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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview K-0168, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Arthur Griffin, an African American man who attended segregated schools in Charlotte, North Carolina, and later became involved in school politics there, reflects on the legacies of desegregation and the nature of racism in Charlotte and elsewhere. Griffin fondly remembers Second Ward High School (which closed in 1969) and its teachers, who struggled to provide their students with a stellar education despite vastly inadequate resources. While he mourns the loss of Second Ward during desegregation, he thinks the process improved Charlotte by teaching white and black people to work together. Still, desegregation was not a panacea; Griffin believes that race-related problems like low academic achievement among African Americans persist.
Arthur Griffin reminisces about Second Ward High School in Charlotte, North Carolina, and reflects on the legacies of desegregation.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
. . . Pam Grundy, talking about Second Ward High School, Charlotte's first colored high school.
That's right, and it is the 7th of May, 1999.
At 7:39 in the morning.
All right. I guess just start, before you get to Second Ward, with where you grew up.
I was born in Good Samaritan Hospital, which was located on the site
where Ericcson Stadium is currently located. It was located on Mint
Street. I grew up on 6th Street, which is in First Ward. I entered
public schools in 1954. That was called Alexander Street Elementary
School. That was, I guess, the colored elementary school at that time
for folk that lived on that part of the city, which was the eastern part
of the city?—I'm not real sure about the directions right now. I went to
Alexander Street, and black people that lived on the other side, in
Brooklyn, went to what's called Myers Street. So I did know a little
about that. And I went to Alexander Street up until about the 4th grade.
At that time, the upper end of First Ward, Ninth Street, Tenth Street,
Brevard Street, that was white. The southern part of First Ward was
black. Davidson Street, Alexander Street, the McDowell Street was black.
So as whites sort of migrated or left the area, they left what's now the
First Ward Elementary School. It was an older school, but when we moved
to Alexander Street to First Ward, we thought it was a brand new school
because conditions are so much different with regard to quality of
facility. That's why this whole desegregation thing was really unique.
Simply because First Ward Elementary was an older school, but their
facilities, their books and everything were a hell of a lot better than
the facilities [unclear]
Second Ward, we really felt that the school was going to rebuild, and I
really didn't think otherwise. But I did know, because some of my
friends were being forced to move, because they lived in Brooklyn, I
knew something was going on about urban renewal.
Do you remember when you first heard that Second Ward had been closed?
I remember. We thought that it was the utmost in betrayal, because no
one had indicated at any time that the school was going to be closed.
The best news we had received was that the students were having
contests, trying to decide what's the name of the school. What was the
new name going to be? And I've even looked through school board minutes,
back in the late '60s, where students came before the board of education
and suggested that the school be called
I wouldn't be familiar enough to know which would be the closest.
The closest school is Myers Park. Myers Park would have been
desegregated, so you'd have white students from Myers Park coming to
Second Ward, and students from Second Ward going to Myers Park. And I
think, like in many other decisions back then, folks just said, "No,
we're not going to a school that looks like this." Because a school was
not in great repair, didn't have nearly the things that Myers Park High
School had. And I just believe that economics decided that, no, this
one's going to close, our kids, if they go anywhere, might go to West
Charlotte. And that's what happened, ultimately. The kids around the
east, over in the Myers Park area, were assigned to West Charlotte High
School as opposed to Second Ward. Whereas it would have been a shorter
trip and a whole lot of other things had they been paired with Second
Ward. But the politics just didn't make it. I think we just were on a
losing end. As I said to you earlier, Second Ward didn't have all the
affluent African Americans, and a lot of the African Americans that were
somewhat affluent were being urban removed to the west side. And it
left, generally, the lower-income African Americans around Second Ward,
around First Ward, and around Brooklyn, to the very, very end. Because
ultimately they started to urban renew First Ward, and they moved my
family from First Ward to Fairview Homes, so that tells you about the
What was so special about Second Ward that made you want—?
I grew up wanting to go to Second Ward. And just watching the older kids
in the neighborhood, in terms of going to Second Ward, being in the
band, cheerleaders. It was just—it was like, that's where I wanted to
go. I mean, I just couldn't fathom going anywhere else. And at a certain
point in my life, and particularly because of the upheaval in the
community, you know, that was like roots. Not only did I have to move to
a different community and go into a different school, that was like
roots for me. You forced me to move to Fairview Homes, but if I have a
What was it like to go to Second Ward High School?
