Going to School in Black and White

by Cindy Waszak Geary

  But one could ask, “Beyond sitting beside someone of a different race, was anything of substance gained from those interactions?” Many of those relationships were superficial and limited in scope and intensity. We greeted one another with a casual “Hey, how’re you doing?”, but beyond that, it was rare to see close connections between black students and white students. Yes, a few boys, mostly the black male athletes, developed more intimate relationships with the white female students, usually also athletes. But any interaction outside of school hours would have been unusual for most of us. I certainly never brought anybody home with me. I do remember occasionally visiting the home of one of my white classmates, Helen, who had also been a contestant in the Junior Miss pageant. She was also one of the smartest students at Hillside, and we had a lot of similar interests. Our relationship was warm and cordial, but more important, it allowed me to see her as a human being, as just another girl, even though she was white.

  Was that relationship, or similar ones, unworthy of obtaining simply because it did not result in lifelong friendships? Is the mere interaction too superficial an outcome? As a first step for people who have very little contact with each other outside of school, why wasn’t just bringing people together for the betterment of our society a good enough goal?

  As I promote this argument, I can see other benefits. Integration permitted us to satisfy our curiosities about the other group, develop new attitudes, and challenge stereotypes about people within the context of a safe environment. I was surprised, for example, to learn that not all white people were high academic achievers. Up to that point, I had been convinced that all white people in the world were really smart, all the beautiful people were white, and all the best things in life belonged to white people. To me, that belief was more a fact than a complaint.

  When we got to Hillside, I saw another side: that not all white people were in the Honor Society, and that black students could excel in activities even when white students were involved. White students also saw black people and realized that their perceptions and stereotypes about blacks were flawed. Not all black people are poor or can dance and sing.

  Recently, I scanned my high school yearbook and noticed a picture of one of my black classmates braiding the long, blond hair of one of my white classmates. Little did they know that they were well ahead of Bo Derek’s trendsetting cornrows in the late 1970s. These benign interactions, on the surface harmless and pointless, permitted unspoken questions, each about the other, to be answered: “What does your hair feel like? Why does it stay so straight? My hair is curly.” Innocent curiosity led to interactions and explorations in a safe space. Cindy’s annoyance at the formality and social traditions at Hillside helped her achieve proficiency in cross-cultural settings and more easily adjust as a working professional in settings with people unlike herself.

  A prevailing sentiment among black students was that, even though we recognized our differences from the white students, we acknowledged that the white students who attended Hillside were the “good guys” because they had chosen to be with black students, while the white students who did not want to be there did not come. We believed that our white classmates had parents who weren’t scared of their children mixing with us. Cindy’s high school stories reveal that those impressions were not entirely accurate.

  That is not to say that white students always felt welcomed or well assimilated into Hillside’s predominantly black culture, but neither were they shunned. There weren’t riots or racial fights. The black students tried to display their understanding that the white students had good intentions. So, for the most part, there was no need to intimidate or create a hostile environment, because these white kids were the ones who decided to stay. They were harmless and benign, and they were there because they and their families had decided for whatever reason that it would be OK to be at Hillside. As for the people who were not at Hillside, those who were being transferred off to Durham Academy or wherever? We did not encounter those people. It was the people who made the decision to be there who were there. So there was a friendly atmosphere, and we got along, and for the most part we did not go beyond that. At least I did not.

  When I realized that Cindy had attended Hillside, I gained renewed respect for her. We had a shared past, if not a shared perspective about our experience. Of course, now I realize that there might have been white kids who didn’t want to be at Hillside but who had no other options or resources. Not all the white students’ parents were liberal professors at Duke. At the time, we did not make those distinctions among the white kids, assuming that everyone was there by choice.

  While we generally accepted our white classmates, we were not deaf to the strong opposition to integration we heard from outside our walls. We heard about it from our parents, read about it in the newspapers, and listened to discussions on the radio and television. We mainly felt insulated from those discussions. Besides, in Mr. Lucas’ high school, we were not going to be permitted to participate in any funny business.

  Mr. Lucas’ leadership through this period in Durham cannot be overstated. While working as our principal, he was also a leader in discussions to achieve racial integration at all levels of the educational system in North Carolina. Hillside was seen as a model of what was possible, and Mr. Lucas was a frequent spokesperson for the merits of bringing black and white children together. His interest, he said, “is to seek a strong voice for education with equal opportunity. My concept was that in order to merge, you should bring two groups together on an equal footing.” (9) Since his retirement, Dr. Lucas has continued to lend his voice to advocacy for educational issues in a number of capacities at the local, state, national and international levels.

