1 00:00:06,533 --> 00:00:12,133 ♪ ♪ 2 00:00:22,166 --> 00:00:25,066 SARAH BLACKMON: You have one shot at raising your children. 3 00:00:25,066 --> 00:00:27,233 You don't get do-overs. 4 00:00:28,800 --> 00:00:31,600 We were very, very concerned 5 00:00:31,600 --> 00:00:33,766 that our children get a good education. 6 00:00:33,766 --> 00:00:38,400 ♪ ♪ 7 00:00:38,400 --> 00:00:41,266 JOHN MCCANDLISH: Growing up in Leland and thinking about where I lived, 8 00:00:41,266 --> 00:00:43,300 it seems somewhat like a Mayberry to me. 9 00:00:44,733 --> 00:00:47,300 It was a very tight-knit community. 10 00:00:47,300 --> 00:00:48,766 People knew each other. 11 00:00:48,766 --> 00:00:50,900 People really cared about each other. 12 00:00:50,900 --> 00:00:54,866 KEVIN MAGEE: I grew up kind of a latchkey kid 13 00:00:54,866 --> 00:00:57,266 and had the run of the town, basically. 14 00:00:57,266 --> 00:00:59,866 I felt like, growing up, that 15 00:00:59,866 --> 00:01:02,366 the whole thing belonged to me, and I could go anywhere 16 00:01:02,366 --> 00:01:05,833 and do just about anything that I could get away with. 17 00:01:05,833 --> 00:01:08,100 BRANDON TAYLOR: Certain places, you know, 18 00:01:08,100 --> 00:01:09,466 we couldn't, you know, we couldn't visit. 19 00:01:09,466 --> 00:01:10,900 I mean, just like these park benches, you know. 20 00:01:10,900 --> 00:01:13,200 This park was off, off-limits, you know, to Blacks. 21 00:01:13,200 --> 00:01:15,666 ♪ ♪ 22 00:01:15,666 --> 00:01:18,433 EVELYN GORDON-MURRAY: Leland was divided. 23 00:01:18,433 --> 00:01:20,200 You had Black Dog, where I grew up, 24 00:01:20,200 --> 00:01:21,300 and you had the white section. 25 00:01:21,300 --> 00:01:22,800 (insects chirping) 26 00:01:22,800 --> 00:01:24,600 VAN POINDEXTER: There was always a railroad track. 27 00:01:24,600 --> 00:01:25,833 There was always a creek. 28 00:01:25,833 --> 00:01:27,200 There was always a road. 29 00:01:27,200 --> 00:01:28,666 There was always some 30 00:01:28,666 --> 00:01:31,100 marker that divided the neighborhoods. 31 00:01:31,100 --> 00:01:35,866 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: In 1969, my hometown of Leland, Mississippi, 32 00:01:35,866 --> 00:01:38,533 finally had to reckon with 33 00:01:38,533 --> 00:01:41,200 something it had been avoiding for years. 34 00:01:42,966 --> 00:01:46,433 ROGER MUDD: In 1954, the Supreme Court made school integration 35 00:01:46,433 --> 00:01:48,033 the law of the land, 36 00:01:48,033 --> 00:01:51,266 a law to be implemented with all deliberate speed. 37 00:01:51,266 --> 00:01:54,266 Last fall, the court ruled that after 15 years, 38 00:01:54,266 --> 00:01:57,966 deliberation should end, and speed meant now. 39 00:01:57,966 --> 00:02:02,000 JOHN BELL WILLIAMS: The quality of public education in a great portion of our state 40 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:04,533 has been made an impossibility 41 00:02:04,533 --> 00:02:07,466 under conditions inflicted on our public schools 42 00:02:07,466 --> 00:02:11,700 by a vindictive, autocratic, arbitrary Supreme Court. 43 00:02:11,700 --> 00:02:14,400 All Blacks that was involved was nervous about it, 44 00:02:14,400 --> 00:02:16,566 because we didn't know what was going to happen next, 45 00:02:16,566 --> 00:02:20,066 but we were still trying to do what we felt like was right. 46 00:02:20,066 --> 00:02:22,466 The only thing I can see this leading to 47 00:02:22,466 --> 00:02:24,666 is the destruction of our school system. 