The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
THE HOME FRONT By William E. Bohn School Integration Three Years Later This morning, I visited a really happy place. The building was nothing special—just a good-looking, brightly lighted,...
...It has an educational effect on the parents as well as the children...
...She said that if a white teacher has trouble with a colored pupil, she has found that it pays to turn the youngster over to a teacher of his own race...
...A colored teacher told me with feeling: "It is not the fault of the pupils...
...I visited some of the Wilmington schools at that time...
...When their pupils were taken into desegregated institutions, they found it difficult to keep the pace set by their new schoolmates...
...Soon it will be forgotten...
...In the first room which 1 visited this morning...
...Three years ago, there had been a tendency among some of the Negro pupils to flock by themselves...
...Now, three years later, I had the idea of returning to some of the same schools...
...Presently, a slightly taller Negro boy came along and said: "No fighting here...
...it is the parents who are slack and lazy...
...I was eager to ask the teachers about the stories out of Washington to the effect that Negro pupils do not measure up to white standards, that they are causing a slowdown in the educational process...
...And she reports that countless white parents now' request that their children be taken into the classes of Negro instructors...
...On May 17, it was three years since the Supreme Court handed down its historic decision on segregation of the races...
...The building was nothing special—just a good-looking, brightly lighted, well-ventilated school...
...I learned afterward that the Negro pacifist had the authority that goes with being a "safety officer" elected by the pupils...
...But the time was special...
...The talk and the laughter as pupils and teachers trooped back to their classrooms would have made you think they were on their way to a picnic...
...I noticed that all the white children were on time and a number of Negroes were tardy...
...The segregated black schools had had standards lower than those set by the whites...
...Wilmington, Delaware, which is now my city, was one of the first communities to respond to this edict with positive and constructive action...
...The School Board and the educational leaders of this town, which had been strictly segregated from 'way back, started a desegregation program at the earliest possible moment—that is, in September 1954...
...I found—and reported in Tim New Leader—that the new arrangement was working beautifully- The children of 6, 7 or !! years accepted the variations in color as simply as the birds do...
...It was half past eight on the Monday morning after Easter...
...I have frequently been told that Negro teachers are "softer ' than white ones, that they fail to keep their pupils up to white standards...
...My friend the principal told me one thing which counts on their side...
...Her words were: "The black teachers have, sold themselves to the while community...
...In the very first classroom which I entered, I noted one change...
...A white mother complained that her daughter had been attacked by some Negro children...
...These Negroes...
...Upon inquiry, I was told that at first the principal had had a diflicult time about this matter...
...break it up...
...But I was told by numerous teachers that this is all being lived down...
...The whole population was gay with the bright, new clothes of Eastertime...
...I even forgot that T was visiting this particular school with a definite purpose...
...A colored teacher confessed to me that at the start there had been some truth in this allegation...
...And in the classrooms they exhibited a preference for sitting in solid little blocks of seats...
...The two belligerents instantly separated...
...A wise principal showed me how anti-Negro reports get started...
...That was three years ago...
...The same general observation can be made about racial variations in moral and social standards...
...I was so intrigued by the spirit of the place that I did not even notice that white and colored children and teachers were going happily along together and taking their places in the classrooms without any thought of separation...
...Investigation showed that two unpleasant and unhappy little girls, who just happened to be black, had started a fight which finally involved four or five...
...A Negro teacher from North Carolina said to me: "I wish I could get all those stubborn people down South to come up here and set' how desegregation really works...
...According lo the plan adopted, the innovation began in the lower grades...
...I tell them what is what, and we are bringing them around...
...Thus, having whites and blacks go to school together is bringing up the standards of the whole Negro group...
...The whole thing was nothing more than a childish scrap, but the complaining mother was on the way to making a race war out of it...
...In the boys' gymnasium, I saw two white boys get into a fight...
...But I get after them...
...Before school or during the lunch period, some of them would talk or play in self-segregated groups...
...They greeted one another with terms of endearment...
...Now all of this has come to an end: White youngsters and black ones just naturally sift in together...
...she said, "have ways of talking to their own people which bring results...
Vol. 40 • May 1957 • No. 21
