Going to School in Black and White

by Cindy Waszak Geary

  Interracial dating did not occur frequently at Hillside while I was there. I heard about one interracial couple rumored to be dating my junior year (I’m sure there was more than one). Both were athletes, and it seems the rumors were likely to have been true, but the relationship was short-lived. All the interracial couples I knew about—including the athlete couple—were black boys and white girls. No black boys ever asked me out. There might have been an athlete or two whom I found attractive, but I never entertained the possibility. I did not think my parents would have approved if asked, but there was no reason to ask, and so I do not know for sure.

  * * *

  Mitch and I talked about going to the prom my junior year—he was a senior—but I thought my parents would not allow me to go, and I did not ask them. I never went to any dance at Hillside, partly because I did not date much. A greater reason was my parents’ concerns about being in a different neighborhood at night and, again, their fears that underlying racial tensions could erupt—probably even more likely in the wake of possible intimate contact. (And, was this not the real fear behind all of it?)

  I don’t know how many white couples went to the dances—some I am sure—or what it was like for them. My close friends did not go. If they had, I might have tried harder to persuade my parents to let me go. Though I had looked forward to dances as part of my high school experience, that was not to be.

  Although none of my girlfriends had her own car, we were all allowed to drive our families’ cars most places we wanted to go. We always drove ourselves to Young Life—a weekly gathering, organized by school affiliation, that was loosely Christian and, in Durham, led by Duke University students. The gatherings were not held at school but rather at different people’s houses. Always white people’s houses, always close to my neighborhood, definitely a predominantly white crowd but not exclusively so. Young Life was an activity in which it was possible for my friends and me to hang out with a wider group of people than we normally did and listen to cool college students (i.e., cute guys) talk about Jesus. Usually, there was a guitar and singing. It was Jesus-lite, nothing too heavy, a nice vibe and more than anything a place for students to socialize after school during the week without getting into trouble.

  I also was influenced by evangelists who ran large, nondenominational youth revivals that came to Durham. They were young and hip, and the talk was more about spiritual liberation and social justice than the fundamentalism that people today equate with Christianity. These revivals occurred at the beginning of what became Christian folk and rock music, and I wanted to be part of it. “Getting high on Jesus” felt like a real thing. I am not sure I would have called myself a Jesus freak, but it would have been an apt label.

  * * *

  Feminism, known as “women’s liberation” in those days, also spoke to me when I was in high school. I was smart (if self-effacing), and I had no question that I could compete with men in most ways. I was not athletic and was never going to compete with men physically, but that was the least of it. Many smart female teachers at school helped me see what might be possible in my life that perhaps had not been possible for my mother’s generation. I also babysat for women who were in feminist consciousness-raising groups. They loaned me such books as The Feminine Mystique and Sisterhood Is Powerful. They were going through divorces and otherwise negotiating their way into this new reality. I admired them, but I secretly was glad I was younger than they were so the world would be “fixed” by the time I got out of college.

  I had some serious arguments with my father about my feminist ideas. I did not have the vocabulary that people use now about equity and equality, and I felt inarticulate during my angry arguments with my father. How could the parent who I thought was my best advocate say it was OK—in general—for women to have limited opportunities in life? It made no sense that the man who had always expected me to go to college could argue against equal protection for women under the law.

  I dissolved into tears during one heated discussion, to which Daddy responded, “Crying, just like a woman.” I was infuriated and confused about this disconnect between his support for me and his more general sexist attitudes. I was to learn as I grew up that this inconsistency between the personal and the abstract is not rare—and certainly relevant to attitudes about race as well.

  My mother never espoused a feminist ideology, but she thought women should be recognized for the work they did well. Though she agreed with the Equal Rights Amendment, she certainly did not identify as a feminist. One time as we were driving home from Hillside I declared I did not want to be a “stay at home mom,” or a “Suzy Homemaker.” Mother did not say anything, just acted hurt. I didn’t apologize; I just pretended I didn’t know I had just belittled her.

  * * *

  At the close of the year, I was a junior marshal for the graduation ceremony. It was Mitch’s graduation, and we celebrated at dinner with some of his family. That summer, I worked again in the church recreation program, and I spent three weeks at a Baptist youth conference with my church friend Lynn and then took a long road trip with my family. While I was away, Mitch surprised me by applying to and getting into N.C. State University. His earlier plans had been to go to the local community college. I was glad he was going to college, but I knew it would change our relationship.

  Senior Year: 1972-1973

  My senior year started with Mitch breaking up with me. Though it was, in truth, good for me and a bit of a relief, no one likes to get dumped. I was used to having him around and was sad and embarrassed no longer to be part of a couple. After several bad blind dates that fall, I resigned myself to the idea that I would have to wait until I got to college to meet the man of my dreams.