48 00:02:24,666 --> 00:02:28,000 The Negro children, on a whole, 49 00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:33,366 are further behind in their studies than our children. 50 00:02:33,366 --> 00:02:37,366 MAN: We've got a psychology running in this state 51 00:02:37,366 --> 00:02:39,200 which is very deeply negative about the possibilities 52 00:02:39,200 --> 00:02:41,833 of Black and white working this thing out together. 53 00:02:41,833 --> 00:02:45,400 Because of it, we've managed to stay 50th or 48th 54 00:02:45,400 --> 00:02:46,866 for a mighty long time, 55 00:02:46,866 --> 00:02:49,066 while we're so busy holding one down 56 00:02:49,066 --> 00:02:50,533 and keeping the other just on top. 57 00:02:50,533 --> 00:02:52,366 REPORTER: What are your thoughts about going to school with 58 00:02:52,366 --> 00:02:53,966 about half and half white and Black students? 59 00:02:53,966 --> 00:02:55,333 I don't care. 60 00:02:55,333 --> 00:02:56,900 I mean, you know, the same people. 61 00:02:56,900 --> 00:02:59,566 I think we all should be together. 62 00:02:59,566 --> 00:03:01,833 And I hope that we could get along together. 63 00:03:01,833 --> 00:03:05,866 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: My class was the first in Mississippi to have 64 00:03:05,866 --> 00:03:08,833 Black kids and white kids in school together 65 00:03:08,833 --> 00:03:11,100 from the first day of first grade 66 00:03:11,100 --> 00:03:13,400 to high school graduation. 67 00:03:13,400 --> 00:03:15,166 We were supposed to be 68 00:03:15,166 --> 00:03:18,633 the seeds of a great harvest of racial harmony. 69 00:03:18,633 --> 00:03:22,500 Three decades later, I needed to understand what happened, 70 00:03:22,500 --> 00:03:26,000 and why America is still so divided 71 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:28,833 even after all we went through. 72 00:03:28,833 --> 00:03:31,733 I went back to find out. 73 00:03:41,700 --> 00:03:48,766 ♪ ♪ 74 00:03:56,566 --> 00:04:02,633 ♪ You can't hurry God ♪ 75 00:04:02,633 --> 00:04:06,300 ♪ ♪ 76 00:04:06,300 --> 00:04:09,666 ♪ You got to wait ♪ 77 00:04:09,666 --> 00:04:11,466 ♪ ♪ 78 00:04:11,466 --> 00:04:13,800 ♪ Give him time ♪ 79 00:04:13,800 --> 00:04:17,033 ♪ ♪ 80 00:04:17,033 --> 00:04:19,700 ♪ He's a God ♪ 81 00:04:21,966 --> 00:04:25,066 ♪ You can't hurry ♪ 82 00:04:27,633 --> 00:04:32,566 ♪ He'll be there ♪ 83 00:04:32,566 --> 00:04:35,200 ♪ Don't you worry ♪ 84 00:04:39,733 --> 00:04:41,433 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: When I was a kid, 85 00:04:41,433 --> 00:04:45,266 my family lived in this little town in the Mississippi Delta 86 00:04:45,266 --> 00:04:46,633 called Leland, Mississippi. 87 00:04:46,633 --> 00:04:49,166 SINGER: ♪ He's right on time ♪ 88 00:04:49,166 --> 00:04:51,266 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: If you have any vision in your mind 89 00:04:51,266 --> 00:04:53,966 of a cotton plantation in the Deep South, 90 00:04:53,966 --> 00:04:56,766 the place you are imagining is the Mississippi Delta. 91 00:04:56,766 --> 00:04:59,533 ♪ ♪ 92 00:04:59,533 --> 00:05:02,066 In the 1960s, Leland was still 93 00:05:02,066 --> 00:05:04,933 as harshly segregated as it ever was. 94 00:05:04,933 --> 00:05:07,700 In those very early years, 95 00:05:07,700 --> 00:05:09,866 I just noticed that it was all white over here 96 00:05:09,866 --> 00:05:11,233 and all Black over there, 97 00:05:11,233 --> 00:05:13,433 and Black folks had more trouble than white folks. 