Going to School in Black and White

by Cindy Waszak Geary

  Another cultural difference I noticed was about appearance. It was the ’70s, and white boys and girls dressed informally, usually in jeans. The black girls put much more time and effort into their appearance, “dressing up” more than the white girls. They were more likely to wear dresses and stockings and heels, to use makeup and spend more time with their hair. I think this was the same for black teachers compared to white teachers.

  * * *

  In addition to going to football games, my school friends and I carried on the same out-of-school activities together in high school as in junior high school, some school-related, most not—shopping, movies, birthday parties, just hanging out. Our sophomore year, we were still dependent on our parents to drive us places, so we were limited in what we could do. My parents’ concern about the safety of the neighborhood near Hillside ruled out going to basketball games and dances at school. Even afternoon activities after school were discouraged. Extracurricular activities that might have broadened my social life became a casualty of desegregation.

  Social events in my all-white church were closer to home and thus easier to participate in, an important part of the white world I lived in outside of my school day. I was still in Sunday school, youth choir, and youth group. At church, I became friends with Joan and Cathy and another Lynn, but they went to a predominantly white county school. My church friends were more interested in doing well in school, and their tastes in clothes, music, and movies were closer to mine than were those of my school friends. We also had a common bond of belief that connected us in a more spiritual and emotional way than my connection with my school friends.

  * * *

  Boys became a focus of attention during our sophomore year.

  I had an awkward few dates between ninth and 10th grades with the brother of a friend at school. Rather than saying I wasn’t interested in getting romantic, I was not so nice to him, hoping he wouldn’t ask me out again. And he didn’t. It was unusual for me not to acquiesce, but being difficult on purpose was easier than being honest about not liking him. That’s the socially awkward person I was at 15.

  The field of date-able boys for me at Hillside—that is to say, white boys—was relatively small. The few boys I dated in high school had gone to Holton, and for the most part I did not consider them to be on the same academic wavelength as I was. Spending time with them felt awkward because I had little in common with them intellectually, which translated into not having much to keep us going conversationally. The boys I did feel intellectually equal to, most of whom had gone to my junior high school, did not date much. Of course, in adolescence, there are more than intellectual interests at work.

  My earlier-mentioned lab partner on whom I had a hard crush was a boy who had gone to Holton. He had deep brown eyes with long eyelashes, a great smile, blond (peroxided) hair with a bit of a curl in it. I sat beside him every day in biology, in the deep lust of a hormone-oozing 15-year-old. He drove a very cool redneck car—a dark maroon Comet, with a loud air-scoop and jacked-up wheels. Cars were his passion, and I talked to him—or rather listened to him talk—about his as if I cared about it. He was kind of a bad boy, a “hood” (as opposed to being “from the ‘hood’”). He also seemed troubled a lot, tired, and (I realize as an adult) probably hung over. I tried to be sympathetic and covered for him when necessary. He called me on the phone sometimes, but he never asked me out; I never really expected that he would, though I hoped. And girls did not ask boys out—ever. I found out later he still had a girlfriend in junior high school at Holton.

  * * *

  My musical tastes in high school were mainstream white and female. I liked folk music. I owned albums by James Taylor, Carole King, Elton John, Rod Stewart, Joni Mitchell, and Judy Collins. I listened to a lot of AM radio. I had friends who sang and played guitar. After hearing it at school, I listened to a lot of soul music, too—Aretha Franklin, The Temptations, Jackson 5 and Gladys Knight. The “Theme From Shaft” opened many of our assemblies. I liked the way people might get up and dance during a pep rally or an assembly when there was music that moved them, though I would never do that myself. It was not a white thing; only black kids did that.

