Integration Works in Wilmington
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
integration works in wilmington By William E. Bohn The other morning, I witnessed a notable exhibition of human understanding. In a beautiful, sundrenched room, I saw twenty-five pupils clustered...
...The result has been tragic...
...This provision included only the white children...
...At the end of her first day, a little white girl came up to her and said shyly: "I like you...
...I was the only one who seemed to be surprised at what was taking place...
...True, it never seceded from the Union...
...I have watched the work in many classes of various grades...
...Ideas regarding the proposed changes were discussed in public meetings and were reported in full in the two Wilmington papers...
...Principals who would now, for the first time, have colored teachers on their staffs to instruct white children were especially concerned about the attitudes of the parents...
...Lincoln came in third...
...Regional mythology credits the escapees from a wrecked Moorish vessel with adding a romantic element??hence the name "Moors...
...The Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were not ratified until 1901...
...School officials enforced the law as strictly as was humanly possible...
...In a beautiful, sundrenched room, I saw twenty-five pupils clustered about a Negro teacher...
...Of the pupils, twelve were Negro and thirteen were white...
...Some of the groups would be taught by Negro teachers, most of them by whites...
...By contrast, the Wilmington method has achieved good results far beyond the walls of the schools...
...In Delaware there was no such law, but the teaching of Negroes was left to charity...
...Then the child added: "You went to college, didn't you...
...The Superintendent of Schools submitted his general plan to the Board of Education on June 21...
...Though the state remained technically loyal to the Union, many hundreds of its young men enlisted in the armies of the Confederacy...
...The schools for white children shall be numbered and the schools for colored children shall be numbered as numbered prior to the year 1919...
...To show how completely the people of Delaware have been convinced that segregation is an essential part of their system, it is merely necessary to mention the provision made for the "Moors" in the State Code...
...But human nature is very human...
...It was not until 1883 that a regular appropriation from state funds was made for the support of Negro instruction...
...At this time, most of the Southern states had laws making it a crime to teach black children...
...Observers of education in the state have long noted, too, that the segregated system was breaking down at various points...
...There are stories of teaching carried on surreptitiously...
...But it should be recorded that the expenditures of the duPonts have been made without regard to race...
...The Quakers??some of them coming down from Philadelphia??had the black boys and girls on their consciences...
...This dramatic change is only partly due to the fact that various members of the duPont family have contributed millions of dollars and have been personally active in Delaware education...
...When the Civil War came to an end, there were seven privately-supported schools for Negroes in the state??three of them in Wilmington...
...On June 11, the State Board of Education issued a statement based on an opinion of the Attorney General authorizing the Wilmington board to proceed with plans for integration of the city's schools...
...The teacher replied: "That's nice, for I like you, too...
...In some prosperous families, little Negro boys and girls, even slaves, sometimes learned the alphabet from tutors along with the master's children...
...The community appears to have been thrown back rather than carried forward...
...There was not the slightest evidence of self-consciousness...
...The smoothing over of feelings required all the skill and firmness which experienced school officials develop in the course of their work...
...At the present time, everyone agrees that it occupies a place among the first ten...
...They represent a racial mixture of American Indians and Africans...
...My mamma told me," came the answer...
...These proposals were studied at a regular meeting held on July 8. At this time, groups of citizens or individuals were given an opportunity to make appropriate suggestions...
...The "Moors" are a group which is...
...This is essentially??and always has been??a Southern state...
...White people and black people do not naturally stay apart...
...Before the regular work began, it seemed that all the little groups formed for talk or play were made up of the contrasting colors...
...Up to 1875, there was no public provision for the education of the Negro part of the population...
...Thus far, I have outlined only top-level planning...
...In some of them, there would be four or five Negro children along with twenty or twenty-five whites...
...All the signs indicated that the children were happy together and that their teacher had their love and respect...
...When one considers how deep has been the division between the races, how completely the measures providing for segregation have been carried out, what has been done seems little less than a miracle...
...Heart-to-heart talks were held long before the opening date...
