Desegregation roils Birmingham
Threatt describes how, as a gifted African American student, he ended up desegregating a white gifted class. The move was part of an effort sparked by a lawsuit, but the legal victory did not ensure his or his fellow students' safety. Desegregation was roiling Birmingham as it started to change neighborhood composition as well as the composition of schools, and some white people responded violently, in one case with a burning cross. Others simply left neighborhoods and black families entered them.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Glennon Threatt, June 16, 2005. Interview U-0023. 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
- KIMBERLY HILL:
-
So, can you tell me a little more about how the decision was made to
move you to Elyton?
- GLENNON THREATT:
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Well, what happened was there was a lawsuit. One of the attorneys who
was handling the lawsuit was a guy by the name of Demetrius Newton, who
is now the Speaker of the House of Representatives for the state of
Alabama. They had filed a lawsuit to force the integration of special
education. After we had been placed in the all black enrichment class,
because that was the way they had tried to fix the problem. What had
happened before was that there was gifted education, but it was for
white only, but then under separate but equal when blacks complained
about it, they decided that what they would do is set up gifted
education for all black classes in the all black schools. So, they came
around and IQ tested the kids to qualify them to go into that class, I
got placed into that class. Then of course the case was resolved because
separate but equal is inherently unequal. So, they then allowed some of
us to integrate that white class. I learned later from Dr. Baldwin at
one of our reunions that they took the three kids in the all black
gifted class that had the highest IQ's. It was myself, a woman by the
name of Deidre Newton, who was Demetrius Newton's
daughter, and another guy by the name of Richard Walker. Richard is a
chemist now and Deidre is a homicide prosecutor in New York, for the
Manhattan District Attorney. So they chose the three of us to go to that
class and we were placed there in sixth grade.
- KIMBERLY HILL:
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So the class was twenty-five then.
- GLENNON THREATT:
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There were three blacks.
- KIMBERLY HILL:
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Just three in the whole gifted class of twenty-five students. Then the
rest of the school was also all white.
- GLENNON THREATT:
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The rest of the school was all white the first year that I went there.
That school also had some children that were physically challenged.
Polio, other physical disabilities and you started to see some blacks
come in in that area also. By the time I was in eighth grade the school
was probably fifteen to twenty percent black because it was sitting in
the middle of a black community. I used to have to drive past two all
white schools to get to my all black school, because I lived in an all
black community. The elementary school Graymont, which is now the JCC
headquarters, is a beautiful school. It has been restored, it is a
beautiful school, but it was all white. After black people started
moving-let me back up and tell you. I lived in an area in
Birmingham called Dynamite Hill.
- KIMBERLY HILL:
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Yeah, I've interviewed a few people from that area.
- GLENNON THREATT:
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Well, I lived on Dynamite Hill. We were one of the first black families
to move on our block. In fact when I moved into that neighborhood there
were still white folks there. I remember living there and white people
coming in the neighborhood and vandalizing cars, throwing bricks through
people's windows, burning a cross in my neighbor's
yard when I lived on First Street. So, as the complexion of the
neighborhood changed-and interestingly enough, that
neighborhood borders Birmingham Southern College which at the time was
an all white university. As that neighborhood called College Hills, we
referred to it as Dynamite Hill, but it is really now called College
Hills, as that neighborhoods' complexion changed then the schools
changed too. Because all the white parents that could started taking
their kids out of those schools and then [black?] students started
replacing them. What would always happen was that once one or two blacks
started going to a school then in a few years it became all black,
because all the white people who could leave left. That's commonly
called white flight. I used to go past two all white schools to get to
my black school when I was in fifth grade. One of them was within
walking distance of my house. It was sitting right in the middle of an
all black neighborhood at that point in time and it was still all white.