What was it like to go to Second Ward High School? It was great. It was a big school. Going from elementary school to a high school, from grades 7 through 12, I mean, you know, we have grades 9 through 12 here in public schools. But, you know, all your friends were there. You go, you go early in the morning, you'd walk to school—they wouldn't—black kids in the city didn't have school buses. White kids did, though. Some of them. And we walked to school every day. You'd walk to school with the same crowd, you had your little stores you'd stop by and buy your candy for two or three cents. They had penny Tootsie rolls back then. You can't buy a penny Tootsie roll at this point. I mean a big one, not just a little midget piece. And you'd stop on corners, you'd talk to the store owners, they'd get to know you. And you'd just walk. And it would rain, you'd all laugh about how you're all wet, because there were no school buses and you had to walk and your parents didn't have any car to drive you. And when you get to school, you'd play before the first period, you'd goof off, you'd see your friends. And you'd cry together when there were problems, because we lost a lot of friends. They were lost through some violent acts. You lost friends through dropout. You lost friends through pregnancy, teen pregnancies. Probably almost fifty percent, not quite fifty percent, almost fifty percent of the kids I grew up with, in terms of first grade, second grade, third grade, by the time we graduated, they were gone. For one reason or another. And I always tell people, "Notwithstanding what you say now, there has been progress since segregation, in terms of, now, desegregation." A lot of people who are new in this say that the gap's too wide, or we haven't made a lot of progress. But from my perspective, we have made progress. There's a lot of progress to be made.
But I got involved. I mean, I was in the band, when I was in the seventh
grade or the eighth grade. There was a white guy who runs a musical
instrument company, and he's like the son or grandson of Mr. Howren
[spells it out] [unclear]
Parents didn't participate that much in PTA. You know, when I reflect
now, and people tell me about parent participation, hell, we had
neighborhood schools, black neighborhood schools, but the parents didn't
participate in PTA. But there was a real sense of achievement, and a
sense to get a quality education. And the teachers had that. Just they'd
look at you and it was almost as if they wanted to wield a good
education into your head. And you knew that people cared about you. But
in terms of parent participation, it wasn't that great. I was a
single-parent guy. My father raised me, actually. My mom was an
alcoholic, and she left the home, probably when I was like five or six
years old. And he could not read or write. But he had a strong sense of
going to school. Certainly not going to college; it was just, graduating
from high school was his
But it was families. I mean, things that you would do during the summer months. People you'd associate with, you'd play with, you'd go to parties with, you'd hang out with, didn't have cars like kids have today, but you'd walk or catch a bus. Every now and then there was a kid that had an automobile that you could get a ride with. But it was like family. Little projects. You'd go, for example, to Ovens Auditorium when Ovens Auditorium was absolutely brand new. You'd get on a bus, you'd go over there and hear the symphony, it's like, "Mm, OK." Then you'd come back and you'd hear your own rock and roll music, some other stuff, and, "OK, let me stay at home, I don't know if I want to go back to Ovens Auditorium." But it was just a family. The teachers—my seventh grade language arts teacher, for example, lived about 3 blocks from my house in First Ward before it was completely bulldozed. So it was just like a community. I mean, you'd get in trouble at school, ultimately, you know, my dad would find out about it, because the teacher was there to say, "Arthur was cutting up." So it was like Heckel and Jeckel. Just a different personality. I was a rabble-rouser at home, and I'd just try to toe the line and give this false image to the teachers, I was such a good guy.
But they were good people. Marjorie Belton was a guidance counselor
there; she's retired now. Her son, David Belton, is one of the vice
presidents for the Chamber of Commerce, and I always ask how his mom is.
And occasionally I get to see her. But she was always trying to keep the
high road for us rabble-rousers from the rowdy school. They had a big
fence around it. People always used to joke, "What's that fence for, to
keep you criminals in, or what?" But it was just a family atmosphere. We
did the very best could, we took all the courses that were offered. I
was on a college prep track where you took biology, chemistry, physics,
trigonometry, those types of things. And I didn't know, until probably
my senior year, just what the lack of resources were, [unclear]
But it was just simply, Pam, a sense of family back there with Second
Ward. And you knew that you didn't have all the resources that West
Charlotte had, so it was like, you know, we're a family over here. And
when we would travel, believe it or not, the two schools would come
together. If we were at a state tournament or something in
Winston-Salem, or up in Asheville, West Charlotte would join Second Ward
and we'd be the boys from Charlotte. It was that crowd. So I mean, even
though I went to Second Ward, a great experience, right now when I see
my colleagues from West Charlotte that graduated at the same time I did,
it's like we all went
It's interesting to me. I've interviewed a number of West Charlotte people, and they do talk, all the time, about Second Ward. And it seems like it's almost impossible to think of the two schools separately.
Wherever you go, it's like Second Ward and West Charlotte. We would
compete—we would compete not only in terms of the Queen City Classic,
sportswise, but we would try to compete in terms of kids who were on
academic teams. And it's almost like you would kind of know the kids who
were doing well academically at West Charlotte, you would kind of know
the kids who were doing kind of academically well at Second Ward. And we
would go over to visit periodically. I would go over to visit some of
the young ladies on the campus, but also, you know, I would know some of
the teachers. Kelly Alexander also grew up in Brooklyn, and so we knew
each other as young kids, but then when his dad moved over to Senior
Drive, right across the street from West Charlotte, when we'd go over to
visit West Charlotte, we'd always go over to Kelly's house or something.
