This Promise of Change: Introduction–Part 2

In Southern states especially—where racist traditions had deep roots in centuries of black slavery that endured until the end of the Civil War—many whites could not abide the thought of their children attending school with black children.

In Southern states especially—where racist traditions had deep roots in centuries of black slavery that endured until the end of the Civil War—many whites could not abide the thought of their children attending school with black children.

So African American students were forced to attend schools with inferior buildings, supplies, books, and facilities.

Despite the Constitution’s “equal protection” guarantee, the U.S. Supreme Court found no constitutional defect in segregation. To the contrary, in 1896, in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, the Court said that facilities that were racially “separate” could be considered “equal”—or at least equal enough.

“Separate but equal” schools were not equal. They were not equal even if the buildings, supplies, books, and facilities of schools for black children were brought up to par with schools for whites.

Racially segregated schools deprived African American children of equal educational opportunities and were unconstitutional—period.

Some states passed laws to punish people who attempted to comply with Brown v. Board.

When I taste the bitter,
when I feel the pain
from the daily slights
like a spreading stain

From “No Coloreds” here
to “Whites Only” there,
from the genteel chains
that we’re forced to wear

Two rooms hold grades one to eight;
pretty hard to regulate

It shall be unlawful for any teacher, professor, or educator in any college, academy, or school of learning, to allow the white and colored races to attend the same school, or for any teacher or educator, or other person to instruct or teach both the white and colored races in the same class, school, or college building, or in any other place or places of learning, or allow or permit the same to be done with their knowledge, consent, or procurement.

Violation is a misdemeanor; fine and imprisonment.

Any person violating any of the provisions of this article, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction, shall be fined for each offense fifty dollars, and imprisonment not less than thirty days nor more than six months.

Any person violating any of the provisions of this article, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction, shall be fined for each offense fifty dollars, and imprisonment not less than thirty days nor more than six months.

Judge Taylor over in Knoxville
has told Clinton’s officials
that they can’t ignore Brown v. Board
anymore.
Clinton High School
must be integrated

It will be ours,
blacks and whites.
Desegregated, not segregated.
Ours.
Theirs.
Mine.

“No state shall...deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
—United States Constitution, Amendment XIV, adopted 1868

We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place.

Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.

“Don’t you know how to speak the King’s English?” she says,
by which she means
proper grammar and diction,
not a royal accent.

“You think you’re Mrs. Crenshaw!”
they would taunt.
Meaning,
You think you’re white.

Mom told us that she stopped going to school
when she was sixteen.
She needed to pitch in to earn money
to help her family.
She put her sister and brother through college
by working as a maid.
But that doesn’t mean she has to sound ignorant
and her children definitely don’t have to sound ignorant
and they should get the best education they can get
and it should show.

We do not enter that aisle
while the white person is contemplating
baked goods.

At the Ritz Theatre,
when we go to see a movie (from the balcony,
according to the rules),
we may enter the front door to buy candy and popcorn,
but we must then walk outside with our food
to enter a separate door
that leads to the stairs
to the buzzard’s roost.

We don’t like suspecting—
knowing, really—
that white people in Clinton are nice enough to us
so long as we follow the rules,
so long as we are not—
hate to say it, even think it—
“uppity.”

The milliner, and her white customers,
do not want Negro heads,
Negro hair,
touching a hat
that a white woman might later put on her own head.

“You just don’t git it!”—
which is how a lot of people talk in Clinton,
no matter where they live and what their color—
our mother would chastise and correct us:
“You can say the letter e in get,
so say it!”

...my parents have been known
to use a switch
from the sycamore tree
to teach me a lesson.

I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses;
And the voice I hear,
Falling on my ear;
The Son of God discloses.

And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own,
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.