98 00:05:13,433 --> 00:05:15,033 And it perplexed me. 99 00:05:15,033 --> 00:05:18,166 I started asking a lot of questions, 100 00:05:18,166 --> 00:05:21,600 which seemed uncomfortable to everybody I asked them to, 101 00:05:21,600 --> 00:05:24,233 including my parents at times. 102 00:05:24,233 --> 00:05:25,700 And so, I couldn't make any sense out of it. 103 00:05:25,700 --> 00:05:27,333 ♪ ♪ 104 00:05:27,333 --> 00:05:30,666 Later, in middle school, 105 00:05:30,666 --> 00:05:32,833 I became aware of a place called Strike City. 106 00:05:32,833 --> 00:05:37,366 Strike City was a settlement just outside of town, 107 00:05:37,366 --> 00:05:39,866 created in the middle of the 1960s 108 00:05:39,866 --> 00:05:44,600 after a group of Black tenant farmers went on strike. 109 00:05:44,600 --> 00:05:46,533 JOHN HENRY SYLVESTER: The reason we went on strike, 110 00:05:46,533 --> 00:05:48,800 I was tired of working for six dollars a day, 111 00:05:48,800 --> 00:05:50,900 and I was tired of my wife and kids working 112 00:05:50,900 --> 00:05:52,866 for three dollars a day. 113 00:05:52,866 --> 00:05:56,433 ♪ ♪ 114 00:05:56,433 --> 00:05:58,100 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: They were among 115 00:05:58,100 --> 00:06:01,833 the very first African Americans in American history 116 00:06:01,833 --> 00:06:06,333 to rebel in this way against a white landowner. 117 00:06:06,333 --> 00:06:09,266 There was a town oratorical contest 118 00:06:09,266 --> 00:06:11,933 sponsored by the Lions Club, 119 00:06:11,933 --> 00:06:15,700 and so I decide to write a speech about Strike City. 120 00:06:15,700 --> 00:06:17,133 I went to the library, 121 00:06:17,133 --> 00:06:18,466 read stories that had been written 122 00:06:18,466 --> 00:06:19,933 in the local papers at the time. 123 00:06:19,933 --> 00:06:23,433 I learned that the strikers were thrown out of their homes, 124 00:06:23,433 --> 00:06:25,933 they were attacked by the Ku Klux Klan, 125 00:06:25,933 --> 00:06:27,500 the men are blackballed from employment. 126 00:06:27,500 --> 00:06:29,000 None of the men ever work again. 127 00:06:29,000 --> 00:06:32,300 All kinds of terrible experiences. 128 00:06:34,666 --> 00:06:38,766 So my little boy essay maps all this out, 129 00:06:38,766 --> 00:06:40,100 and at the end says, 130 00:06:40,100 --> 00:06:41,733 "Martin Luther King came along, 131 00:06:41,733 --> 00:06:43,400 and the Civil Rights Movement solved everything." 132 00:06:43,400 --> 00:06:45,266 That was the conclusion. (laughs) 133 00:06:45,266 --> 00:06:49,400 And so, the day of the contest, I go in. 134 00:06:49,400 --> 00:06:52,500 And, of course, it's a room of about 45 middle-aged white men. 135 00:06:52,500 --> 00:06:54,400 ♪ ♪ 136 00:06:54,400 --> 00:06:56,833 The other students give their speeches, 137 00:06:56,833 --> 00:06:59,500 and then I get up and give my speech about Strike City. 138 00:06:59,500 --> 00:07:02,633 And immediately, as soon as I start speaking, 139 00:07:02,633 --> 00:07:05,133 I realize that something, something's wrong. 140 00:07:05,133 --> 00:07:07,700 As soon as I mention Strike City, 141 00:07:07,700 --> 00:07:10,033 the men in the room begin to snicker. 142 00:07:10,033 --> 00:07:12,900 I was so confused. 143 00:07:12,900 --> 00:07:15,400 Then as I proceed through the speech, 144 00:07:15,400 --> 00:07:18,233 and talk about the courage of the strikers, 145 00:07:18,233 --> 00:07:21,133 they go dead silent. 146 00:07:21,133 --> 00:07:23,933 When I get to the part about the Ku Klux Klan attacking them, 147 00:07:23,933 --> 00:07:26,600 there's no response whatsoever. 148 00:07:26,600 --> 00:07:28,866 I don't win the contest, naturally. 