So we had friends that lived in the community right around West
Charlotte, and we'd go over to West Charlotte and go on West Charlotte's
campus. That's where I met Pop Miller, who was an assistant principal at
West Charlotte years ago, and Pop used to
Well, integration came. What did you think at the time? I guess you weren't really here.
I wasn't here. As I said to you, I came back in '71 from Vietnam, and
started going to school out in UNC-C, when I got back, on the GI bill.
And it was here. I mean, it was here. Politically, I didn't pay any
attention, other than the fact that schools were desegregated, black
kids were going to formerly all-white schools, and white kids were going
to formerly all-black schools. The only thing I noticed was that
progress caused all of the black schools to close. I mean, you
just—Second Ward was gone, a number of elementary schools were closed,
they were [unclear]
I remember at West Charlotte, specifically, a young white male—well,
first, it was called a big riot, it was in the newspaper that black and
white kids were fighting. And some of the parents [unclear]
So I just started going around to the various schools, trying to help
kids. And from that experience in the mid-'70s, I kind of got interested
in schools. School life, education, what was going on. And Rolland Jones
was fired on public TV in about '74, I think it was, or '75, about that
same time. Lib Randolph, John Phillips, and Chris Folk took over the
school district. And I started going to school board meetings, trying to
find out what's happening. Jim Hunt introduced pubic kindergartens in
about '77 or '78. He had the competency test, the California achievement
test was introduced. And the first administration of the California
achievement test, the gap between blacks and whites was about 60 points.
And I said, "This is crazy. What's going on? We're being desegregated,
but what's going on?" I was saying, "This is wrong." I was hot-headed,
young, I even used a word that politicians don't use these days: I was
calling people racist, and this is racism, and—I didn't know back then
that you don't say that publicly in North Carolina, and particularly in
Charlotte. We're sort of peaceful folk. And they just started saying,
"Arthur Griffin is just a rabble-rouser. He's just absolutely crazy."
But I went from disciplinary hearings to trying to get more involved in
the schooling process in Mecklenburg County. And since about '78,
'79—Jay Robertson came, I think, in about '78, and that was after the
television firing of Dr. Rolland Jones. And Jay was here from about '78
to probably '86, a real long tenure.
But my involvement led to an appointment to the school board in 1985, and
in '85 it was simply academic disparities that I was concerned most
about, and trying to hire African-American teachers, because I could see
a dwindling or decline in the number of African-American teachers from
what existed in the late '60s, early '70s. Never did we talk a lot about
desegregation; only we talked about it during pupil assignment.
Charlotte started to grow in the late '80s. In '85, we built McAlpine;
in '87, McKee Road. We were going to build Providence—it was underfunded
by about ten million dollars, so they got another ten million dollars.
Providence opened in '89. Then you had, like, University Meadows,
Mallard Creek. And because the population was growing such, in the late
'80s and early '90s, issues of desegregation became more and more
prevalent on the front burner. Because we were talking about moving more
and more kids. And as you opened up a school, you had to populate that
school with so many white
Why did they see that as a way to go back to segregated schools?
Because it created magnet schools in the black community. And it forced
black kids out, for the most part. It was a change from mandatory. They
felt that if whites were given a
Let me get back to something that you said earlier, and let me also ask you, how much time do you have?
Oh, we got time. There's an eight-thirty meeting; I told them I wouldn't get there until nine o'clock. And I told them I could only stay for a few minutes because I have a ten o'clock meeting.
OK. I just wanted to make sure.
This is a good excuse not to go to the eight-thirty. This is a
legislative meeting; we've got a lobbyist from Raleigh. All the lawyers
are there. I've been dealing with lobbyists and lawyers for so long. And
the vice-chairman's going to be there, along with other of the school
board members. So. I mean, they may be in this room. I don't know
where— [unclear]
I wanted to go back—you said, sort of in the late '70s, you began to study school curriculums. You were trying to figure out what would—
The California Achievement Test, first administration, the black kids'
average score was 19. 19. This was in 1978. This was seven years after
1971, the Swann case was affirmed by the Supreme Court. And I'm saying,
Why? Because prior to that, the messages we were getting, generally, by
the time I got involved from '75 to '78, which was a very short period
of time, was that we were educating all the kids effectively. And when
you get your first test—it's like, wow! And you're kicking kids out of
school for breathing wrong. And I'm saying, something's wrong somewhere.
