Marjorie Turner walked into the boardroom and smiled at the men and women sitting behind the long table.
Her family had been summoned to the school administration building this sticky August day for their official interview – a requirement of Negro students applying for white schools, one of several rules the School Board instituted 2½ weeks earlier. Her children already had completed a series of achievement tests.
The table was packed with junior high principals, a school psychologist, the director of the health and physical education department – all there to examine her children’s school records and gauge their “moral and physical” fitness.
If the board wanted to play games, fine by her, Turner thought. She’d go along if it meant she could have her children in a school closer to home.
“Hello. My name is Marjorie Turner,” she said. “This is my husband, James, and these are my two children, Patricia and James Jr.”
After they had taken seats at the table, Marjorie was asked just two questions:
“Mrs. Turner, what school did you attend?”
“I am a graduate of Booker T. Washington.”
“So Mr. Winston Douglas was your principal?”
“Yes.”
While looking over the paperwork, one man remarked: “Oh, you’re a Navy family. That’s wonderful.”
Pat, 13, could feel herself rocking slightly with nervousness. The people behind the table seemed to loom larger with each second.
There were no questions for Marjorie’s husband or 11 -year-old James Jr., whom they called Skip at home. He was finishing Oakwood Elementary and would be going across town to Ruffner Junior High – unless the board allowed him to transfer to Norview Junior High.
The last question was for Pat:
“How would you feel if you couldn’t play an instrument at Norview?”
Pat was startled. She was a top clarinet player at Ruffner. They wouldn’t let her join the band at her new school?
The idea made her more nervous, but she had her mother’s resolve.
“I would just play it at home,” she answered.
The administrators scribbled some notes. One of the voices thanked them and said that was all.
“And thank you,” Marjorie Turner said in her sweetest voice, and led her family out.
A week earlier , attorneys with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People had called a meeting at Mount Gilead Baptist Church in Oakwood to talk about the interviews and testing program.
They thought it was discriminatory, plain and simple, and said they were going to file a motion in Walter E. Hoffman’s court to challenge its legality. Several of the parents at the church meeting said they would refuse to let their children take the tests.
The Turners went along with the testing because they didn’t want to forfeit the chance for their children to attend school closer to home . White children had always been able to go to neighborhood schools, but because there were only one high school and two junior highs for coloreds, most Negro students had to travel miles.
Marjorie Turner did not drive, and her husband, a submariner, was often out at sea. It bothered her to put Pat and Skip on the city bus: What if they missed it and were stranded? Plus, bus tickets cost money.
But she let the children decide. A few weeks before, she had asked Pat and Skip if they’d like to go to Norview Junior.
Does that mean we could walk? You mean, we could be home in 10 minutes?
For Pat and Skip, desegregation meant getting home more quickly to a slice of homemade coconut cake and more time to throw the baseball around the yard before it got dark.
Olivia Driver had heard about the chance to go to Norview High before the school year closed at Ruffner Junior.
She thought Norview would be better than Booker T., Norfolk’s only high school for Negroes. Norview was only two blocks from her grandmother’s house, where she lived, and she suspected that the lessons there were more advanced. Also, Norview was one of the largest high schools in Virginia and was only a few years old.
Olivia, 13, was a serious sort, but she could play with the best of them. At 5 feet 7 inches in the eighth grade, she towered over her girlfriends when they strolled to the sock hops. And if she heard James Brown on the radio, she could out dance almost anyone.
But she’d been taught that it was her responsibility to get an education. Her grandmother, Margaret Welch, preached that it was second only to God. Welch had completed only the fifth grade and was determined that her granddaughter have better. She taught Olivia how to read by spreading the comic strips before her every Sunday after church.
Olivia had breezed through the reading, arithmetic and language tests that the school administrators had doled out the last week of July.
On the day of her interview, Olivia sat quietly with her grandmother. As when she took the tests, she wasn’t nervous. It was as if she’d been preparing for this all her young life. She was fortified by the nuggets Welch had fed her over the years: People who lie won’t look you in the eye; look out for people who wear two faces under one hat.
As Olivia and her grandmother were called in for the interview, Welch said a prayer: God, please guide us and keep us safe.
Olivia immediately sensed that the people behind the table, while cordial and respectful, were not nice. She tried looking at each one – her grandmother had said that the eyes were the windows to a person’s soul – but most of the men and women would not hold her gaze.
Assistant Superintendent E.L. Lamberth asked Welch why she wanted Olivia to switch schools. To save money, she replied.
He then turned to Olivia:
“How do you feel about your ability to get along with such a situation? Do you think that your past record would justify it?”
“I think I would get along fine,” she said.
Olivia felt that they were trying to intimidate her. She saw that those who weren’t speaking were whispering among themselves.
“What do you think, Mrs. Welch?” Lamberth asked.