149 00:07:28,866 --> 00:07:32,300 Then afterwards, all the men file by and shake our hands. 150 00:07:32,300 --> 00:07:33,966 But this one fellow stands back, 151 00:07:33,966 --> 00:07:35,800 and waits till the others are gone. 152 00:07:35,800 --> 00:07:39,933 And then he comes up to me, and he attacks. 153 00:07:39,933 --> 00:07:42,400 "Who told you all those things, boy? 154 00:07:42,400 --> 00:07:44,400 "Where did you get all that stuff, boy? 155 00:07:44,400 --> 00:07:46,266 Nothing like that happened." 156 00:07:46,266 --> 00:07:48,233 You know, "Did your momma and daddy tell you all that stuff?" 157 00:07:48,233 --> 00:07:50,666 "They," you know, "They fillin' your head with lies." 158 00:07:50,666 --> 00:07:54,133 And he gets louder and louder, 159 00:07:54,133 --> 00:07:56,466 and I stood there thinking, why is this happening? 160 00:07:56,466 --> 00:07:58,700 Why is this man so angry at me? 161 00:07:58,700 --> 00:08:01,200 And he's yelling and screaming. 162 00:08:01,200 --> 00:08:03,133 Finally, my teacher comes over, 163 00:08:03,133 --> 00:08:06,066 bumps into the guy, and says, "What are you doing?" 164 00:08:06,066 --> 00:08:07,866 And he spins around and takes off. 165 00:08:07,866 --> 00:08:11,566 SINGER: ♪ He'll be there ♪ 166 00:08:11,566 --> 00:08:16,033 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: That was the beginning of my quest. 167 00:08:16,033 --> 00:08:20,200 I became obsessed with trying to get to the bottom of, 168 00:08:20,200 --> 00:08:22,466 you know, why is this the way that things are? 169 00:08:22,466 --> 00:08:26,266 SINGER: ♪ When you want him ♪ 170 00:08:26,266 --> 00:08:28,566 ♪ He's right on time ♪ 171 00:08:28,566 --> 00:08:33,033 ♪ ♪ 172 00:08:35,300 --> 00:08:38,366 (radio tuning) 173 00:08:38,366 --> 00:08:41,300 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: In 1967, my dad was finishing his Ph.D. 174 00:08:41,300 --> 00:08:44,533 and got a job at a research laboratory 175 00:08:44,533 --> 00:08:46,233 in the Mississippi Delta. 176 00:08:46,233 --> 00:08:49,400 So my parents, two older brothers, and I 177 00:08:49,400 --> 00:08:52,300 moved from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to Leland. 178 00:08:52,300 --> 00:08:53,666 (radio tuning) 179 00:08:54,633 --> 00:08:57,600 I was three years old. 180 00:08:57,600 --> 00:09:03,500 ♪ ♪ 181 00:09:10,000 --> 00:09:13,733 For me, that's when this story began. 182 00:09:13,733 --> 00:09:16,333 SARAH BLACKMON: We chose to live in Leland. 183 00:09:16,333 --> 00:09:18,833 We liked that our children would be able 184 00:09:18,833 --> 00:09:21,000 to do things on their own, that they could 185 00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:23,966 ride their bicycles around town. 186 00:09:23,966 --> 00:09:26,433 Uh, we, we liked the idea of a small town. 187 00:09:27,666 --> 00:09:32,633 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: Leland was a busy, growing community in the 1960s. 188 00:09:32,633 --> 00:09:34,866 The farm economy was strong, 189 00:09:34,866 --> 00:09:38,933 particularly for the people who owned large amounts of land. 190 00:09:38,933 --> 00:09:41,700 Almost everyone made their living, 191 00:09:41,700 --> 00:09:43,600 one way or another, 192 00:09:43,600 --> 00:09:46,466 off the vast cotton and soybean fields 193 00:09:46,466 --> 00:09:49,000 that surrounded us. 194 00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:51,033 (pipe organ playing, people singing) 195 00:09:51,033 --> 00:09:55,000 People came from far and wide at Christmas every year 196 00:09:55,000 --> 00:09:57,433 to see the decorations on the wide creek 197 00:09:57,433 --> 00:10:00,033 flowing through the center of town. 198 00:10:01,533 --> 00:10:05,433 (marching band playing) 199 00:10:05,433 --> 00:10:09,433 Every fall, there was football and homecoming parades 200 00:10:09,433 --> 00:10:12,166 that wound through town 201 00:10:12,166 --> 00:10:14,033 and ended up on the field. 