  To counter these arguments, I could also defend the narrative that people should be allowed to attend whatever school they want to attend—even if that choice means that they want to be among the majority race in that school. My attitude is a reflection of where I currently sit. After attending Hillside and then two predominantly white universities, I am now a professor at a historically black university, North Carolina Central University in Durham. NCCU is composed of a predominantly black student population, oriented toward traditions, culture, and a legacy of social justice and service to the black community. NCCU is also one of 16 campuses that make up the University of North Carolina system. Of the 16 campuses, six are HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities). The demographic trends of the university are changing, and I suspect that the increase of enrollments from white, Latino and Asian students will provide for even greater diversity on campus. But the culture of the campus is likely to remain strongly rooted in its commitment to educating the black community.

  The reason there are six HBCUs had nothing to do with choice, but rather that other state-funded schools did not allow for the admission of black students until about 50 years ago. To quell discontent, the state legislators began to provide some financial support to these black schools and eventually brought them into the UNC system.

  I continue to be annoyed by the obvious differences in resources between the HBCUs compared to the larger institutions—all supposedly equal members within the UNC system. What is the rationale for the disparities between the campuses and the differences in perceptions in the quality of the academic experience? Being a Durham girl, I knew that there were differences in perceptions, but it was only after I started working at NCCU, after many years of working in international development, that I learned that those differences in perception were a result of actual differences in how resources were allocated, how decisions were made and how faculty and staff were affected in terms of research, teaching and service activities. As the years have progressed, I have grown increasingly resentful, and now I’m pretty defensive about the whole situation.

  Today, black students are not limited at all by their choices or their ability to attend majority institutions. Many choose HBCUs even when they have many, many options and would be successful regardless of their
university setting. I have come to realize that some students benefit from the nurturing environment that campuses like ours offer to black students. Perhaps the nurturing environment of Hillside paved the way for my success. So who cannot argue that the selections of schools should really be the choice of the students and their families? What is so magical about this experience at a predominantly black college that parents might not also make this choice if it were allowed at elementary, middle, and high schools? Certainly there are those currently pushing this agenda as a viable path for black children.

  Some data suggest that black children who attend integrated schools are more likely to succeed, score significantly higher on standardized math tests and enjoy higher earnings and rates of employment later in life. Studies report that black students who attend schools with whites are less likely to bear children as teenagers, or to be incarcerated as adults (10). Other studies cite the positive influences of same-race role models in the classroom, particularly for black males, and the importance of learning in an environment that is not perceived as racist and hostile (11). Who is right?

  The truth, I believe, lies somewhere in between. I believe that school integration is an important component of living in a multiracial society. We cannot claim to value equality while holding on to policies that make it easy to maintain separate instructional facilities based on skin color. Court-ordered desegregation efforts that compelled children like Cindy and me, comfortable in our own respective worlds, to move out of our safe cocoons to explore the worlds of others were important. We developed flexibility and skills to move easily in and out of different cultural settings. We learned how to negotiate and survive challenging situations and bring up difficult topics about race in nonthreatening environments. While some would argue that meaningful dialogue at Hillside was limited, learning to live and work alongside one another served an invaluable purpose. It led me to want more for myself, to do more for my community and to accept that there were white people just like me, with similar interests and values. I am sure that it did the same for Cindy. Some of those lessons were learned at Hillside; others I learned at Duke and beyond.

  Creative and innovative approaches that offer dignity, respect, equality, and recognize the value of each and every student, regardless of race, are still needed. However, we should not pretend that current efforts to return to neighborhood schools and give parents the choice of taxpayer-funded charter schools are anything more than a desire to move away from school integration. As a nation, we are slowly pulling away the foundation from a hard-fought legacy worthy of holding on to. We seem willing to toss aside the bricks of time, effort and understanding that were so carefully crafted by Dr. Lucas and the pioneers of the desegregation movement. We are returning to silos of convenience and comfort, and though we pretend to respect integration, we are moving rapidly ahead to support school board members and policymakers who will ensure that integration is never fully achieved. The experiences that Cindy and I contemplate provide greater context and justification for fighting for school desegregation, even as our nation charges full steam ahead to destroy it.

  12— Sending Our Kids to School

  Twelve

  Sending Our Kids to School

  When the courts ordered schools to desegregate in the 1970s, white parents (and some black parents as well) made decisions about whether to comply, or to resist by moving out of the school district or sending their children to private schools. One topic we talked about as we were thinking about how our school desegregation experiences influenced us was the role race played in decisions we made as parents about our own children’s schooling.