...Down to the present time, two completely segregated systems have been conducted at the expense of the state and under the control of the same Board of Education, which, it goes without saying, is white...
...What has been done in Delaware by means of patience, foresight and understanding can just as well be done in Georgia, Alabama or Mississippi...
...The citizens were not carried along...
...interest in Negro education was shown only in a token sort of way...
...This incident furnishes the clue to the success which the Wilmington school authorities have achieved in making this great change in their city's life...
...Up to the year 1920 or thereabouts, Delaware was ranked among the Southern states with regard to the rating of its school system...
...The idea of supporting education with state funds goes back to the eighteenth century...
...So complete is the belief in separation along racial lines that the school law provides that there shall be separate schools for these "Moors' and that no Negro or white child shall attend these racially "pure" institutions...
...as far as I know, limited to Delaware...
...This involved, of course, a good deal of detail with regard to the boundaries of school districts and the possible transfer of pupils and teachers...
...In the course of time, the schools for colored people were regularly established under the State Board of Education...
...Why, yes," answered the teacher, "but how did you find that out...
...But, in all cases, the work went on with success and good will...
...A general scheme was outlined, based on a step-by-step method ??the elementary classes to be integrated immediately and the junior high schools and senior high schools later on...
...Various authorities assigned it a place between the 33rd and 37th states...
...On August2,the plan finally adopted was published and the Superintendent was authorized to put it into operation...
...Letters were sent out to many of the parents involved...
...I am, however, justified in regarding this working together of white and Negro pupils and teachers as a great achievement in social engineering...
...This success may well furnish a guidepost for the South...
...In others, the two races would be evenly balanced...
...In all sorts of activities, athletics, music, discussion groups, the young people of the two segregated systems have been more and more getting together...
...The Legislature provided that the colored people were to tax themselves for this purpose, and the funds collected were to be turned over to philanthropic societies for expenditure...
...The schools for white children shall be free for all white children between the ages of 6 and 21 years inclusive, and the schools for colored children shall be free for all colored children between the ages of 6 and 21 inclusive...
...The entire community has made a notable gain in the direction of understanding and cooperation...
...At the time of the Civil War, there were 1,798 slaves in the state and 19,827 free Negroes...
...In sharp contrast to the smooth operation of the plans for integration in Wilmington stand the bitter conflicts at Milford, Delaware, which have been given such wide publicity...
...Even in 1875...
...And when the great war was over, the attitude toward the Negroes and the measures taken in regard to them paralleled those of the South...
...The first regular appropriations were made in 1817...
...But a good deal of active and intelligent participation was necessary on the part of principals and teachers before the results of this planning leaked down to the individual parents and children...
...In the smaller town, where such a change might have been made more easily than in the larger one, the new plan was introduced without previous announcement or discussion...
...But in 1860 the majority of the citizens voted for the Southern Democrat, Breckinridge...
...In one school in a predominantly white neighborhood, I saw an especially good Negro teacher obviously making a success of her work with a class consisting mostly of white children...
...During the second part of the 1954 school year, the elementary schools of Wilmington are being conducted with the white and Negro teachers and pupils working together with every evidence of happiness and success...
...The Delaware Code of 1953 provides: "The schools provided shall be of two kinds, those for white children and those for colored children...
...This is nowhere more evident than in the state's provisions for education...
...Such a smooth-running change of policy involving basic emotions of citizen groups did not, of course, take place by accident...
...Nevertheless, down to the first half of the year 1954 the State of Delaware and the city of Wilmington have had two school systems carried on in what were practically watertight compartments...
...What strikes the onlooker first of all is the lack of prejudice among the children...
...In many respects, Southern opinions and feelings have persisted down to recent times...
...It is the State of Delaware and the city of Wilmington that I am talking about...
...In 1816, the African School Society was organized...
...By 1829, an act was passed by the Legislature making provision for a regular state school system...
...many other influences have been at work...
...In 1814, a school for Negroes in Wilmington had 34 pupils...
Vol. 37 • October 1954 • No. 41
