Going to School in Black and White

by Cindy Waszak Geary

  I spent a lot of time with the teachers and administrators. I loved most of them, especially Ms. Mamie Perry, who was in charge of the Honor Society, and Ms. Edith Johnson, the physical education and dance group teacher. I rationalized that, even though junior high had not turned out the way I planned, I still had great teachers and adults who were focused on my success. They were also the disciplinarians who ran Whitted with steely wills and wooden rulers. Mostly the rulers were used to single out the person or object of their anger or displeasure. But sometimes it served other purposes. We were more terrified of these two women because of the threat of their disapproval than anything else. Nobody wanted to get on these teachers’ bad sides.

  I think I understand now why they were so loved and feared. They challenged us to excel by demonstrating how much they cared for us, how much they wanted us to succeed. They expected us to do well. Their role is one of the reasons that some teachers from that era think that integration was the worst thing to happen to black children in Durham. The black teachers held positions of prestige and power in the community, and parents held them in great esteem. Black parents were also accountable to these teachers in a way, because they would see them outside of school, in the grocery stores or churches. When I described this book project to my godmother, Mrs. Smith, she lamented that the power dynamic between teachers and students changed, diminishing as integration meant that parents and teachers no longer came from the same communities or represented the same interests.

  * * *

  Mrs. Smith, now 99 years old, reflected on that period of her professional life:

  “I was one of the first black teachers at Rogers-Herr, arriving in 1970, and I stayed four years. I didn’t like it because the teachers were so prejudiced, and they decided that the students from the projects (Cornwallis) didn’t know anything so they didn’t need to teach them anything. Mr. Schooler (who was the principal at Shepard at the time) picked the teachers who would go to Rogers-Herr as part of the integration effort, and I was picked.

  “When I got there, I found out that they had resources that we did not have at Shepard—books, a nice library, IQ tests, instruments, and other resources. I was surprised to see that these resources were only available to the white students.

  “Integration benefited some of the students; in fact, there were some people who wanted their kids to be there. In Durham, there was quiet resistance to desegregation, but there was a lot of resentment about the whole situation.

  “Black people brought a lot of money into Durham through the various institutions like North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, the largest black-owned business in the world, and they were able to negotiate favorable circumstances for some black students in Durham.

  “But there were parts of Durham that were exclusively white, like Forest Hills and Hope Valley, and where black people better not go. Black police could only arrest black people. These were the communities closest to Rogers-Herr and Hillside.

  “In my opinion, integration was good for the students who could take advantage of it. The ‘project’ kids seemed to resent being there, and their parents wouldn’t let the white teachers touch them, so the teachers stopped trying to discipline them. Of course this was not the way we were used to dealing with black children in our black schools. The discipline issues were different, and they continued to deteriorate after integration. There were also differences in how the students were treated, and the expectations and consequently discipline of black students were low.

  “Black parents from the working class and low socioeconomic circumstances might not come to meetings because of their fear of being judged by white teachers. I always suspected that kids know when you like them, and there was a feeling that the white teachers didn’t like the black ones anyway, so they just left them to fail.”

  * * *

  Daily school life at Whitted had been greatly affected by our teachers. They were tough, tough, tough but fair. If you displeased them or did something to offend their sensibilities, you knew it IMMEDIATELY. We were expected to carry ourselves as young ladies and gentlemen and to represent the school and our families.

  Our teachers would send home students who they believed had not paid sufficient attention to personal hygiene after gym class. They taught us pride in our appearance and the need to respect one’s self by wearing dresses and skirts of the appropriate length. These attitudes ran counter to the prevailing fashion trends of the day, the miniskirt era, but our teachers had no qualms about sending us home to change clothes when we were deemed to have violated the dress code. I came as close as I could to the “decent v. danger” lines that we imagined our teachers had, but luckily for me I escaped the judgment and punishment that I saw befall fellow classmates. It was usually hard to get anything past my mother, anyway.

  Ms. Perry was most focused on academic achievement and attentiveness to scholarship. As the social studies and English teacher, she was a stickler for grammar, penmanship, diction, and vocabulary. I once made the mistake of telling a peer to keep his “damn hands off me.” Unfortunately, Ms. Perry was within earshot. She reprimanded me in front of the class for such a vulgar display of language, and then kept me after school to write 100 times on the board: “I will not use curse words, I will not use curse words.” The remnants of this punishment linger to the present time because I still have a strong aversion to cursing. Who says eighth-grade teachers don’t have power over your life?

  I tried to stay on the good side of Ms. Perry, and she rewarded my efforts with high praise. But she was not one to be crossed. If I thought I was one of her favorites because of my high grades in her classes, she was quick to remind me that I was just another student to her—a student who needed to be taught to respect the rules.

  Take bathroom breaks, for example. We were allowed to go to the bathroom only during class breaks. Because of the large number of female students compared to the size of the bathroom, Ms. Perry would allow only one group of girls to go at a time. To prevent loitering and shenanigans, she timed us. One day, the group of girls to which I had been assigned took what Ms. Perry must have considered too much time. She was waiting for us when we returned. She lined all the offending students up against the wall, and we were each spanked with the wooden rulers—for failing to return in a timely fashion and failing to consider the needs of our fellow classmates, who had to wait the few extra minutes it had taken us to return to class. I was embarrassed and humiliated. Although I had seen her inflict her wrath on others, I had always been spared.