202 00:10:14,033 --> 00:10:16,800 (band playing) 203 00:10:16,800 --> 00:10:21,433 Everyone seemed to agree that Leland was a special place, 204 00:10:21,433 --> 00:10:23,833 a little wealthier than most, 205 00:10:23,833 --> 00:10:25,666 better educated, 206 00:10:25,666 --> 00:10:29,466 more tolerant than other places nearby, 207 00:10:29,466 --> 00:10:34,200 and it did have a certain unique spirit. 208 00:10:34,200 --> 00:10:36,933 (marching band continues) 209 00:10:36,933 --> 00:10:40,366 (crowd cheering and applauding) 210 00:10:40,366 --> 00:10:41,966 JAMES LACEY: At that time, 211 00:10:41,966 --> 00:10:45,266 Leland had an unusually good school system. 212 00:10:45,266 --> 00:10:46,700 It was the pride of the community. 213 00:10:46,700 --> 00:10:49,133 I grew up going to the Leland schools. 214 00:10:49,133 --> 00:10:52,266 We rode school bus number 13. (laughs) 215 00:10:52,266 --> 00:10:56,000   High school-- it was a really good time. 216 00:10:56,000 --> 00:10:58,366 And there were 35 people, I think, 217 00:10:58,366 --> 00:11:01,533 in my graduating class in 1960. 218 00:11:01,533 --> 00:11:03,433 (whistle blows, crowd cheering) 219 00:11:03,433 --> 00:11:05,500 ANNOUNCER: Fourth down coming up. 220 00:11:05,500 --> 00:11:06,900 (crowd cheering) 221 00:11:06,900 --> 00:11:10,000 NEILL: Football was the big sport. 222 00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:13,600 Everybody from town was at the game on Friday night. 223 00:11:13,600 --> 00:11:16,200 Everybody rooted for the Cubs. 224 00:11:16,200 --> 00:11:19,466 ♪ ♪ 225 00:11:19,466 --> 00:11:23,033 It was a community-supported... 226 00:11:23,033 --> 00:11:26,833 There again, in, in these terms of modern days, 227 00:11:26,833 --> 00:11:30,733 it was a white- community-supported, um, school. 228 00:11:30,733 --> 00:11:34,433 ♪ ♪ 229 00:11:34,433 --> 00:11:37,833 There was a team on the other side of town. 230 00:11:37,833 --> 00:11:40,700 Gosh, I hate saying it this way. (laughs) 231 00:11:40,700 --> 00:11:42,233 But that's the way it was. 232 00:11:42,233 --> 00:11:43,566 I mean, that's the way we grew up. 233 00:11:43,566 --> 00:11:47,933 ♪ ♪ 234 00:11:47,933 --> 00:11:51,466 BILLY BARBER: Breisch High School was the high school for Black people 235 00:11:51,466 --> 00:11:54,866 and Black athletes in Leland, Mississippi. 236 00:11:54,866 --> 00:11:55,933 You know, they did a good job. 237 00:11:55,933 --> 00:11:57,266 They competed, they... 238 00:11:57,266 --> 00:11:58,700 They, they played for titles. 239 00:11:58,700 --> 00:12:00,866 We had one of the best 240 00:12:00,866 --> 00:12:02,833 basketball teams in the state. 241 00:12:02,833 --> 00:12:06,200 Basketball, football, track. 242 00:12:06,200 --> 00:12:08,733 We didn't have a gym. 243 00:12:08,733 --> 00:12:10,600 We played on the bare ground outside. 244 00:12:10,600 --> 00:12:12,600 We had a football field. 245 00:12:12,600 --> 00:12:14,133 It wasn't, you know, 246 00:12:14,133 --> 00:12:16,500 with the bleachers and all, but you had a football field. 247 00:12:16,500 --> 00:12:19,166 Oh, we had good, some great ballplayers. 