For Those Of Us... Of Non-Tender Years... Name The School And The Year... You Were Integrated ???

[raging moderate]

30. About 1964.

Theodore Roosevelt High School in Chicago. Almost the last day of school, our wonderful new principal called a special all-school assembly. Once the opening ceremonies were concluded (singing of Go Rough Riders Go, etc.), he strode to the podium and announced enthusiastically, "I have GREAT news! Our school has won a stupendous contest! You didn't know it, but we have been observed and studied and analyzed all this year, and the Board of Education has given you its highest award. Our school has been declared one of the most academically advanced and ethically enlightened schools on the North Side of Chicago! (Applause! Cheers! Excitement!) And therefore, we have been awarded the privilege of receiving award-winning young scholars from the South Side of Chicago who will provide us with fresh perspective and enlarge our understanding of the world! This is a wonderful opportunity for all of you to participate in making history! These astounding young people are also contest-winners. They have passed a rigorous competition and are fully qualified to take advantage of our unique educational opportunities! I was so proud to tell the Board of Education that I know I can count on you to give these wonderful young Afro-Americans a real Rough Rider welcome! Now, when they start attending here in the fall, I expect every Rough Rider to do his or her best to welcome them, help them find their way around, sit with them at the lunch tables, and be a friend to them in any way you can. These are really wonderful young people, and we are lucky to have them!" (Applause! Cheers! Excitement! Repeated singing of Go Rough Riders Go, etc.).

And so they came, the next fall, for many of us the very first "Afro-Americans" we had ever met. They must have wondered why we all kept gathering around staring at them all the time with those wide smiles and wide eyes. Of course, we were looking at astounding award-winning geniuses, heroes and heroines who had overcome incredible odds. We hung on their every word. We were thrilled to have them there! (Actually, many of us WERE descended from Abolitionists or God-Wants-Justice Jews, and their presence in our school DID lend a certain vindication to our somewhat maligned family values). We elected one of them School President two years in a row!

And do you know what? Our principal was right! Those kids from the South Side, riding the Subway for what, an hour, every day, each way, to get to our school, really WERE heroes and heroines! And they really WERE great kids! I was kind of weird at the time, so poor, so discouraged, so sickly, from my dysfunctional family background. They really encouraged me, treated me like a human being. And I thought, If they can do this, then maybe I can break out of my pattern, too! I hope we helped them a little bit, too! I bet they all went on to do fine! And that kid we elected School President twice? I think we were right about him! I wonder how he turned out? I wish them all well! Very well! They really did change our school for the better!