And I slowly started asking questions. There were people on our testing
commission—because the first thing comes out, "Your standardized tests
are culturally biased." I mean, what's going on? Is this the wrong test?
And I knew absolutely squat about education. And I would just bug the
hell out of people, asking them questions. because I didn't know. But I
knew something was just wrong. This picture was wrong. I mean, kids
going to school, exposed to, at least in theory, resources. What's
happened? And I met with Lib Randolph, who was over curriculum. When
they fired Rolland Jones, they appointed three people to run the
district. Lib Randolph was an African-American female, and I'd ask her
questions, and she would give me her answers as best she could. And I'd
also talk to Dr. John Phillips about the operations of the
Because when we were growing up, in Second Ward, I figured if you had the
teachers—and we had the teachers then—and you had desegregation and you
had the equipment and stuff, that was a formula for success. And I
thought, because I didn't know anything about desegregation or schools,
but I knew that they were desegregated. And so that formula should be
working to a degree where you'd see more than 19 points for
African-American students. And I just said, "This is crazy." And I'd ask
for test scores, I'd say, "Give me test scores by school, break it down
by black and white." [unclear]
What was wrong?
What was wrong? Expectations. Accountability, in terms of—we didn't
expect kids to succeed. We were basically focused on harmony and peace.
If your school was quiet, you're a good school. As opposed to, your
school demonstrating academic excellence. And that was the key for me,
in terms of kids being successful and being able to go to colleges and
universities, was academic excellence. The expectation was just low.
Folk had low expectations of African-American kids and poor kids, for
the most part. And I even wrote—it was in the newspaper in1980, the
lawyers have that, it was a part of this lawsuit—where I had this big
Afro, to say to the school board, you have low expectations. If you had
high expectations, these kids would be able to succeed, and you'd make
sure you put teachers around these kids and expect those teachers to
effectively educate them. Because folk were saying, If you're poor, if
you're black, if you're
And when you start dissecting it years later, Pam, what you'd find is, you have a high turnover in schools where there were African-American kids or poor kids. I mean, I didn't know that in the late '70s or early '80s. I wasn't that sophisticated. I was just simply throwing rocks, saying the test scores were awful. But when you combine low expectations, a lack of focused accountability, and your turnover. I mean, just constant turnover. And even today, that same pattern exists. That's what we're talking about in federal district court now. And I just found out, just yesterday, looking at schools that had a lot of diversity or where the population is primarily black, constant turnover. And we put a rule in saying you have to stay there for two years. We tried to say three years, but the teacher organization said, "Oh, no, you can't just hold somebody. Give them opportunities." So we said rather than three, go two years. As soon as people get to two years, they're transferring out. Nobody is transferring in, OK? And when you start looking at your experienced teachers right now, they're not in those schools where kids have the greatest needs. And that's why in our budget we're asking for some additional stipends, to compensate teachers who are working in those areas. But guess what? There are people on the other side who are saying, "Well, I work very hard—"
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
. . . location of resources. We still have a difficult time allocating resources appropriately. A lot of people call it equity. We just continue to have a difficult time doing it. And the problems are compounded now. African Americans are not in education. We said fifteen years ago that this horde of black females that couldn't get into IBM in 1960, that were extremely intelligent black females that couldn't get into Fortune 500 corporations, went into education. Guess what? Thirty years later, they're retiring. So in 1990, you just see a hemorrhaging of African-American women getting out of Education. Here in North Carolina, well, particularly here in Charlotte, all my classroom teachers that I had when I was in high school all have retired. They retired, I think the last one in about 1990, '91, '92. But none of them are around. And those were the teachers who had the skill set, the motivation and heart to make it happen, even without the resources. The teachers are getting in today, for the most part, are the ones who go into general education.
I mean, you're a professor. When you look on your campuses, you'll find a
core group of kids who are really gung ho and want to be teachers and
want to change the world. You have another cohort that are folk who are
in general education. And they're going to come out and teach, and
they're not evil or mean people, and they want to do a good job for
kids, but when they come into the public school arena and see these
different people and different needs, it's like, "Let me transfer to
McKee," or "Let me transfer to McAlpine. At least if I'm going to be
marginal, let me be marginal in an environment I'm going to be
comfortable with." So we have to change that, through [unclear] [unclear]
Let me just, moving back again for a bit to where you were talking about the problems with expectations and the problems with kids achieving: West Charlotte is, I think, frequently held up as an exception to that. Do you think that it is and that it was an exception?
I think it was an exception. It had an open program component. When you start looking at the kids—I don't know if you know Joe Martin, I don't know how long you've been in Charlotte—
I know who he is.