248 00:12:19,166 --> 00:12:20,766 Had some great ballplayers. 249 00:12:20,766 --> 00:12:22,933 They would even have a crowd, 250 00:12:22,933 --> 00:12:26,800 a cheering crowd, a supportive crowd. 251 00:12:26,800 --> 00:12:28,333 Loved the mascot. 252 00:12:28,333 --> 00:12:29,633 We were the, the Braves. 253 00:12:29,633 --> 00:12:32,600 The Breisch High Braves. 254 00:12:32,600 --> 00:12:35,733 BARBER: You know, you take Breisch High 255 00:12:35,733 --> 00:12:37,600 and go back and check the history, 256 00:12:37,600 --> 00:12:42,000 they could compete with any team in the state of Mississippi. 257 00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:46,133 ♪ ♪ 258 00:12:46,133 --> 00:12:49,400 The school was like the center of social life 259 00:12:49,400 --> 00:12:53,500 for the Black people in Leland. 260 00:12:53,500 --> 00:12:56,633 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: The crazy thing was, 261 00:12:56,633 --> 00:12:59,500 racial segregation was illegal. 262 00:12:59,500 --> 00:13:02,300 15 years had passed 263 00:13:02,300 --> 00:13:05,733 since the Supreme Court declared in 1954 264 00:13:05,733 --> 00:13:09,400 that segregation had to be dismantled forever. 265 00:13:09,400 --> 00:13:11,066 But during those years, 266 00:13:11,066 --> 00:13:14,700 Leland remained two very separate worlds: 267 00:13:14,700 --> 00:13:18,900 one white and one Black. 268 00:13:18,900 --> 00:13:21,700 In the white version, 269 00:13:21,700 --> 00:13:24,133 many people were still enthralled with 270 00:13:24,133 --> 00:13:28,866 "Gone With the Wind" fantasies about Confederate officers, 271 00:13:28,866 --> 00:13:31,400 Southern belles, 272 00:13:31,400 --> 00:13:34,800 and ugly racial attitudes. 273 00:13:34,800 --> 00:13:38,800 (people talking and laughing, "Evalyne" playing) 274 00:13:38,800 --> 00:13:42,033 Then, in 1969, 275 00:13:42,033 --> 00:13:44,066 something enormous happened. 276 00:13:44,066 --> 00:13:46,133 The Supreme Court spoke again. 277 00:13:46,133 --> 00:13:49,233 There could be no more delays. 278 00:13:49,233 --> 00:13:51,766 All separate Black and white schools 279 00:13:51,766 --> 00:13:56,233 had to be completely combined, almost overnight. 280 00:13:56,233 --> 00:13:57,566 A giant social experiment 281 00:13:57,566 --> 00:14:00,700 that would radically change American society 282 00:14:00,700 --> 00:14:02,300 was beginning. 283 00:14:02,300 --> 00:14:05,466 Dr. Martin Luther King's dream of a nation 284 00:14:05,466 --> 00:14:08,833 where the children of former slaves and slave owners 285 00:14:08,833 --> 00:14:10,566 would grow up together 286 00:14:10,566 --> 00:14:14,033 was finally supposed to be happening. 287 00:14:14,033 --> 00:14:16,633 And somehow, all those millions of kids 288 00:14:16,633 --> 00:14:22,200 were expected to heal America's racial divide. 289 00:14:23,433 --> 00:14:25,066 In the fall of 1970, 290 00:14:25,066 --> 00:14:28,900 my hometown's first fully integrated class 291 00:14:28,900 --> 00:14:30,900 of Black and white first-graders 292 00:14:30,900 --> 00:14:33,033 began school together-- 293 00:14:33,033 --> 00:14:37,633 on the same day, in the same classrooms, 294 00:14:37,633 --> 00:14:40,733 with the same teachers and books. 295 00:14:40,733 --> 00:14:44,533 And that was my class. 296 00:14:46,500 --> 00:14:48,400 GORDON-MURRAY: When we started the first grade, 297 00:14:48,400 --> 00:14:50,666 I didn't know anything that was going on. 298 00:14:50,666 --> 00:14:52,533 You know, I was six years old, 299 00:14:52,533 --> 00:14:54,300 so I didn't know anything about anything. 