Residents look back at Norman after 70 years of Brown v. Board

May 17—Norman is desegregated, but not integrated, according to a retired professor from the University of Oklahoma and longtime Norman resident.

George Henderson has been recognized by the university and other members of the community as the first African-American to purchase land in Norman, which he did after accepting a job as a faculty member.

Before his retirement, he rose to dean of the College of Liberal Studies, and the Henderson Scholars Program is named after him.

Friday marks the 70th year of the milestone decision Brown v. Board of Education, which ended the practice of segregation in public schools, and to honor the anniversary, Henderson talked with The Transcript about how life has changed over the years for African-Americans in Norman.

Henderson said Norman has progressed significantly since he accepted his job at OU in 1967, but there is still room for improvement.

"There are visibly more people of color that live in Norman," Henderson said. "I will say that overall, we are a desegregated community, but we are not an integrated community."

He said desegregation means that people from different backgrounds live with each other.

"Integration is when you interact with each other," Henderson said.

He praised Norman Public Schools for integrating at a higher rate than the rest of Norman.

"By and large, Norman Schools is integrated, but they were not when we came," he said.

When Henderson arrived, he enrolled his children at University High School, a laboratory school established in 1917, operated by the College of Education.

The school closed in 1973.

"By and large, Norman Schools are integrated. They were not when we came, except the university school," Henderson said.

When he purchased his home in 1967, he was met with different responses from the community.

"It was a tale of two cities," he said. "Coming from a once Sundown Town, my experience is probably what you would have expected."

Wallace Collins, former Oklahoma Democratic Party chairman who attended high school in Norman during integration, said Sundown Towns dotted Oklahoma.

"Don't let the sun go down on you here," Collins said. "In other words, you could come down and work, but when the sun went down, you get out of town. It would get dangerous, maybe even deadly to be in town after sundown."

Henderson said the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made it possible for him to move to Norman, even if he wasn't fully embraced by the community.

Laws imposing curfews on members of the Black community from existing in white spaces after dusk were outlawed, including in Norman.

"Some of my experiences include having garbage thrown on the lawn, obscene phone calls, people driving by shouting racial epithets, and calling our family everything except human beings," Henderson said. "We had our car egged, and the police stopped me up at the corner asking why I was in the neighborhood at this time, and then would follow me."

The police would wait outside his house until he unlocked his house because they wouldn't believe that he lived in Norman.

"We forbid our children from answering the telephone because of the obscenities. That's one side of Norman," Henderson said.

On the other side, he said many members of the community visited his family and gave them desserts and wrote encouraging words.

"We had a neighbor who brought us snacks, welcomed us to the neighborhood, and said it's about time," Henderson said. "We had far more people welcoming us, at least in this area. I would say all-in-all, for every bad or hateful thing that happened to us, two or three loving things happened. We were embraced."

Collins attended Norman High School during the 1956-1957 school year, the year that the district became integrated. That year, Etta Johnson and her brother Don Johnson commuted from Stella, a community in Oklahoma City, to attend school in Norman.

"Brown v. Board of Education was about integration, and prior to that, there was an attitude called separate but equal so that the government allowed white kids to go to one school and Black kids go to a different school, and supposedly they were equal. But they were not, and that's the reality of it," Collins said.

Don told Collins that his mother had tried to send her kids to Norman the previous year, but it wasn't in the district.

"When the boundaries changed they were in the district and they did come to school," Collins said. "They were both good students, and Don had the fortune of being a good football player, which probably helped him be accepted."

Collins said he stayed friends with Don until he died.

"Norman integrated with no hassles, no trouble, no picketing, no nothing. We just accepted these two young Black people into the school and went right on," Collins said. "By contrast, over 300 miles away in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957, they tried to integrate Central High School and had to send in marshals because there was such a huge disruption, including fights and picketing.

"I was very proud that Norman handled it in a much better way."

He said the ease of integration, relatively-speaking, caught him off guard because of Norman's history as a Sundown Town.

"The reason why I say this is important comes from the fact that Norman had been a Sundown Town, and had been well known for that," Collins said. "To flip suddenly by accepting these two students and others that come later was a drastic change."

He said racism still manifested itself, both overtly and inadvertently.

"One thing is that Brown v. Board of Education created a lot of White Flight. In other words, people moved out into suburbs or smaller surrounding communities to not have their kids go to school with Black people or minorities," he said.

Henderson said while Norman still has work to be done, he is optimistic about its future.

"Life is a learning experience," Henderson said. "I don't think that most white people dislike Black people, it is just that they haven't had a chance to interact with them in an intimate way."

He said as people recognize and respect different histories, it will become easier to create better racial understanding and develop empathy, as well as meaningful friendships.

Brian King covers education and politics for The Transcript. Reach him at bking@normantranscript.com.