OK. His kids went to West Charlotte. So you have a cohort of kids who
are coming from—a small cohort, right, and coming from the Eastover
area, they go to West Charlotte. You have another group that comes to
the open component program. Kids come from around the county, going into
West Charlotte. And those kids do very well. We have another component
of kids who are sort of the assigned attendance zone; those kids are
poorer and poorer. They don't do as well. So you almost have like a
bimodal group at West Charlotte. You have one group that's just knocking
the socks off of it, just doing wonderful things; and another group that
are not doing so well. And if our demographics continue the way they
are, you're going to see a larger proportion of the population of poorer
kids, as opposed to the kids who are doing well.
So there's fewer and fewer white kids going to West Charlotte from that attendance zone, and the open component is shrinking a little bit. It's not as popular as it was ten, fifteen years ago. What do we need to do to keep it going? We certainly need to help our open component, down at Irwin Open School, at the elementary level, and support those families as they go matriculate through Irwin to Piedmont Open Middle and into West Charlotte. We really have to continue to do that. We've had multiple principals at West Charlotte, as opposed to the old days when you had principals there for five years. They're there now for about two years. So that hurts too. West Charlotte was a model primarily because it's the last historical black high school that has a lot of white support. So that's your big model. Plus we didn't fight in Charlotte like they did in Boston, and a bunch of kids from West Charlotte went up to Boston, to say, "This is how you desegregate, guys." Now some of those people from Boston are moving to Charlotte, saying, "Well, this is how you resegregate, guys. We'll show you." But the kids do well. Parents don't do quite as well, in this 1999 model of desegregation. But that's why I think West Charlotte is doing well. Plus, you blend the old with the new. They have a national alumni association of old black folk that's supportive of the school even when it has white leadership. So you have a blending of the old and the new at West Charlotte. It gives it a different flavor, a different atmosphere, a different persona as relates to, here's an old school, you've got new people there, but you've got the old folk embracing the new folk and you've got the young folk embracing the old folk to make a family. We have to work on that to make sure we continue that success that we've enjoyed over the years at West Charlotte. If we don't work on it, we'll lose it.
That is one thing that talking to people about West Charlotte has brought home to me, is how much constant work it takes to keep a school going. That's just something that—
It takes tremendous work. It just takes tremendous work. Because our communities are changing. And the values and what people perceive to be the attributes of a great school change over time. And we want to make sure that people see West Charlotte, the total community sees West Charlotte, as providing a comprehensive, quality educational experience for a high-school student. And that goes with clubs, with organizations, as well as the academics. And as you've read in the newspaper, four of the last five years they've had a Morehead, we've had kids go all over the world from out of West Charlotte. We've had athletes just excelling at West Charlotte. You have different debate teams or clubs. So you've had that kind of wholesome academic environment, where kids can succeed in the classroom and outside of the classroom. And you've got the old folks up there supporting them in terms of the history. I don't know whether Geraldine Powe is still the president of West Charlotte National Alumni, but, you know, they come back and tell you about what they did in the '40s and '50s and all that stuff. And I think it's good for kids to know what that school was like forty years ago. And what they're doing today. They get in the newspaper for really doing great things.
As someone who went to Second Ward, what does West Charlotte mean to you now?
It's a school that, on the school board or not on the school board, I
would fight to save it. They will never close West Charlotte. Because
schools mean so much to communities, and in particular high schools.
This is the place you graduated from. Elementary schools, not as much.
And it means a lot to Charlotte. It means a tremendous—it's our last
historically black high school. So I think you'd get every African
American, at least who grew up in Charlotte, to walk up and down Trade
Street if that school was threatened in any way, because it's like
family. It's like your distant cousin. You still love your distant
cousin, you know your cousin's over there, you haven't seen her in ten
years, but you still love your cousin. West Charlotte is like a distant
If the times were different, and Second Ward was here and threatened, it wouldn't close. There are enough of us now out here that often get together and we say, "Wow, if we were only adults back then, that school would still have been open." It's lifeblood. Can you imagine? Right where we're sitting today, we'd be sitting in the principal's office at Second Ward. Right where we're sitting today. This is where the administration building was. And, you know, it would just be marvelous to come back. You'd see all these huge towers, but here's your high school. Here's Second Ward that's still here. You've got Dilworth, and people come back to Dilworth and say, "Hey, this is a wonderful community I grew up in fifty years ago." C.D. Spangler walks up and down the streets talking about his granddad built this house here, and he remembered Miss So-and-So when they bought this house here. I mean, there's history. You got John Crosland, who bought the Latta Arcade, when they go downtown they point to history. I can't point to my history right now, in terms of First Ward, where I was born. My hospital's gone. At least they have the facade of my elementary school; it's called the Alexander Neighborhood Center or something, off of 11th Street. Part of First Ward is there. It really wasn't my school. It's a white school, originally. Alexander Street was really an African-American school from the old days. And we really wish that was still there.