300 00:14:54,300 --> 00:14:57,100 We were excited just to be in school. 301 00:14:57,100 --> 00:14:59,766 ♪ ♪ 302 00:14:59,766 --> 00:15:02,700 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: As the first day of first grade was coming up, 303 00:15:02,700 --> 00:15:04,866 I had absolutely no idea 304 00:15:04,866 --> 00:15:07,666 that there was anything whatsoever happening 305 00:15:07,666 --> 00:15:08,900 except that school was beginning, 306 00:15:08,900 --> 00:15:10,100 and I finally got to go. 307 00:15:10,100 --> 00:15:12,666 There was no conversation about, 308 00:15:12,666 --> 00:15:15,500 you know, anything, you know, being different. 309 00:15:15,500 --> 00:15:18,100 We were just going to another school. 310 00:15:18,100 --> 00:15:19,333 Be on your best behavior, you know? 311 00:15:19,333 --> 00:15:20,800 Like your parents would want you to. 312 00:15:20,800 --> 00:15:23,066 There were Black kids in my class. 313 00:15:23,066 --> 00:15:26,000 That didn't strike me as surprising or unusual, 314 00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:28,300 because it was the only thing I... 315 00:15:28,300 --> 00:15:30,166 It was the only kind of school I knew. 316 00:15:30,166 --> 00:15:33,500 DONALD RICHARDSON: From a, a five-year-old's perspective, 317 00:15:33,500 --> 00:15:35,833 there was no difference in the children. 318 00:15:35,833 --> 00:15:36,933 Black, white. 319 00:15:36,933 --> 00:15:38,733 MCCANDLISH: I didn't really have 320 00:15:38,733 --> 00:15:40,866 any awareness of the racial integration. 321 00:15:40,866 --> 00:15:43,966 I think I was just trying to make new friends. 322 00:15:43,966 --> 00:15:46,833 JESSIE KING: It was the very first time I experienced... 323 00:15:46,833 --> 00:15:48,966 The experience of interacting 324 00:15:48,966 --> 00:15:50,833 with the white students 325 00:15:50,833 --> 00:15:52,500 was at the school, 326 00:15:52,500 --> 00:15:54,500 and I thought it was cool. 327 00:15:54,500 --> 00:15:59,000 BARBER: I came from a Head Start in Strike City 328 00:15:59,000 --> 00:16:01,400 that was all-Black. 329 00:16:01,400 --> 00:16:03,666 And going to school and, you know, 330 00:16:03,666 --> 00:16:06,000 there was some white here and white there. 331 00:16:06,000 --> 00:16:10,366 I mean, it wasn't just something that I saw every day. 332 00:16:11,666 --> 00:16:15,033 KING: We all were receiving the same multiplication facts. 333 00:16:15,033 --> 00:16:17,833 We were all getting the same vowel sounds. 334 00:16:17,833 --> 00:16:19,866 We were all reading from 335 00:16:19,866 --> 00:16:22,200 "Sally, Dick, and Jane" books. 336 00:16:22,200 --> 00:16:23,900 There was no difference. 337 00:16:23,900 --> 00:16:25,333 It was school. 338 00:16:25,333 --> 00:16:27,266 It was first grade. 339 00:16:27,266 --> 00:16:30,066 I was, I was allowed to be a first-grader 340 00:16:30,066 --> 00:16:33,200 without the shackles of the responsibility that, 341 00:16:33,200 --> 00:16:35,800 "You are in the first class of integration, 342 00:16:35,800 --> 00:16:37,500 "as a first-grader. 343 00:16:37,500 --> 00:16:41,933 Our hopes and dreams are on your shoulders." 344 00:16:41,933 --> 00:16:43,033 I didn't have any of that. 345 00:16:44,166 --> 00:16:45,800 And I think that's... 346 00:16:45,800 --> 00:16:47,700 That's pretty good, for my parents. 