  One of the out-of-school highlights of my sophomore year was going to my first stadium concert to hear James Taylor and Carole King at Dorton Arena in Raleigh. I went with my friend Joan from church and her older sister, who drove us. It cost $15, which I saved up for out of my babysitting money (I made 50 cents an hour). James Taylor sang everything from his recently released Sweet Baby James album. Carole King sang everything from her soon-to-be released Tapestry album. I was so elated about this evening out (on a school night!) that not even my mother’s grumpiness about the smell of cigarette smoke from the concert lingering in my long hair and clothing could dampen my mood.

  * * *

  Every summer my family spent time in Waynesville, a small town in the North Carolina mountains, where my grandparents lived and where my parents had built a vacation/retirement house. Any time we spent there was more than either my brother or I wanted, however, as we would rather be with our friends back home.

  When we were in Durham, I spent as much time as I could with my church friends. We helped with a summer recreation program for elementary school children several mornings a week, went to watch the men’s softball team compete in a church league and ended the summer with church camp at Camp Kanata.

  In my post-sophomore summer, I turned 16. I was able to take driver’s education class and get my license—a serious rite of passage among my peers. My church friends arranged a memorable surprise birthday party for me, blindfolding me and driving me to Chapel Hill to the Zoom Zoom, one of our favorite restaurants. Because of this birthday, however, I had another rite of passage to fulfill. It weighed heavily on me that I was sweet 16 but had never been kissed. I was not pursuing anyone, but I felt I was missing something. Toward the end of the summer, I got an unexpected call from my biology partner Tony, asking if he could visit me that afternoon. I managed to speak over the thumping of my heart, “Yes, that would be great.” I then briefed my mother on the situation in a way that would communicate my desire for privacy without arousing suspicion and rushed to my room to change into my most alluring blouse.

  His jacked-up Comet roared up my otherwise calm street and stopped in front of my house. And there he was, from the other side of town, standing on my front porch, curly blond hair, twinkling eyes, and lovely smile. We sat in the living room on the floor in front of the couch. My mother was around the corner in the kitchen—amazingly, she didn’t interrupt us the whole time. We talked for about an hour—about what I have no idea. I’m sure I was barely breathing.

  Before he left, he reached over, and he kissed me—a sweet, soft, passionate kiss. And then he was gone. Period. Forever. Never to be seen again. What I learned later from school gossip was that the girlfriend I had not known about had gotten pregnant. (Where was he the day the lady from the health department came to talk about contraception? Probably skipping class.) He had decided that summer to quit school—a detail not mentioned before our kiss—and he got a job and married his pregnant girlfriend in the fall.

  Tony was part of a secret self that I did not share with others, possibly for fear of disapproval. He was not the type of boy I was supposed to like. I never told my friends about my crush on him or told them about the kiss. But in that moment I did not know it would be the last time I would see him, and I felt exhilarated. I had had a great first kiss with a beautiful boy.

  Junior Year (1971-1972)

  The big news during our junior year was a rule change that allowed us to go off campus for lunch. I did not have a car, so my leaving required finding people who did. Though it was rare, sometimes I’d have to skip a class because of a late return from lunch. My fear of being an object of Mr. Alston’s attention kept me on campus most lunch times.

  Mr. Alston was the assistant principal, the principal’s right-hand man. The old guard Hillsiders called him “
Prof” Alston. He had been at Hillside many years, beginning as a chemistry teacher. He was probably in his 50s, 6 feet tall, light brown and thin. Always in a suit and tie, with glasses on a mostly bald head. He had a powerful voice that carried down the hallways. He was well loved in the black, Hillside community, but I wasn’t part of that community and could not understand, try as I might, why people liked him so much.

  He made me nervous, and I worked hard to keep myself out of his sights. He was very different from other (white) school administrators I had known. There were people he kept an eye on, even if they did not seem to be causing trouble, and he called them out in public whenever he could. He walked the halls constantly and often had a posse of students he had found skipping class following him around.

