Struggling to encourage black parents' involvement in their children's education
Cherry recalls that it was difficult to get black parents engaged in their children's school lives.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Steve Cherry, February 19, 1999. Interview K-0430. 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
- MARK JONES:
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Four or five years down the road there were more tensions. Was this at
all reflected at the sporting events? Like, in terms of people cheering
for players on the floor?
- STEVE CHERRY:
-
No, that didn't really… The thing that I did notice
is that it seemed that the more blacks you had on a high school team,
the less white parents came to watch. Now whether that was because their
kids were not involved and they just came to watch their kids, that I
don't know. I do know that a lot of the black parents were
not involved in the school system. They didn't come to the
games, you couldn't get in touch with them over discipline
issues, that kind of thing. Whether that's a cultural kind of
thing, or socioeconomic, or what, I don't know. But, I know
that the attendance fell off. When your won-lost record falls, your
attendance falls automatically, but the makeup of the crowd changed.