My community, what's standing there now? The African-American Cultural
Center is Little Rock A.M.E. Zion Church, I remember. I don't remember
very much of anything else in First Ward. And then coming across to
Second Ward, there's not very much over here. The gym
Do you think about Second Ward a lot?
Do I think about Second Ward a lot? Probably every day, when we talk about schools. I mean, when I come out here, I got to go right to—when I come out of the parking lot, I see the gym where I played basketball every day. So I mean, it's not something where it's just—it's a part of me. I mean, do you think about your husband a lot? Do you think about your—? Well, it's sort of, it's a part of you. And when I drive out of the parking lot, I see Second Ward every day. So sure, I think about it, and when I see some of my old classmates, of course we think about it, because I remember them—. I was at the airport—what is this, Friday? I was at the airport Wednesday morning to pick up my wife, and saw a classmate, a high school classmate, there. What did we talk about? She was introducing me to her friends from Philadelphia, "Oh, yeah, this is a high school classmate of mine." So it's always a part of you. You never forget Second Ward.
One day, if I stay on the school board long enough, there'll be another
Second Ward one day. Somehow or another. People are talking about buying
this property, talking about doing some other things, and this time I'll
have some influence, if I'm on the school board, about what happens if
they redevelop this particular piece of property. They wanted to put a
shopping center here, a Neiman Marcus shopping center, an upscale place.
"So what are you going to do about Second Ward?" They couldn't figure
that out. And they talked about an aquatic center, because they can't
get the civic center, and they want to have it adjacent to Marshall
Park, the little pond over here. And there was a suggestion of having an
aquatic high school. Well, we can talk about that, [unclear] [PG laughing]
Why is that memory of history so important, both for Second Ward and in West Charlotte?
Well, it's a part of you. It's almost like, if you cut that part off,
it's like cutting your
And that's why history is so important, so that we don't forget the
future. I mean, if kids and people start coming in, it's like, "I don't
have any ties to anything, there is no history," —if you don't have any
history, you don't have any future. That's what I'm trying to say. And
my future is linked to my history, with regard to what I'm doing. Even
with this trial. Folk have indicated, when my time comes to testify,
it's going to be kind of unique. Here's a person who's chairman of the
school board who actually went to an all-black everything, here in
Charlotte, can talk about how it was when the case was brought up
originally, and the inequities today, and give
So I think that as a community, as individuals, I think there is
tremendous value to history. I really do. Particularly—after the
American history, we talk about multicultural, and you have to have some
roots. I mean, I just read in the newspaper the other day how the German
community has a German school. They want to make sure the kids speak
German and make sure that the kids understand German culture. What do I
tell my kids? "Where did you grow up?" "Well, this little [unclear] [an American elk]
What do you think that history means to people outside the black community?
Well, I hope it's a reflection of the entire community, not just the
black community. But, you know, a peek through the window of our past,
with respect to who we were then. And gives us an opportunity to learn
of qualities of life, the sacrifices that people made back then. The
mistakes that were made. So that we can look at the future and say, you
know, "Let's incorporate those wonderful things that we were able to do
back then in history, and let's get rid of those things that were
destructive and detrimental to a people back then." And that's why I
think African-American history, the history of Charlotte, the history of
black schools in Charlotte, is so important to the white community or
the community at large , to understand where we've been, where we are to
day, and where we hope to be tomorrow. It's absolutely critical. And
just for the black, knowing about Second Ward in the black community is
not enough. The broader community needs to understand. Just a
reflection: I built a house in southeast Charlotte, off Carmel Road, in
1978. And when my kids were growing up, we were in this predominantly
white community. And again, they had the little youth athletic teams and
cheerleading squads and stuff. And just talking to some of the parents,
it was like, "But where is Beatties Ford Road? What is West Charlotte?
Is that a school?" And it's like a whole segment of the community had no
idea where I grew up. My life. Me. And I'm saying, "Well, no, that's
So-and-So, and then that was Second Ward . . . " And I understand that
the importance of history is for the entire community. It may be about
me and Second Ward, but it's for the whole community to recognize that
there was a school. Because I'm having conversations with some friends
now that are white, "Second Ward? What happened?" "Well, there were
wards back in the old days. There was a First Ward, and a Second Ward,
and a Third Ward, and a Fourth Ward. . . ." And just sitting down
talking, "Oh, OK, well, that makes sense, the community was
What are the lessons of Second Ward for people who don't know it from experience?