  Cindy

  My children both went to school in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School district from kindergarten through graduation from high school, except for a two-year break when my daughter was in fifth and sixth grades while we were living in Fairfax County in Virginia, and I was working in Washington, D.C. I went to college in Chapel Hill, and I always loved it there. I loved it as a small town and as a university town. My husband and I were living in Chapel Hill when my oldest, Emily, was born, having moved there after a year in Raleigh and almost two years in Flagstaff, Arizona, where I got a master’s degree. When my daughter was born, my husband was planning to go back to school in Chapel Hill to finish his degree and get a teaching certificate. We were great believers in the public school system—whatever that meant to us at the time—for socializing our kids.

  We could have moved to Durham. Having grown up there, I was comfortable there; my parents were still living there, and it was cheaper. But we chose to live in Chapel Hill instead. We liked being close to the university, the city was smaller, and we had friends there. And we also knew that the school system there had better resources and a better reputation for academic achievement. We were willing to pay more in taxes and live in a smaller house. Eventually, John taught school there.

  Chapel Hill’s school system was much whiter than Durham’s, which at that time was working through a merger of the city and county school systems. Not only were Chapel Hill schools whiter, but also there was a lot of wealth privilege among its students. We did worry about our children getting a skewed view of the world because of that affluence. Our kids had us as parents, though, so there was always discussion about what was going on related to racism and civil rights. We did not see school as the only means of socialization in regard to race. We felt that being in school in Chapel Hill versus Durham (or anywhere else) was not going to be detrimental to their beliefs in racial equity. They were still in classes with black children, and they had black teachers. Both had black friends at school with whom they socialized in and out of school. My daughter had a great elementary school experience, and so did my son. And they were close to home.

  As a parent and someone interested in racial justice—and given my own school experience—I sometimes consider whether I should have made other choices. Would being in a less white, less wealthy school system have been better for my children? Given them a different outlook on the world? In the end, I believe the proof is in the way they grew up. They are both very conscious of racial justice issues. My daughter is active in anti-racist advocacy wherever she is—now in Ireland. My son is not an activist, but he steps up and speaks out when necessary.

  When I was in high school, I was judgmental about the families that sent their kids to private schools, because I believed it was important that people try to make desegregation work. I did not know exactly how desegregation was going to change things, and my racial consciousness was not sophisticated, but I just thought if this was something important to do, why doesn’t everybody play by the same rules? But then as you become a parent, and you weigh decisions about the welfare of your children against the greater good, sometimes decisions are not so clear-cut. It is very easy to be inconsistent when it gets personal. It is a moral dilemma that I struggled with. I think it is important to be honest about that, even if doing so complicates my self-image.

  During the time we have been writing this book, I became a grandmother, and I have been thinking about what kinds of decisions my son and daughter-in-law will make for my granddaughter’s education. I hope that my granddaughter will be living in a community where there is racial and class diversity and she can go to a nearby public school that reflects that diversity and where her parents feel comfortable with the quality of the education she will get.

  LaHoma

  I did not really think about school for my children until I had to make a decision about daycare. When we bought our house, we were both just starting new jobs. Although we knew that we wanted children, we did not have kids, and I did not even think about looking around at schools. We were so focused on the affordability of the house. I guess I just assumed that the school system would be good. The one thing that I regret about our decision to live where we eventually did is that it limited our public school choices. When our children came along and we started to explore the local school system, I was less than pleased
with what I found. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t what I was expecting, either.

  My husband, Tim, had been a graduate student and then a stay-at-home dad when we first became parents, while I worked and we lived in Washington, D.C. When we returned to our house in North Carolina, and Tim found a job, we knew we needed to find care for our soon-to-be 3-year-old baby girl.

  My parents, both retired by then, agreed to look after her until we found a more permanent arrangement, so I began the arduous and meticulous search for the best care we could afford. Of course it made sense to look in our small rural community even if we were not very familiar with it. My preference was to find a home arrangement with someone who had only one other child, so I asked around my family. Eventually, by word of mouth, I visited half a dozen home-care facilities in the area. None of them met our needs.

  After a couple of weeks of these futile efforts, I knew I needed to expand my criteria, so I reached out to a local church that I passed every day on the way to work. I had noticed small children playing in the backyard of the church grounds, and because the church was so close to my house, I thought that this arrangement would be wonderfully convenient. One day, once I arrived at work, I looked up the number in the phone book and gave them a call. The lady who answered the phone was “delighted” that I called. She said of course they had openings, and they would love to show me the facility at my convenience. I told her that the daycare was close to my home and asked her if anyone would be there to show it to me on my way home that very evening. She assured me that they would still be around because they did not close until 6 p.m. She would be waiting to give me a tour and answer all my questions.