  * * *

  Academically, I was getting myself ready for college. Though math was not my strong suit, I took a third year of math, which was then called “analysis” and was taught by the same teacher who had taught me sophomore geometry as an independent study. This time I stayed in her class, hanging on to whatever I could learn from her.

  Little of the content of the world history class I took from an assistant football coach my senior year lingers in my memory. He was white, young, but starting to bald and trying to be gruff, wanting us to think he was macho but having a bit of a soft spot for his students. What I remember best from that class, though, was a different sort of lesson about my fellow students.

  During one class, we went to the library to do some research, and I sat at a table with some black, sophomore girls (there were students from all grade levels in this class) I did not know except in class. They were all talking about their babies at home—their names, how old they were, who was taking care of them. I knew there were girls at school who were mothers, but these girls were all sophomores, and there were four or five of them in this one class. Too late for the contraception lecture in sophomore biology! I could not imagine trying to keep up with school and having a baby at home—I felt so naïve about the realities of some of my classmates’ lives but also grateful for whatever had kept me from being in their situation at that age.

  I also took European literature my senior year. Literature was always a favorite subject for me, as it was a way to understand the personal and social world. My teacher was a delicate woman the color of café au lait, with hair in loose curls close to her head. She was slender and wore clothing with ruffles and floral designs—a little old-fashioned in my opinion, but still flattering on her. She had a sweet, thin voice that she did not raise even when the class became boisterous; instead, she would just lightly tap her pen on the desk when she wanted our attention. She had attended Hillside as a student. Her softness was a cause for student amusement and parody and, although I felt bad about the way people made fun of her, I sometimes joined in the mimicry.

  Two works of literature come to mind when I think of her—Macbeth and A Dolls’ House. We read both those plays aloud in class, with different people taking different parts. I can hear her playing the female lead in A
Dolls’ House, calling, “Torvald!” Ibsen’s drama about a woman who sought to free herself from her husband’s power over her life made an impression on me as I was beginning to think about my future life choices.

  Psychology was taught as a social-studies subject my senior year, and I was excited to take it. The teacher who had the most direct influence on my academic career taught it. She was a young white woman but had not come to Hillside directly from college. She had been in the Peace Corps, among other things, before teaching. I had already had her for American history my junior year and liked her very much.

  She had grown up in a white, liberal Southern family, but her college education and life since then had been in Boston and New York, so she brought an intellectual, urban vibe with her. Social studies as a discipline provided a lot of opportunities for questioning the status quo and for critical thinking—including issues related to race and gender and power. She was up to the task of making us think about complex subjects.

  Her white skin was pale, almost porcelain. She was not shy but spoke softly in a sing-songy kind of way that caused some students to erroneously call her “Silly S____.” I seldom spoke in her class (or anyone else’s), but I listened intently. Kind and fair, she tried from time to time to pull me into the discussion. She asked me to teach a class on the book Future Shock by Alvin Toffler—a best seller at the time. She met with me to discuss what I was going to say and told me she had been a typist for Mr. Toffler in New York. I was impressed and amazed that I knew someone who knew a famous author.

  This teacher showed me a bigger world than the one I was thinking of for myself. I had always thought I’d be a teacher, but I found myself in psychology. It resonated with my interest in how people make sense of the world around them. A new academic path opened up to me.

  I had a new French teacher my senior year, somewhat plain looking, with brown frizzy hair, shirtwaist dresses, sensible shoes, and glasses. Russian by birth and with a heavy Russian accent, she was very dramatic, with great joie de vivre. She sometimes waltzed around the room, playing all the parts from Moliere’s Le Malade Imaginaire. I am grateful to her for making Moliere, Rimbaud, and Camus come alive. Reading La Symphonie Pastorale by Andre Gide for her class opened a major fissure in my religious beliefs that took decades for me to work through. Examining the complexities of life even if they are uncomfortable is what I believe constitutes a good education.

  In that class, we had a young student teacher from France who taught us that the French colonizers made African children learn by rote the same things French children learn, such as Je suis un Gaulois, when plainly they were not descendants of the Roman Empire. That was my introduction to the tyranny of language.

  Some students said classes at Hillside were so easy they never had to study; I was not sure how that was possible. I may not have worked as hard as my church friends at their whiter county high school, but I studied hard, did my homework and wrote papers to make A’s.

  Though I had an intrinsic love of reading and learning, I was competitive about grades throughout high school, finishing fifth in my class at graduation. My SAT scores went up about 100 points the second time I took the test my senior year. I made good grades because I knew how to give teachers what they wanted without any pushback, and I was a good test-taker. My competitiveness about grades probably came from not being athletic and being self-conscious around boys—except when it came to academics. I was artistic, but I did not have much of an outlet for recognition as an artist, so intellectual pursuits were where I got self-esteem.

  * * *

  The only alcohol I ever imbibed in high school was in the context of an assignment. A classmate and I made a rum and Coke while we were making a Bouche de Noel for a French class Christmas party, with rum being one of the ingredients. There was not enough rum to get even the smallest buzz, but it made me nervous, and I decided I would just wait until I was in college and did not have to deal with my parent’s disapproval of alcohol before I tried drinking again.