Well, the lessons of Second Ward is, it was a family. People came together during difficult times, to reach excellence. And when I say excellence, we had folk like Belinda Tolbert, who played Jenny on "The Jeffersons" for years. She was a younger classmate, probably two, three years younger. But she always loved to play and act. We used to say, "Aw, girl, that's just crazy." But out on the playground, she'd be acting, and we'd be, "Aah." But look, she became a movie star. Not a movie star, she was in a couple of movies, but at least a TV star, back in the old days. So the importance of the lessons for the community at large, for the sake of other people, is that, hey, there were great things happening in Second Ward. Great people were there. People who cared about life, who cared about this community, who made a lot of great contributions to the Charlotte community over time. And with respect to the future, when you look back at some of the contributions, it motivates us toward excellence as relates to the community today. Look at what people were able to d thirty, forty, fifty years ago; look what we have today and the potential for greatness as a community, both black and white. Not only in public education, but in life in general. I think that would be a lesson to take away to the community at large, is our great potential.
What do you think desegregation was accomplished in this part of Charlotte?
What do I think it has accomplished? I think desegregation has
accomplished two things. It's certainly accomplished a better
understanding of the races, believe it or not. I know people have
different opinions about that, so I use my own experience. Growing up in
Second Ward, we'd say, "Let's go beat the white boy's ass." We'd say,
"Why won't they let us go play in
But in terms of a goal or a benefit of desegregation, certainly that has
been one, that we've learned to live a lot better. You don't have the
hostility and the hate. Even my own son, he's a graduate of South
Mecklenburg, was in the Carolina Place Mall during the Christmas
holidays. He saw some white kids that he went to school with. They
stopped and clapped and shook hands and talked and all that stuff. And,
although he didn't hang out with them, he hangs out with some black
kids, but he knew these white kids well enough to have a conversation
and talk, he hadn't seen them in a while, since they graduated from
school. And I reflect on that, because as a citizen in Mecklenburg
County, or any county, but let's just say these kids are voting age now,
because they are. When you have to decide on civic issues, they can come
The other value in terms of desegregation is that there are opportunities
that did not exist for African Americans in a segregated setting. Now,
what do I mean by that. Let's take my wife. Her dad was a psychologist,
her mom was a schoolteacher, and she lived twenty feet from West
Charlotte. All the well-to-do black folk moved over to West Charlotte,
all right? I was still at the ghetto school called Second Ward. But our
brightest black children, kids who were ready to learn, kids who had
family support, were given crap in terms of resources. West Charlotte,
although it had better resources than Second Ward, couldn't compare to
Myers Park. You ought to hear my wife tell this story. I was in a
business called—it wasn't Decca then, it was called Distributive
Education or something back in the old days—and they had their little
office machines and such at West Charlotte, manual typewriters and such.
Alicia says that when she went to Myers Park for some kind of meeting,
they had an IBM 129. They had electric, the very first IBM Selectric
typewriters, they were electric as opposed to manual. They had Somebody
Woods reading something—can't think of what it was—Dublin Woods or some
kind of Woods, it was a reading program that was mechanical, it wasn't
computerized, but it was mechanical. All this stuff. And they didn't
have that at West Charlotte. So our best and brightest youngsters
So that's a distinction in terms of desegregation. A lot of folks say, "Well, if you go to your own neighborhood school,…" Well, we've shown our best and brightest in the black community had the best, but compared to the total community, did not have the best. So it's access. Desegregation has created a greater access. Now, it's almost like saying, you can't discriminate. You can buy a house wherever you want to buy a house, but if you don't have the money, you can't live where you want to live. So the piece in Charlotte, as relates to desegregation, was about access. Now, we got some other things we need to work on in terms of preparing some kids to come to school ready to learn, etc. But you certainly don't want to go backwards, by saying, "Here's a kid from a family that's ready to learn, but doesn't have access." So a lot of African-American kids now have access to quality education, because of desegregation. And it's much broader than that. You just have to walk in my shoes to understand how deep this goes. African-American kids were coming along years ago, and even today to a great degree, "I want to be a lawyer, I want to be a doctor, I want to be a teacher, I want to be a preacher, I want to be an athlete, I want to be an entertainer." What the hell do we ever hear about being a transportation—getting a doctorate in transportation? "What is that?" A landscape architect? "What is that?" Desegregation opens up a whole vista of knowledge and opportunity that's not always on a piece of paper, but in the interaction with others, you broaden your knowledge base. And by broadening your knowledge base, you broaden your opportunities. African-American kids now hear about occupations and jobs and careers that they wouldn't ordinarily hear about if you're segregated.
