First Class : The Legacy of Dunbar, America's First Black Public High School (9781613740125) by Stewart Alison; Harris-perry Melissa (FRW) & Melissa Harris-Perry

Author:Stewart, Alison; Harris-perry, Melissa (FRW) & Melissa Harris-Perry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Independent Pub Group
Published: 2013-11-16T16:00:00+00:00

Left to right: George E. C. Hayes (M Street 1911), Thurgood Marshall, and James Nabrit celebrate the 1954 desegregation victory.

Library of Congress, Courtesy of AP/Wide World Photos

President Eisenhower wanted Washington to set a good example for the rest of the country when it came to integration. “A model for the nation” had been his public proclamation. Ike had laid the groundwork for the transition. In anticipation of what was to come, he’d stacked the DC Board of Commissioners, the District’s governing body, with integration-friendly men. He’d ordered the Justice Department to support the Bolling case during the Supreme Court arguments. He’d appointed Earl Warren to chief justice with full knowledge that Warren would shape the Brown decision. Eisenhower once said he believed every vestige of segregation should be erased from DC and “not a penny of federal money spent to discriminate.” However, that didn’t mean he could control racist members on the appropriations committees from ignoring pleas for more money to help the schools. The president also couldn’t directly control Washington’s board of education.

“A model not a mockery!” was the rallying cry of Dr. Margaret Butcher, one of the three Negro members of the board at the time. The District teacher with a PhD was reacting as many Negroes did to the integration plan announced by the superintendent. On May 18, 1954, Superintendent Hobart Corning told the press he didn’t know how and when the schools would integrate, and he’d wait until the Supreme Court explained it all.8 Within a week it became clear this was not a position he could hold. Instead, he and Board President Sharpe announced a slow rollout of desegregation. A chosen block of elementary schools would integrate first, in September 1954. High schools would not begin the process until January 1955. However, there was an optional clause that angered people like Margaret Butcher. A student could stay in his or her school until graduation, even if the student was zoned out. Or if students preferred, they could transfer to schools serving the zones in which they lived.

According to the integration guidelines as they were laid out on paper, the superintendent’s full plan would be in effect by September 1955; but with the stay-put grandfather clause, technically, the schools might not be fully desegregated until 1959. The president of the local NAACP sent a letter to the board saying that the phase-in plan would so “violate the spirit of the clear decision of the Supreme Court that its acceptance by you seems inconceivable.” Dr. Butcher and the NAACP wanted the Supreme Court’s ruling to go into effect immediately. The final vote on Corning’s step-by-step plan was 5–1, with Dr. Butcher the only member voting against it. She confronted Corning publicly in the spring of 1954.

“I want this board to instruct Corning, regardless of cost, to sit here this summer and order his staff to rezone these schools and the students and the buildings involved this September. Mr. Corning, are you vacationing this summer?”

“Yes.”

“Well perhaps you could appoint someone to do it for you.

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