“I think she would get along fine. Outside of school, just as well.”
“Are you sure that the things you will have to give up would be greater than the saving of carfare on the bus ride? You still think it would be worth it, Mrs. Welch?”
“Yes, sir.”
He looked at Olivia again: “There will be certain things which it would not be easy for you to participate in. Can you make new friends among the white persons?”
Welch answered for her: “We’d like the opportunity. All we can do is pray and ask God. He takes care of us all.”
Andrew Heidelberg and his mother, Lena, caught the bus to Bank and Charlotte streets for their interview on the same day as Olivia . By now, of the 151 Negro students who had applied, 84 remained in the process. Most others were boycotting it because they felt it was discriminatory.
After one of the hottest Julys on record, forecasters were saying that August would be even worse. All Andy could think about was why he had to come downtown, again. He’d taken the tests in the breezeless rooms at John Marshall School. Why was the school system intent on messing up his summer? He could be playing football now, the gold wings he painted on the backs of his black cleats leaving the Oakwood Manor boys in the dust.
But the 14-year-old realized that he’d gotten himself into this mess. The year before, Andy came home late from a pickup game expecting a whipping. But as he slid through the door, he saw that his parents had company.
“Andrew, these people are here from the NAACP, and they would like to ask you a few questions,” his mother said.
Phrases like “Supreme Court,” “Little Rock” and “being the first to integrate” flew over his head . But he remembered the photos of Emmett Till in Jet magazine: The teen’s beaten and bloated body had been found after days in Mississippi’s Tallahatchie River, where it had been dumped after Emmett was killed for supposedly whistling at a white woman.
The NAACP folks wanted Andy to help break the race barrier in the Norfolk school system, but he didn’t think school people would let Negro boys sit next to white girls. He was so certain, and so happy to have skirted a beating, that he said yes.
Now, in the summer of ’58, his mother reminded him of his promise and that he had to be interviewed .
As Andy and his mother walked into the boardroom, he thought, “I’ve never seen so many white folks in one place in my life.” He felt uncomfortable. His school records were scattered about the table. They’d been studying his grades (which were good), attendance reports (not so good) and teacher comments from Oakwood through Ruffner. Then came the questions:
“Why was your attendance so poor?”
“I was out for the Passover and the Holy Days,” Andy answered. “Also, a week with the flu.”
“What is your main reason for applying for this school?”
“It is better than going all across town,” he said. “I think I could learn more.”
“I think that learning is more important than the distance. Do you have other reasons, Mrs. Heidelberg?”
“They are my reasons, too.”
One interviewer studied Andy’s height, and asked: “Do you ever play basketball with the white boys?”
“Yes, I did,” Andy said, “but the police told us to stop.”
More questions:
“What would you do if someone called you a name?”
“If a bus of white children and a bus with colored children passed, would you take part in such a situation? I mean, name-calling and throwing things?”
“No, sir,” Andy answered.
“You were checked only 'Fair’ on the Emotional Adjustment Form on the record. Why? Have you had any problems with your principal?”
“I have never had any trouble with my teachers,” Andy said.
Then the assistant superintendent surprised Andy with what was more of a statement than a question:
“Just before you left elementary school, you were not very happy if you were not leading in your group. If you are a leader, are you going to be happy if you go to a school where you may not be accepted in this way? Do you feel that this would be fair to you? If I were in your place, it would be a hard decision.”
Someone added: “Well, if you’re going to Norview, if you want to get along with them, you might not be able to win all the time.”
Andy couldn’t believe they’d twisted an old teacher’s comments about how he liked being a leader. He sensed that they might let him into Norview, but they would not make his life easy. Years of being a star athlete would be gone; they’d expect him to lose to be liked, which went against everything he knew. But he also knew he couldn’t quit.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
In the hallway, Andy’s mother drew him close: “If you ever let one of those white boys beat you on purpose, I’ll beat your hind parts myself!”
Denise Watson Batts, (757) 446-2504, denise.batts@pilotonline.com
Tomorrow: The School Board stands its ground.
A NOTE TO READERS: Since most of this series covers events of the 1950s and ’60s, we chose to use the language of the time, such as “Negro” and “colored.”
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
CS,
by the way, I enjoy our discussions.