And likewise for whites. Desegregation is good for white kids, to understand about others that are different, about African Americans, who are a large minority group in America. Likewise Hispanics. And I don't know about the future because I don't study all this stuff, but I do read a little bit, and I'm told that America's browning. That the demographics will change. If you want your white kid to be successful, if you want your white kid to be a corporate president, who's going to work for your white kid? Going to be a minority. Even from the selfish perspective, you know, of wanting to be a Wall Street wizard and be the President of the United States. Who's going to be Vice President? Who could be in the Cabinet? Who will be the employees in the middle-management of government? It's going to be minorities. And a minority, maybe, I hope and pray, will be President one day. But I'm saying to you, if we're going to get along in America, looking perspectively, then it makes sense to be in a diverse setting, because we're moving so quickly to our gated communities in the suburbs, and our churches aren't,—where else? Unless you look at the purpose of education differently. If you look at the purpose of education as being one where you prepare youngsters for the future, then we see the future. This is a part of our obligation, is to prepare youngsters. If their future's going to be diverse, where else do you prepare youngsters? We don't have any arguments about technology. Parents want computers in the classroom. I gotta have it! Because why? That's the future. Well, is the future diverse? If so, let's prepare youngsters to live and work in a diverse society.
So I think—I gave you a whole big answer, much bigger than you asked for
in terms of why desegregation, what's the value of desegregation. It's
more than just resources. The history in this community right now,
Charlotte as well as the country—in a segregated setting, you lose the
community's will. Twenty percent of all of the African-American kids are
in ten school
But in Charlotte you think it shouldn't be?
It should be—
Shouldn't be that way.
It shouldn't be just about access. We started off about access, and even I was one of those, probably, fifteen or twenty years ago, saying, "Make Hidden Valley work, then.
Make it work. It's all black; make it work, then." [unclear]
So it doesn't make sense. As you talk about history, lessons learned from history, what do you expect to achieve with respect to desegregation or the importance of desegregation. We have to learn to live together, and we have to learn to use every resource that we have, and one way of defining and understanding the differences and understanding and appreciating the resources of all people. We need to learn that at a very early age. And the best public institution to do that is our public schools.
At what point, what happened to make this change for you, to make you shift away from access to these other issues?
Economics. Economic survival. Looking at communities fall apart that are
all black. I mean, you look at takeovers. Cleveland failed, in the late
'70s. One of the first cities to go bankrupt. Everybody left, except the
poorest of the poor. Cleveland's a takeover city right now, where you
have a black mayor taking over the school district. Chicago. Mayor
Daly's taken over a school district. Philadelphia, they tried to take
over a school district, it just didn't work. Denver, the mayor's taken
over the school district. And all these areas are minority. Detroit, the
mayor just took over the school district. And tons of other urban
cities. Whites left. Blacks stayed there. Economics. You have to have
white people, green people, black people, you have to have all people to
have a healthy economy, and a healthy economy gives you the greatest
opportunity to have a healthy lifestyle in terms of old people getting
their needs met,
And that's what's happening. We used to be a manufacturing company. We
don't manufacture any more. Information. When RJR Reynolds, when Nabisco
bought RJR Reynolds, or RJR bought Nabisco, one of the two, that was a
$26 billion dollar transaction. And nothing was produced. Nothing. It
was a transaction. And I said to myself, "What's going to happen to my
kids, and their kids, if the world pulled away and everything would just
simply be a transaction?" We couldn't survive. And that's what's
happening. We're information. That means all of our brain power, our
whatever power, if it's only—and just a few can go to some island and
set up a computer terminal and transact business, it's just
information-based. So what's going to happen to America? Will America be
like Detroit, or Cleveland, or Dallas? Where all the brain power and all
the other power decides, "We're just going to leave and let America fend
for itself?" We have to maintain a strong country in order to provide
quality of life experiences for all citizens. Whether green, purple,
white, or black. And that's the biggest thing that's sort of stamped on
my mind right now, that says, We have to work together as a people in
order for this country to survive. I'll survive, I'll do all right till
I'm gone, but what about the folk coming behind me? This country will be
like some of the cities, if we adopt some of the public policies of some
of our urban cities, as a country. We will perish, like some of those
urban cities. So it just doesn't make sense for us, with all this brain
power over here, to ignore our potential and do something different.
That's why desegregation is important. And because I
Well, this has been wonderful. You [unclear]
I don't know. You've touched on most of them. I've certainly had
discussions among my old classmates about desegregation, because it was
like, "Just give me the resources at Second Ward and leave us alone,"
kind of piece, and I think that was probably how I felt for many, many
years. But knowing that the world is much larger than Second Ward, and
the decisions that are made, both in the corporate boardrooms as well as
the public sector, in terms of public policy decisions, must be made in
such a way that it benefits the mass of the people. And the only way you
can have good public policy is if you have a better understanding of
your public. And your public involves all kinds of people. So it's gone
from simply a resource piece to a community value, as relates to
diversity. And I probably am more convinced of that now than at any
other time in my life. And I thank Second Ward for giving me the
opportunity to learn how to read well enough, and communicate with
people, in such a way that I'm always learning. And in that learning
process—there's no learning if there's no behavior change. So there's
been some behavioral change on my part, in terms of just getting along
with people. And
Well, that's just great.
Thank you for even caring enough to do this. I don't know how you—
END OF INTERVIEW