Black students' limited resources did not dampen high expectations held by teachers
Although black parents and students assumed they had great resources, Dacons explains how his students, in fact, received fewer equalized resources and facilities than their white counterparts, a common story of segregated schooling. Nevertheless, Dacons discusses how he and his teachers maintained high expectations for black students.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with E. V. Dacons, March 4, 1991. Interview M-0009. 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
- GOLDIE F. WELLS:
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Did you get brand new books or did you get used books?
- E. V. DACONS:
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That's another thing. You see these books here at Lincoln
Heights had, many of these books had been used. They were coming in
there from other schools cause the names would be in them. There were a
second year algebra book, a geometry book, maybe another science book
that wasn't even there. They weren't there. They
had never been in the curriculum at all and so I said our children
deserve this. That's like cutting down on the size of the gym
that you're going to put in here. Don't put in a
gym that is not regulation size and doesn't have a stage for
drama productions. We had drama then and they weren't going
to put that there at that school, just a hall and a platform. I said we
don't do just little plays, our department compensate the
state level, the regional and district. Our kids expect it and our
parents expect it and they deserve it. They don't know if
Lincoln Heights is getting it--they think that they are getting
everything. They're not. We didn't have a stage or
anything. We were adding a gymnatorium, they're not the
best things but it would seat 550 and so he said
that would cost me $12,000 and I could build a classroom and I
said we need that. I said, another thing you have that gym 4 feet
shorter than regulations. The Northwest Athletic Conference meets here
and the old Rosenthough had regulation size and you're
building this smaller. We need one here that we can accommodate these
people. But we got it. We got a regulation size.
- GOLDIE F. WELLS:
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But how did you get the books--the algebra books?
- E. V. DACONS:
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Well, just saying to them, how are our kids going to college. When they
meet here, when they're on the college campus they run across
kids from New England, from the West Coast, Southland and Florida. They
have already had these experiences, they've had this learning
and they are so far ahead of our kids. It's not fair.
It's not right. Our parents think they're getting
the best but they're not. I'm here in their
behalf. This is a role that I played myself. to help our children and
we're trying to help our folk to achieve and to do something
out here in life and they can't do it here with just
being--we don't expect our kids to leave and just go to work
at the sawmills, we expect our children to leave here and go on to
higher learning and they are. So I was able to get myself thirty books.
That's not a big feat but for that era that was a big
feat.