  I think some of my reaction to him was because he was part of the black Hillside culture that was unfamiliar to me. There was just a different quality in the way he engaged people that seemed threatening to me, but not threatening to black students who had known about Mr. Alston all their lives as part of their community. His way of calling students out may have been to make people feel as though someone cared about their presence. I, on the other hand, wanted no attention from any disciplinarian. I didn’t feel comfortable making small talk with him, nor did I know when he just was kidding around.

  Disciplinary measures at Hillside when I was there were so much gentler than what I hear about at schools now. We had dress codes at school—boys were not to wear hats in the building, and there were rules about how short girls’ skirts could be and how much midriff could show. No flip-flops. Jeans were fine; I wore them a lot. I dressed like a hippie, though I wasn’t part of the mostly white hippie-ish clique.

  There were some instances of misbehavior in class, people talking, coming in late, not having done their homework. It was all the usual stuff you expect from high school students. I was nearly always in college-prep classes, which meant greater motivation to be there, less boredom or resentment or whatever causes people to misbehave. Black teachers and white teachers handled discipline similarly in classes I was in—some combination of shaming by being called out in front of others (“Is this the way a young lady is supposed to act?”) and taking away lunch privileges. The bigger offenses were being out of class or off campus when it was not allowed or without a pass. Punishments were not severe; there were no suspensions, in-class or otherwise. Nothing was so disruptive it required police intervention.

  Parental fears for the safety of white students in a black school turned out to be unfounded at Hillside. There were no guns or knives at school and no Officer Friendly (or not so friendly) walking his/her beat. I heard of only a few fights, and those were not racially motivated. Our principal, Mr. Lucas (later Dr. Lucas), had been at Hillside since 1962, and the community and the teachers trusted him. There had been a discussion of transferring him to Durham High School as part of the desegregation plan the year before, but I am thankful he stayed at Hillside High School. I did not always agree with every decision he made while I was a student there, but with 20/20 (adult) hindsight I understand that much of the reason for the tranquility of the desegregation effort at Hillside was because of Mr. Lucas. He was a trusted part of the black community before desegregation, and he was able to win over the trust of white parents and students who were new to the school.

  * * *

  My junior year I took American literature, American history, algebra 2 (trigonometry), French 3, chemistry, and art. I also studied for and took the PSAT and my first SAT. Most of my teachers that year, as it turned out, were white, though mostly just by chance.

  My science and math teachers were both female and white. Chemistry was my biggest challenge. My 30-something teacher was smart and straightforward and fair, but my brain did not get chemistry. We sat at tables of four, and thank goodness I had no crushes on anyone sitting at my table, or I might have had an even harder time of it.

  My algebra 2 teacher was short and had shoulder-length brown hair sometimes pulled back into a ponytail. She had a broad, often-smiling face. She was young, not long out of college. Although she taught math, she saw her mission as expanding our minds regarding politics and social-justice issues. She often used class time to express her views on current events, including the Vietnam War. She wore leather sandals and flowing dresses. She was critical of the school administration for various reasons, spoke her mind and, according to her, was in trouble a lot with the school administration when she disagreed with school policy. I liked her; I admired her rebel spirit but was a bit too timid to follow her lead. I wanted to be a rebel but was always a little too nervous about the consequences.

  My French teacher for my first two years at Hillside was a woman who had gone to Hillside as a student herself and spoke French with a Southern black accent. She was less than 5 feet tall, though she always wore high heels, so she stood taller. She wore her jewelry big and her curly hair short. Our lessons were a mix of conversation practice and French literature; the plays by Moliere were what I enjoyed most. I made good grades on written tests but was not pushed hard to speak French well. I liked her, but I was worried I was not getting the best language education.

  Mr. Alston, the nemesis of my imagination, would pop into various classes, stop what was happening and randomly ask students questions that might not have anything to do with the topic being taught. He started teaching chemistry at Hillside after he returned from serving in World War II, and before becoming the dean of boys, he had taught some of the teachers now at Hillside, including my French teacher. Mr. Alston would come into her class with a piece of paper with French sentences written on it; he would write those sentences on the board and ask students to translate. When he came in, she would let him take over.

