Local Black residents remember the trauma, rewards of desegregation

Feb. 29—Desegregation was traumatic, several local residents remember, as students were pushed from underfunded Black schools to white schools that often were hostile and actively discriminated against Black students and teachers, but even in that environment friendships between the two races began to form.

Decatur resident and local historian Peggy Towns, 70, remembers attending school at the former Lakeside High School, which is now Leon Sheffield Magnet School. Lakeside was Decatur's last all-Black school before it was closed in 1969 and all its students were integrated into white schools.

The Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 ruled that segregation was unconstitutional, but for years many school districts ignored the ruling. It wasn't until 1969, in the Supreme Court decision of Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, that immediate desegregation of Southern schools was ordered and school systems began to comply.

Because of this, Towns transitioned to Decatur High School and attended there two years before graduating. She said leaving Lakeside High was heartbreaking.

"Many people had the impression that Blacks wanted to go to these schools because of previous civil rights legislation that was passed," Towns said, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964. "I've always thought why didn't the white students come to Lakeside because Lakeside and Decatur High were built around the same time."

Towns said, at the time, she did not want school integration but instead just wanted Black schools to have the same privileges and opportunities as white schools.

"We just wanted equality. We didn't want second-hand books or second-hand athletic wear," Towns said.

Towns said during her first year at Decatur High School, the white student body was "cordial" for the most part, but Black students still experienced hostility from some white students and faculty, including violence and racial slurs.

"You did hear some name-calling, and that's ignorance, but that was the times," Towns said. "But we were encouraged by our families to go to school and learn our lessons, so that's what I did."

Towns said initially Black students were not awarded privileges that other white students had, like being office aides.

Decatur City Schools Board President Michele Gray King was also a student in Decatur schools during those times. She said Black students were not allowed to be physical education assistants during the first years of integration.

"I was on the principal's advisory board and some of the (Black) students told him about the things we wanted to do and what we were deprived of," King said. "Finally, we started to get chosen as class favorites."

King graduated from Decatur High in 1976, but before that, she attended elementary school at segregated Cherry Street School before transitioning to Decatur Junior High School in the seventh grade during the 1970-71 school year.

"In eighth grade, I went to Oak Park Middle School and we were the first Black students to go there," King said.

King remembers her first day at Decatur Junior High and instead of a day of excitement, she remembers it with anxiety.

"It was a nervous, nerve-wracking type thing," King said. "I don't think we were given a fair shot, because it took years before we got our first Black cheerleader. Jessica Thomas joined the cheerleading squad when I was in the 11th grade and she was in the 12th grade."

King said she remembers name-calling and fights that often broke out during that first year.

"I met some good people there who were white students that I'm still friends with to this day," King said. "But it didn't happen overnight, it happened in due time."

King said while integration may have been difficult during those first years, going to white schools was the only way Black students could get a proper education.

"I remember us having old books that were passed down from the white schools," King said. "I remember paper towels being torn in half. We couldn't get a full paper towel; we'd get half of one."

King has served on the Decatur school board since 2008 and said race relations have drastically improved in Decatur schools since the 1960s and 1970s.

"In this day and time, it's not an all-white world and it's not an all-Black world," King said. "As a school board now, we're doing things to benefit all students. We owe it to our students to teach them and we should never forget our history."

Leroy Ellis, 68, also attended Cherry Street School during the 1960s and he enrolled in sixth grade at Riverside Elementary School during the 1967-68 school year. He was able to attend the all-white school because of a "freedom of choice" constitutional amendment in Alabama, passed in 1956 largely to thwart desegregation, that gave parents the right to choose to keep their children in segregated schools or to send them to integrated schools.

Ellis enrolled in Riverside but found out he enrolled in the wrong school.

"A friend of mine went ahead of me, he went to Gordon-Bibb (Elementary) and came back bragging about how Gordon-Bibb was," Ellis said. "So next year in sixth grade, I went to Riverside thinking I was going to Gordon-Bibb, but I went to the wrong school. ... I noticed the white students were ahead of us in school as far as curriculum."

Ellis attended Lakeside during seventh and eighth grade.

After the desegregation mandate, Ellis enrolled in Decatur High School in ninth and 10th grade and later attended Courtland High School in Lawrence County in 11th and 12th grades.

He said going to Decatur High was different at first, but he said he quickly made friends with some of his white classmates, including the Littrells, who own Littrell Lumber Mill.

"I remember during pep rallies, all Black kids sat in one section," Ellis said. "The band was still playing Dixie back then, so it took a while to adjust. It finally got to where they weren't just cheering for white athletes, but everybody."

Ellis said there was no busing for Black students at Decatur High after desegregation and he can remember walking from his Old Decatur home to school every day.

"I think with desegregation laws, the transportation for Black students could have been better," Ellis said. "The other thing is preservation of what we had. When schools closed, someone came in and threw our awards away that we had won in sports tournaments and things like that."

Ellis said he did not experience significant racial tension after transitioning into white schools.

"I just didn't look for it. I just went in there and did my thing," Ellis said. "It might have been there, but I didn't see it."

Ellis has fond memories of white teacher Louise Ryan who taught at Riverside and paid him to rake leaves in her yard.

"I raked leaves for (Ryan) and she invited me in and sat me down at her table and fed me a sandwich and a Dr. Pepper," Ellis said. "It was so good.

"It was the first time I sat at a white person's table."

Ellis said after schools desegregated, he noticed some businesses began to desegregate in north Alabama, including bus and train stations and some restaurants.

Ellis enlisted in the U.S. Army after graduating from Courtland High and served for 24 years, including during the Gulf War. — Lawrence County Schools

Pearl Jackson Green, 92, has been an educator with Lawrence County Schools for over 60 years and got her start teaching English at Moulton Negro High School, where she taught for almost 10 years before it was closed in 1970.

Before that, Green was a student at Moulton Negro High School back in the 1930s and 1940s.

"I remember we had to go out and pick cotton so we could buy school supplies," Green said. "We got out during cotton-picking season and worked on farms in the Moulton area. The best way I could describe it was: hard times."

Green said after the desegregation mandate, the superintendent and school board ordered all books and materials from Moulton Negro High School to be destroyed once the school was closed.

"A man from the central office came to the school to tell us he wanted to get rid of some of our stuff because he didn't want to take it to the central office," Green said.

"While we were all standing out there, he dumped all of our records in a pile and put a match to them. All we could do is stand there and cry; there was nothing we could do about it."

After her school was closed, Green and four other Black teachers got jobs teaching at Moulton Middle School, where she said they heard racial slurs from white teachers and administrators every day during the first few years of integration.

"There were higher expectations for Black teachers (than white teachers) back then. You definitely had to be on your toes," Green said.

Green said times have changed for the better since then and she's still an educator today, working as a tutor at the Judy Jester Learning Center in Moulton.

"Back then, there was not a lot of (white) people listening to us," Green said of desegregation. "I think if we were talked to one-on-one, things would've been better."

— wes.tomlinson@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2442.