  I heard other students snickering, “Even LaHoma got spanked.”

  That day I learned another lifelong lesson—that students will respect you if they believe that the discipline is fairly distributed. My dear Ms. Perry ran a tight but fair ship, though I always wondered what would have happened if there had been white students with us because I never saw white students being disciplined that way.

  Ms. Johnson oversaw the modern dance group that included only girls who would respect her rules for conduct. None of the white students joined the dance group, either from lack of interest or lack of confidence—I cannot say. Ms. Johnson did not select girls based on dance talent, experience or body type. Her philosophy was that if you really wanted to dance and demonstrated willingness to practice and learn the routines, she would be willing to accept you into the group.

  Ms. Johnson started each year with a large group of willing souls who thought they could keep up with the rules and be allowed to perform at school programs, pageants and the annual dance performance. Sounds simple enough, but the annual dance performance always had fewer girls than had started at the first practice. Ms. Johnson’s strict conduct policies proved more effective in selecting her dancers than any other screening process.

  Ms. Johnson also used the dance group as a recruiting pool for the cheerleading squad. She was not as democratic or inclusive with this group. Tryouts were held for the junior varsity and varsity teams, and you needed to demonstrate gen
eral athletic abilities, including flexibility and coordination.

  When I entered Whitted, I never thought of myself as a cheerleader. Besides, I couldn’t do the splits, cartwheels and somersaults that I thought were necessary. But I learned I liked performing in front of crowds, and with just a teeny bit of encouragement from my friends—and sizing up the competition—I decided, why not?

  So I begged my mom to sign me up for a few private gymnastics classes before the tryouts. I thought I could learn everything I needed to know in a couple of lessons. The white instructor promised to help me learn how to do all the impressive feats that would turn me into the next Cathy Rigby. I didn’t care about any of that, especially because I had never seen black gymnasts on any local or national teams. I just wanted to learn to jump high, turn a cartwheel with confidence and gain sufficient flexibility to muster up a decent split so I could make the squad.

  I practiced with diligence for a few weeks to give myself a chance of making the final cut, or at the least, avoid embarrassing myself in front of my peers. I could not think of anything worse than that; I thought I could be forgiven for not measuring up to the high standards of Ms. Johnson, but looking stupid in front of my peers would be the worst possible outcome. I also worked on a dance routine—one of the three try-out requirements, along with a chant and yell (with enthusiasm of course) and some sort of stunt (cartwheel, flip, somersault, split, etc.).

  The day of tryouts arrived. My mom had pressed my hair the night before so it glistened. My clothes were clean and tidy, my shorts were short (but not too short), and I had on the double-down socks popular in the day. I sat patiently with at least 50 other hopeful candidates. We all watched and applauded for each girl’s routine—regardless of how good it was. It was us against Ms. Johnson.

  Finally it was my turn: “LaHoma Smith,” I heard Ms. Johnson say. I took my position and began my chant to the tune of the hit show, “The Adams Family”:

  Dadadadum (Clap clap) Da dadadum (Clap clap)

  Da dadadumDa dadadum

  Da dada…dum….(Kick ball chain step…Clap clap)

  We’re rough and we’re tough…We really got the stuff… You can’t mess with us…

  The Viking family...(Moving my hips and shuffling my feet from side to side)

  Da…da da dum (Clap clap)……Da dadadum(Clap clap)……Da dadadum….Da dada dum….

  Da dada…dum….(Clap clap)

  Pose….Smile..…High spread eagle jump…..Pose again…..High kick… Cheer with pump fist ….

  Go Vikings!!!

  Then I ran really fast, spread my legs and turned upside down into a cartwheel…

  (Nailed it!)

  “Go Vikings!!!!” I exclaimed one more time for good measure.

  There was polite applause from the other girls waiting their turns. I took my seat on the bleachers. I could not read Ms. Johnson’s face. She was probably a good poker player, because nothing about her expression betrayed her thoughts about each performance. You had no idea if you had done a good or lousy job by her standards. Did I kick high enough? Did I yell loud enough? Were my legs straight enough in my cartwheel? Did I move my hips enough? Or maybe I moved them too much, and Ms. Johnson would think that I was too “grown” to be a good representative for the school? No way to know.

  We waited for the remaining girls to try their luck, and then it was over. Ms. Johnson thanked everyone for coming out, reminded us that only eight to 10 girls would be chosen, and that the lucky few would see their names posted outside the gym. She said that everyone was a winner, or something to that effect, but by then, we were all filing out, relieved that was over while calculating our prospects, given what we had seen from the competition.

  One week went by. Then two—an eternity. Finally, without ceremony, Ms. Johnson posted the list of girls who had made the squad on the door outside the gym. I hastily scrolled down the alphabetical list of names on the Junior Varsity list … Parker, Reynolds, Sims, Stevens … there was no Smith. I backed away to reflect on the realization of this defeat. I knew I was not the best, but I thought that I had done at least as good or better than any of the girls whose names appeared on the list.

