Rejected for jobs on the basis of race
Despite his many accomplishments, which he lists here, Logan has been rejected for jobs "on the basis of race." He is offered turnaround jobs while his white counterparts take pretigious positions. He seems to imply as well that the failure of desegregation has made schools into laboratories for socialization rather than education.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Robert Logan, December 28, 1990. Interview M-0027. 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
- ROBERT LOGAN:
-
It is going to come to pass in education that they are going to continue
to put… I have been in and I can say this with all honesty,
each principalship that I have gone into I have walked on board a
sinking ship. Two situations I knew the doggone ship was listed in two
of the situations. I can honestly say in one I thought it was in pretty
good shape but I have yet the opportunity to come into a flagship school
yet and still I think I have the skills, I have the know how and I have
the expertise now in the background that I can run
one just as well as anybody else. This conversation I have a lot with my
wife. And that is why after this principalship my wife and I have
discussed our career option, if I'll stay with it or if it is
back to school for further education maybe even a change in profession.
I feel I'm at a crossroads. I'm thirty-six, this
will conclude my fourteenth year in the business. I think I have been
relatively successful. I have received national awards for programs that
we have done in the schools. I have turned three of the four schools
around that I went in. This school is in pretty good shape except for
the discipline. Things run real well here. Mr. Freeman had done an
excellent job here and this is an excellent school. I'm not
pleased with my SAT results and I'm not pleased with my
overall achievement test results but then again those scores are a
reflection of your society not of your school in a population that we
are serving. We may never be able to get our SAT's up to an
average of 900 at this school. I don't know but again, back
to my point. Four schools--I have been in all portions of the state, I
have been point blank declined for two principalships I feel on the
basis of race--they wanted Whites rather than Blacks for the school,
either because the school was predominantly White or it was perceived as
an ideal situation or the jobs that I have been offered have all been a
challenge and a dog fight all the way. Even Bedingfield even though it
was a rural school--that school is predominantly White but it still has
the behavior problems of the school it takes on a real challenge or
dimension to handle the discipline at this school. That is why we are
doing the recognition program. That junior high school I walked into. It
was predominantly White and it had the Country Clubs, both Country
Clubs, the kids out of those neighborhoods attended that school yet what
they had done they took the Country Club kids and bused them over with
the kids out of the projects. We had a time orientating those kids, it
took us two years to mesh those kids to where they would work with one
another. We're not educating, we are socializing.