Pushing for school integration in Durham during the 1950s and 1960s
William Clement discusses his involvement with the Durham Committee as the chair of the education committee during the 1950s. William describes how the Committee was advocating for school integration, especially following the <cite>Brown</cite> decision in 1954. He describes how they worked tirelessly to find parents willing to have their students pioneer the integration process. In the early 1960s, they finally succeeded in getting the school board to accept the integration of six African American children, serving as a harbinger of things to come.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with William and Josephine Clement, June 19, 1986. Interview C-0031. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
Then in the Durham Committee I became a member of the education committee
and eventually chairman of that committee, and it was during the time
that we were suing the city for separate but equal, that was the suit
that was being heard. Thurgood Marshall was working with the NAACP; he
was the attorney that came down. And in the meantime, in 1954, the Brown
decision came down, so that eliminated that.
Then we started working on the matter of integration, and so, you know,
about what went on in Virginia, and North Carolina, and finally, we had
the pupil assignment law passed in North Carolina, and it was our
committee's responsibility to go into sections of Durham to
get the parents to agree to petition the school board for reassignment
because the kids were leaving that community, walking past elementary
schools, coming across to the black community. So we were able to get
some of the parents and finally after a long period of time, I recall
the many visits that we went up to the school board and I can hear the
chairman of the board, now, Mr. Fuller, saying, "Never! Never!
Never!" And they did a lot of things. They tried to start a
double session because of the overcrowded
conditions in the black schools.
- WALTER WEARE:
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Would this have been in the early sixties, late fifties?
- WILLIAM CLEMENT:
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No, this was in the middle sixties, I imagine. During the early
sixties.
- WALTER WEARE:
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Josephine, are you on the board at this time?
- WILLIAM CLEMENT:
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No, she didn't go on the board until August
1973 . . .
- JOSEPHINE CLEMENT:
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No, another era.
- WILLIAM CLEMENT:
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Yeah. There were no blacks on the board at all. It was really
interesting. Some of the papers that I turned over to the Southern
Historical Society [The Southern Historical Collection], some of the
clippings from the papers, we were fortunate to have saved them. I had a
very good secretary who really kept files, that's why my
files, I think, were in pretty good shape.
So that was quite an experience. We finally got the school to approve six
blacks to be integrated and there were three members on our committee
and we took those three young students to one of the elementary schools
for that whole year. We alternated. And then we got the parents and the
friends, got clothes, remember we got clothes for the girls, and so
forth. That was another really thrilling experience. So then I really
retired more or less from the Durham Committee as chairman.
I'm still on their committee and on the executive committee.
And then I really got involved in a lot of other activities.