Residents
of Washington DC, (ones not foreign nationals), have been pushing for DC to be made a state or any other avenue, to give them equal rights to citizen residents of the 50 US states. So yes, they aren't citizens with full rights as people who are citizens of the 50 states. They are 2nd class citizens. The difference between 2nd class citizens & citizens with full rights, is huge. That's why, men such as Robert E. Lee, were traitors. They had full rights as citizens of the USA. They even had an artificially large representation, in the House & Senate, due to the 3/5 rule. Slaves had no rights but they were counted as 3/5 a person, so as to inflate the Southern representation. They still decided to secede & wage war.
read some more
Based on your assertions, then, the residents of Washington, D.C. aren't citizens of the United States. Using your criteria, only a handful of countries in the world have citizens. Parliamentary voting rights aren't germane to whether or not the colonists were subjects of the British Crown. According to William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, written in the 1760s by an English judge and law professor, British subjects included all of those "born within the dominion of the crown. When the British Empire came into existence, the dominion of the crown expanded. British subjects included not only persons within the United Kingdom but also those throughout the British Empire (the British Dominion). This included both the colonies and the self-governing Dominions..." Since a traitor is one who commits treason and treason is "Violation of allegiance toward one's country or sovereign, especially the betrayal of one's country by waging war against it" (American Heritage), it is crystal clear that the revolutionaries were traitors. I'm glad for it, but they were treasonous.
Again,
persons taxed without representation by a government entity, who don't have the right to freely write & pass legislation without approval from a non-elected, (by the people), governor who represents said entity, 1st & foremost, aren't full citizens of said entity,because they can't freely take a full part in their governance. This is why the Sons of Liberty & other rights of citizens groups were formed. Persons not having full rights are citizens in name only. My family experienced this 1st hand. "His Story" should be self explanatory. It's the tales passed off as history that omit, twist, & use outright lies, in telling the the stories of the past. Va. text books actually contained passages stating that slaves were happy on plantations, eating watermelon & playing banjos, 'til riled up by "Northern Agitators". Very hard to find the contributions made by non Whites, in American "His Story".
not the only student of history
Indeed, I have heard of the Marquis de Lafayette. My extensive study of American and Virginia history aside, I was also stationed at Ft. Bragg, which is adjacent to Fayetteville, NC, the first town in America named for the marquis - he was even there for its dedication. What, exactly, is your point? Washington served in the Virginia Militia in the French and Indian War (aka the Seven Years War) as a subject of the British Crown. At that time Virginia was a Crown Colony and all free residents therein were British citizens. The colonists themselves considered themselves to be British subjects, which is why their rebellions was all the more remarkable. They KNEW they were committing treason and still signed the Declaration, served in the Continental Army, etc. I say again, they were traitors in every sense of the word. No historian even disputed this fact.
Incidentally, you never did explain what you mean by His Story.
Subjects
of the British Crown, who lived in the colonies, didn't have the same rights as citizens actually living on the soil of the British Isles. The colonists assumed themselves as British Citizens. It was proved many times, over 150yrs or so, by the Crown using "Mercantilism", (a form of trickle down economics), to indicate such, to the colonies. Most of those yrs, the colonies ignored this due their prosperity under the system. In the 1760s, during & shortly after some of the French & Indian War, the Crown imposed a series of taxes, including The Stamp Tax Act, on the colonies, without representation. This couldn't be done in Great Britain. This caused the Mass. Assembly to call the Sons of Liberty groups, of each colony, together, to write a Declaration of Rights & grievances, to send to the Crown. I know, as subjects to the Crown, they could be hanged. Non-citizens have fought for countries throughout history. Ever heard of the Marquis de Lafayette?
actually,
Washington, Jefferson, etc, were all subjects of the British Crown, and as such were legally traitors in every sense of the word. They were well aware of this and had we lost the war the whole lot of them would have been hanged for treason. Washington even fought on the British side during the French and Indian War.
b4real
you are partially correct. I said Black troops took the hill. I didn't say Whites weren't in the battle involved. I got the history on the term "Redskin", from family oral history, classes from elementary through high school, 44hrs of college history courses & from a Navajo friend of mine while we were in the military. It had been part of his family's oral history also. Yes, I heard that idea that Europeans used the term because of blood & red paint on some tribes. That idea has been debunked by many historians. It's thought to have been raised to lessen the apparent debauchery of some of the early European settlers. The actuality of the wig trade using the scalps of Native Americans has been proved many times over. Have a good one.
Actually,
Washington, Jefferson, etc. weren't traitors. They were colonials, not residents of the British Isles. They didn't have full rights of British citizens. The British army attacked the colonies. The CSA, fired on USA troops at Ft. Sumter. Lee & others were traitors because they violated their oath as officers of the US military. They convinced others to also disavow the USA, & join them, in armed battle with the USA. The colonies were just that, colonies. The south was an actual part of the USA. It's White citizens had the same rights as other White citizens throughout the USA. Etek, sorry you were jumped by classmates. My 1st yr in high school, I was chased, by White men aged 20 to 50, who siced their dogs on me, hit me with chains, bottles, stones, spat upon me,etc several times a month, while I was trying to walk home from school. Just a statement of fact.
what the ... is his story?
"actually traitor, as they were all traitors ... by legal definition, no way around it." This applies to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, etc as well. It's all in the timing and, ultimately, the results.
Incidentally, please explain what this "His Story" nonsense is all about.