  As I turned to go, I heard another girl saying,

  “LaHoma you made it.” Annoyed with such cruel teasing, I turned to see who was mocking me.

  “No, I didn’t,” I said, and turned away from that terrible door with the terrible list. Someone else pushed me back in the direction of the door. This time I noticed another list. My friend pointed to my name.

  “See … on the Varsity squad.”

  I looked—terrified that she was wrong—and then terrified that she was right. There it was: “LaHoma Smith.” I hadn’t even considered looking at the names for the Varsity squad—the current members on that squad were all ninth graders. But there it was, in black and white.

  I was excited, then scared. I had never been a cheerleader before, and now I was on the varsity squad for Whitted!

  Go Vikings!

  For the remainder of my time at Whitted, I was a varsity cheerleader. We traveled to all the local junior high schools to cheer our sports teams. The visit to Rogers-Herr made a lasting impression. This was the school that Cindy had attended. What nice facilities they had—even nicer than my beloved Shepard! The bathrooms were light and spacious. The building and equipment all seemed new. We played the game, but the outcome seemed to lose its importance as I looked around the building and noticed how much nicer the gym at Rogers-Herr was compared to our old, worn-out bleachers at Whitted. Their uniforms seemed much nicer and newer than ours. Even though integration had occurred, their varsity cheerleaders were all white, just as our varsity cheerleaders were all black. But I didn’t care. I loved my school.

  * * *

  Most of our teachers were women, but there was definitely male influence at Whitted. Besides our principal, Mr. McAllister, the main male role model for me was Mr. Hodge, the band director. I did not play a band instrument when I started at Whitted, but I had taken piano lessons for eight years and loved music, knew my notes and could carry a tune. Mr. Hodge encouraged students who were interested in music to try out for the band, and then he would assign you an instrument to learn.

  I knew I couldn’t play the piano in the band, so I yearned to play the clarinet or flute because those were the instruments usually assigned to the girls. To my horror, Mr. Hodge assigned me to play the French horn, an odd-shaped gigantic piece of heavy equipment that I noticed was typically played only by the guys. I had never even heard of the French horn until Mr. Hodge assigned it to me.

  When I protested, he smiled, gave me a knowing pat on the head, and told me I would be fine. I always wondered why Mr. Hodge assigned me the French horn—maybe because even at that age, I was one of the taller girls and he had enough petite ones playing the flutes and clarinets. I looked over and saw that one of my equally sturdy friends had been assigned to play the saxophone.

  One of the worst things about playing the French horn was the bulky, awkward shape of the case, which made carrying it difficult. But I learned to play the instrument. I was one of four French horn players, and the only girl. I took a bad situation and made it worse by developing a crush on one of the older, male French horn players. This made being in the band more fun, but playing in the French horn section itself was daunting. We were often the subject of whispers and jeers—especially when Mr. Hodge would call on the French horn section for attention or to practice a refrain that we had brutalized.

  By ninth grade, I had earned first chair even though I was only a fair French horn player at best. Mr. Hodge’s passion and ability to inspire his young musicians, regardless of talent or possession of an instrument, helped advance the musical fortunes of many Whitted students that year. They were then ready to join the dynamic marching band of Hillside High School.

  * * *

  Every once in a while, my neighborhood friends and I would avoid going directly home from school. We would linger near F
ive Points—close to the intersection of West Main and East Chapel Hill streets in downtown Durham—waiting for and eventually catching the bus transfer that would take us home. We strolled down the sidewalk, looking in the windows, avoiding the stores where we knew teenage black girls would not be welcome. The sit-ins of the 1960s were now more than 10 years past, and while we were able to order food at the Woolworth’s without a problem, unspoken rules about how to comport oneself in this evolving climate prevailed. I did not fully understand what it all meant, but I knew better than to question, and even more important, I knew how to conduct myself. Besides, there were lots of places to shop downtown. Belk-Leggett, one of the most popular department stores, featured a beautiful display window the length of the store. The styles and prices were well beyond my eighth-grade budget, but that could not stop me from looking.

  * * *

  Black people had started shopping downtown. The civil rights movement and the call to dismantle segregation by boycotting businesses had done much to make shopping in most places possible, but it didn’t mean that it was always comfortable. Other stores on Main Street were Montaldo’s, Thalhimers, Montgomery Ward and Baldwins. Black people initially entered these places cautiously to see how white people would react. Older residents stayed alert, and most expected someone to ask them to leave. But there were no major incidents as Durham came to symbolize a progressive model of successful race relations—at least in the retail sector.

  I could think of no excuse to enter any of those stores anyway, because my mother made most of my clothes—a point of constant conflict between her and me. Why did she have to make ALL my Sunday dresses? Why couldn’t we get one of these store-bought dresses once in a while? My closest friends knew my agony and teased me mercilessly. I begged Mama so much and made such a fuss that by the time I got to high school, she relented and allowed me to purchase an Easter outfit from Baldwins for church. I can’t get into that dress now, but I still own it.