  I knew about drugs in high school, but I was not that interested, and it just seemed that if I were going to experiment at all, I would wait until my parents were not monitoring my every move. I knew people who smoked pot and used other kinds of drugs, but none of my close friends at school or church did, so there was no peer pressure. And, anyway, I was getting high on Jesus! I heard that drugs were bought and sold at school, but I had no personal knowledge of any of that.

  As strange as it seems to me now, students were allowed to smoke cigarettes at school. Smoking in class was not permitted, but there was a designated space for students to smoke outside, under a covered walkway between buildings, known as the “smoking corral.” The smoking corral was one place my sophomore year where I could get a glimpse of Tony, my lab partner, outside of class, so sometimes that year I passed by there just in case.

  * * *

  My maternal grandmother, who lived in the North Carolina mountains where my mother had grown up, died of breast cancer in February of my senior year. Mother’s grief over my grandmother’s death lasted a long time and had a dampening effect on the second half of my senior year. I loved my grandmother, but we had not been close. I had a harder time dealing with my mother’s sadness than my own. Mother cried a lot and sang my grandmother’s favorite hymns around the house. With no appetite after her mother’s death, Mother lost weight and then started worrying that she was dying, that she had cancer, too. She repeatedly went to the doctor to find out what was wrong, until she developed a hiatal hernia, possibly from the anxiety. Mother’s depression finally lifted after she had a medical diagnosis and treatment.

  I felt as if I were going crazy, too. I experienced a lot of “free-floating anxiety”—something was wrong, but I could not figure out what it was. It felt like guilt but was not guilt exactly; it was a bad feeling that something was askew and I did not know how to make it right. Eventually, the feeling lifted, but it was scary at the time. I never told anyone about it until years later in therapy.

  * * *

  I applied to two universities my senior year and got into both. I applied to the first, Wake Forest University, only because my guidance counselor made me. The other, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) was easily my first choice. UNC was less expensive, and it was also closer to my heart. Judith got in also, and we decided to room together.

  After we had received our early admission letters, Judith and I went over to campus with our mothers to look at dorms. Co-ed dorms were a new phenomenon around the country and at UNC. There was one group of co-ed dorms on North Campus, the area where we wanted to live. I thought it sounded interesting, but our mothers were not thrilled. Mother had us talk to Annie Queen, a friend of hers from Waynesville, who had gone to Berea College in Kentucky and then had been the head of the Campus Y at UNC for many years. We sat in her cute cottage house close to campus and drank tea from pottery mugs while she graciously talked to us about various dorms and gave us advice about college. Ultimately, we decided on the all-women Cobb Dorm, centrally located on North Campus and not too far from several boys’ dorms and most of our classrooms.

  Springtime stretched out endlessly while we waited to graduate. In addition to the malaise I associated with my grandmother’s death and my mother’s grief, French existentialism was causing the first small cracks in my Christian faith. I had an intense discussion walking home from Duke Gardens during spring break with my church friend Lynn (who also had read Gide’s La Symphonie Pastorale) about what seemed to be some inconsistencies in the faith we then professed, as pointed out through the book’s story of a wayward priest. This was not yet a full-blown dismantling, but it was making me nervous.

  Graduation finally came. Of an initial sophomore class of 500 students, about 300 of us graduated, with the others having moved away or dropped out. Graduation was always at County Stadium. Mickey Michaux spoke, a Hillside graduate who had just started his political career as a representative in the N.C. General Asse
mbly (where he is still in office). After lots of hugs and congratulations with my friends, I went home with my parents.

  Some of my friends went to the beach for a few days after graduation. I didn’t because I was nervous about the kinds of trouble my friends might get into with drinking, and I was shy about being with larger groups of kids. And I did not have a boyfriend. The post-beach story was that girls who had boyfriends slept with them there, which would seem like no news now but was significant at the time.

  I spent the rest of the summer babysitting and hanging out with (mostly) church friends. I was eager to get on with college and, more important, to experience the new freedoms of being away from home, even if the distance was only a dozen miles down the road.

  I felt finished with Hillside when I graduated. Being white at Hillside had not been a bad experience for me—not at all. If anything, my time there was notable for its ordinariness. There had been nothing to fear regarding safety. I had never felt afraid. My friends were mostly the same ones I entered high school with, plus a few boyfriends who joined our group. I may have left worried about my competitiveness in college, but I also had learned a lot. I knew my experience had been different than if I had gone to Durham High School. I was sure I knew more about black history, literature, art, and music than I might have otherwise. I had learned that there was a whole black working/middle class culture that was not portrayed in the media, and that it was possible for people to live in separate realities even in the same physical spaces. These realizations may have been the greatest gift my time at Hillside gave to me.