Some of you are showing your true colors and your ignorance...
I am white and I am extremely embarrassed by many of these comments. I grew up in the segregated south (separate water fountains for "Whites" and "Coloreds" in the Portsmouth Giant Open Air Market as recently as the early 60's.) I am proud of how far we have come. That is, until I read such ignorant comments as posted below about the Pilot trying to stir up racism and effect election results simply by writing about factual events - about history! I bet some of the same people who don't want to read about racism and segration have no problem with "Remember 9/11" bumper stickers or stories about the Holocaust. We need to remember it ALL, so that history does not repeat itself. If you truly believe that reading about these historical events only perpetrates racism than I really feel sorry for you. People react to the way they are treated TODAY and through education we can hopefully rise above racism, sexism, and all of the other prejudices. We HAVE come a long way, but I guess not far enough!
Was there
Unknown to me, my parents were asked would there be any problem if your son were in a class with a colored student?
My Mom replied, "No. Wayne wasn't raised that way."
The questions were on both sides.
Trumped
WOW! Good attention getting article until a real headline pops up...just look at how fast the new lead story about the dow drop relegated this article to the sideline. If VP wants to do a real investigative meaningful report on the topic, stop with the pandering dribble and dig into how all the opportunites, efforts and sacrifice by those who grew up with segregation have been squandered. An ace is in fact after all is said and done still and ace.
ISn't it ironic
that so many people sacrificed and had do so much for academic equality and now we have so many blacks that are dropping out of school in record numbers.
This Article
was printed at this time to coincide with the 50th anniversary of these events in Norfolk. The Pilot is probably planning an article in Feb.'09, to coincide with the reopening of the schools. How ironic, that some with this remembrance, are so gung ho when a celebration of some Confederate "hero", ( actually traitor, as they were all traitors to the USA, by legal definition, no way around it) takes place. If it's okay for some to print articles about & celebrate a bunch of traitors who lost a war over 140yrs ago, then it's okay for all groups to print articles concerning actual, inclusive history. Especially since the history is so recent. My 4 grown children didn't realize what their dad & mom had to endure. I only skimmed over it, so as not to poison their hearts. It's basically glossed over in too many schools. Truth needs to be taught, not "His Story".
This isn't just history - it is here and now
This is not just some interesting historical trivia: massive resistance continues today through the segregation academies of Western Tidewater.
Tidewater Academy, Isle-of-Wight Academy, Southampton Academy and many others were started near the end of the massive resistance period as a last ditch effort to separate white students from the blacks who were entring the public schools, and that legacy continues today. As a result of these academies being almost entirely white, the proportion of white students in the public schools is significantly less than the makeup of the local population.
While these schools all publish non-discrimination statements to meet IRS tax exempt guidelines, it is amazing that in some areas that are 50% non-white, these schools are generally in excess of 98% white.
While I agree that these parents have a right to provide whatever type of private schoo
Are we abolishing history lessons now?
So we shouldn't teach history in school? No history majors in college? No history channel on cable? That's what most museums hold --history lessons. So I guess you'd like to tear down the Holocaust museum in DC also? Please, give me a break. Talk about sensitive. If this had been an article about the brave men of the Confederacy, there would be much flag waving on this site. History is yes, in the past, but it is also fact. Get over it, learn something and be glad that most people don't still have a 1958 mentality toward education and segregation. Amazing the things that OFFEND supposedly intelligent people.
Good Story
This was a good article. Regardless of the timing.. Who cares. But what is even greater is that Pat Turner was my Seventh grade math teacher at Blair Middle School. Excellent teacher and a wonderful person.. Very hard to find genuine people these days, and I'm sure everyone would agree. I remember sitting in class, probably fooling around, and Ms. Turner telling me about what she had to go through just to get a good education.
kelly_lane
"....I knew the white sheets would start coming out."
Wow, read all the posts again.....I don't see anything about the KKK threatening to kill or lynch black people.
Most posters were questioning the timing of the article as it relates to the election, and also the fact that this article does nothing to better race relations--- it only succeeds at continuing more divisiveness.
But maybe you're too busy reading into all things you do not agree with as 'racist'.
Where do some learn history?
Where in the world did you learn your history 2miler? Most of the points you tried to state were far from factual. Blacks took San Juan Hill? I believe it was a force of about 8,000 in that particluar battle...of which 1,250 were black. Wouldn't that be both black and white soldiers who won that battle? The term redskin...nothing but theories on this for they can't determine when or where it actually originated. But, from the several sites I came across...the term could have had many meanings. From Europeans referring to Indians for the blood on their skin, to the Indians coming up with the term to differentiate themselves from the white man. And uh, gknutson...if it is playing towards politics to get a black man elected...then it is racist. Now...time to sit back and see how many times I am called a racist, even though nothing in my post supports it.