  At that point, I would roll my eyes and silently sigh. I thought it was silly and a waste of time. I was worried he would call on me, and I would have no idea what he had written on the board, and, worse than that, he would remember me the next time he saw me in the hall and make me walk around with him.

  I also took typing one semester of my junior year. We used manual typewriters. It was the most practical skill I learned in high school, very useful in college, where I made a little extra money typing people’s papers. I still type faster than most people. Almost all of the students in the class were female, both black and white. Contrary to type (at least to my mind and no pun intended), the teacher was a young man.

  * * *

  There were no cell phones or email or texts when I was in high school. (Thank goodness!) When I was waiting for a boy to call me at home, I sat by my family’s black rotary phone on the red desk in our tiny kitchen. Girls did not call boys, ever. Through the first part of my junior year, most of the calls for me were from girlfriends from school or church or from people asking me to babysit.

  Sometime in early spring of my junior year, our phone began to ring with some regularity with calls from Mitch, a senior boy with whom I eventually started going steady. He was a few inches taller than I and had brown hair with sideburns and serious blue eyes. He was a nice guy but a little over the top in sometimes embarrassing ways.

  Mitch had a full-time job after school and drove a royal blue Volkswagen bug. He took me out on weekends and bought me flowers more often than seemed appropriate. Because we were allowed to go off campus for lunch, I spent many lunch hours making out with him in his small car on the backside of Forest Hills Park. It was fun to have a boyfriend. When he asked me to go steady, I said “yes,” and I wore his big fat class ring with white tape wrapped around it so it would stay on my finger. He started going with me to my church.

  Mitch’s family life and upbringing were different from mine. He was from East Durham and had gone to Holton. His parents were both deceased, and he lived with his aunt. I’m not sure what happened to his father, but his mother had been killed in a car accident while she was driving intoxicated down the wrong way on a highway ramp. He had several half brothers and sisters. He had a history of getti
ng intensely involved with girls and then dumping them unexpectedly. This last fact I learned too late.

  I enjoyed his attention and was sympathetic with his family story, but I was sometimes embarrassed by his social behavior. I was uncomfortable listening to his relatives’ racist conversations when visiting Mitch’s brother and his aunt and uncle in their homes and at their evangelical church out in the country. Out of politeness to my hosts, I did not say anything (although I did not join in). Mitch knew better and did not join in when I was there, but I got the feeling he might have otherwise.

  My school and church friends accepted Mitch when he was with me, but he would not have been part of our group otherwise. The working/middle class I was part of had its own rules and expectations, mostly about education and aspiration. His life was more chaotic than mine, and his family less educated. College was not part of his family script. Although I felt like a snob to think those things, I did think them, and at the same time, I was glad for his affection. The aura of teenage sexuality that enveloped us as a couple made my mother very nervous. Mitch and I did a lot of making out and heavy petting, although we never “went all the way.” I enjoyed it and felt guilty about that. I had no one to talk to, though, for fear of judgment from my girlfriends, especially my church friends, so sex was another part of my secret self. To be clear, I’m not sure what they would have said. No one talked about sex, so I just assumed they’d disapprove.

  Several of my friends were also in serious relationships our junior year, the most notable of which was another “mixed” Rogers-Herr and Holton relationship between my friend Beth and Ricky. We knew Ricky in class because he was part of a few of the students who had come from Holton who were in college prep classes. Beth was beautiful but shy, and Ricky was cute, drove a cool car and was not shy at all. One smart, intense boy from Rogers-Herr, a year ahead of us, was smitten with Beth and wooed her tenaciously, but the more carefree Ricky won her over. He became part of our group of friends (and Beth part of his), so that he was our primary entrée into East Durham and Holton kids—more so than Mitch, who was so busy working after school that he didn’t have a lot of close friends.