better start saving his money, as he is 13. We were planning to encourage him to start saving some money for his first car. Now, I'm thinking we had better be telling him to save money so he can take a girl to the movies!!

So You Think You Can Dance??

We've been watching the TV show, "So You Think You Can Dance", last year and this year, and have enjoyed it thoroughly. I've learned a lot about different types of dances, and can even very occasionally spot a mistake a dancer might make. Most of the time, though, I'm just in awe of what they can get their bodies to do.

When they dance Swing or other 40's era dances, I always think of my Mama and Daddy. They loved to dance when they were young adults, while they were dating and also as young marrieds. They used to talk about working all day and then going out dancing night after night, enjoying the sound of the Big Band giants of their day. Living in Chicago, they actually did get to dance to some of the greats, such as Benny Goodman. Mama's eyes would always light up when she remembered those days.

I guess that's why she insisted that I take dancing lessons when I was in High School. I really did learn how to do all the ballroom dances, too, such as the Fox Trot, Tango, and, of course, the Waltz. The bad part about it was that, except for a few Valentine Dances, I never did go dancing anywhere.

Rock and Roll was taking over at that time, and about the only thing any self respecting teen would be caught doing was the Bop. It was a joke to go to a High School "Dance", as everyone stood around and talked. The only time I really remember much dancing going on was to the Bunny Hop, where we would make long snakes all around the gym floor, weaving in and out of the "talkers" who were in our way.

So, will a TV show like this change the attitude of people about "going dancing"?

Drawing House Plans

I'm in the process of doing research on how to best remodel our master bathroom to include the walk-in closet next to it. I've spent the last two days on the Internet looking at walk-in tubs, wheelchair accessible showers, and any and everything else I can find that would help me decide what to do with this space. DH will leave this up to me, because he knows I enjoy doing it, plus I have a certain amount of skill in this area.

I took three years of drafting in high school, and even drew up one complete set of house plans for a bungalow with a loft, as I recall. I wish I had kept those plans, but I can still see much of it in my head, even today.

But my house plan drawing days go much farther back than that. I never had a doll house, but I did have a large amount of 10 cent store plastic doll house furniture. I distinctly remember a little tiny rubbery baby doll, with a painted on diaper, that would fit in a pink high chair. She was permanently in a seated position, and couldn't have been more than an inch tall. So, without a house for all that furniture, what did I do?

I would go out on the front sidewalk, and draw house after house plan with chalk. Even at that age, I remember including closets and doors. I had a plastic toilet, bathtub and sink, as well as a refrigerator and stove. If I didn't have what I wanted, I just drew it in! All the girls on my block would get together and play house with our chalk drawings.

So here I am, almost 60 years later, still drawing rooms, and loving every minute of it!

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.

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.