347 00:16:47,700 --> 00:16:49,233 Not to have scared me out of... 348 00:16:49,233 --> 00:16:51,500 (laughing): ...scared me out of my wits 349 00:16:51,500 --> 00:16:54,266 about, you know, racial situations, 350 00:16:54,266 --> 00:16:57,900 being where we're from. 351 00:16:59,366 --> 00:17:00,800 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: None of that 352 00:17:00,800 --> 00:17:02,400 should have been necessary. 353 00:17:02,400 --> 00:17:04,166 JAMES M. NABRIT, JR.: It is my opinion that the South 354 00:17:04,166 --> 00:17:08,400 will comply with the decision of the court and accept it. 355 00:17:08,400 --> 00:17:11,133 I don't think there's any question about it in the South. 356 00:17:11,133 --> 00:17:14,833 People in the South are just as law-abiding as anybody else. 357 00:17:14,833 --> 00:17:18,900 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: In the years since the Supreme Court decision in 1954, 358 00:17:18,900 --> 00:17:22,000 segregation was supposed to have disappeared. 359 00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:26,066 But in Mississippi and almost everywhere in the South, 360 00:17:26,066 --> 00:17:28,066 nothing had truly changed. 361 00:17:29,200 --> 00:17:31,166 WOMAN: I'm against the niggers and the whites 362 00:17:31,166 --> 00:17:32,300 going to school together. 363 00:17:32,300 --> 00:17:33,800 I think that, um, 364 00:17:33,800 --> 00:17:37,100 we as white people have developed an air of superiority 365 00:17:37,100 --> 00:17:38,433 over their race. 366 00:17:39,566 --> 00:17:40,866 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: In a few places, 367 00:17:40,866 --> 00:17:43,400 like Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas, 368 00:17:43,400 --> 00:17:46,800 a handful of Black students were eventually able 369 00:17:46,800 --> 00:17:50,500 to enroll in previously all-white schools. 370 00:17:50,500 --> 00:17:53,000 (shouting) 371 00:17:53,000 --> 00:17:54,666 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: But soon, huge numbers of white Southerners 372 00:17:54,666 --> 00:17:57,333 were fighting tooth and nail 373 00:17:57,333 --> 00:18:00,566 to preserve segregation. 374 00:18:00,566 --> 00:18:02,833 VERONICA RICHARDSON: The Little Rock Nine, 375 00:18:02,833 --> 00:18:05,900 we were glued to the newspapers and to the television. 376 00:18:05,900 --> 00:18:07,700 We didn't participate in it 377 00:18:07,700 --> 00:18:09,233 too much around here. 378 00:18:09,233 --> 00:18:10,833 I guess it was a little too risky, 379 00:18:10,833 --> 00:18:13,400   but we were glued to it and we talked about it. 380 00:18:13,400 --> 00:18:17,533 We were so happy that somebody did that. 381 00:18:17,533 --> 00:18:18,833 COLEMAN: Where we were, 382 00:18:18,833 --> 00:18:21,600 whatever was going on in Little Rock 383 00:18:21,600 --> 00:18:24,233 wasn't about to happen here-- not any time soon. 384 00:18:24,233 --> 00:18:27,633 ♪ ♪ 385 00:18:30,166 --> 00:18:33,133 (insects chirping) 386 00:18:33,133 --> 00:18:34,566 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: No place in America 387 00:18:34,566 --> 00:18:38,200 has a more terrible past than Mississippi, 388 00:18:38,200 --> 00:18:40,966 with its long abuse of African Americans 389 00:18:40,966 --> 00:18:45,000 and violent resistance to racial equality. 390 00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:47,633 ♪ ♪ 391 00:18:47,633 --> 00:18:49,366 But as a young child, 392 00:18:49,366 --> 00:18:52,133 I had almost no understanding of that. 393 00:18:52,133 --> 00:18:56,233 No one ever spoke of the nightmare lynching in Leland 394 00:18:56,233 --> 00:18:59,533 50 years earlier. 395 00:18:59,533 --> 00:19:02,733 Or the murder in 1955 of a Black pastor 396 00:19:02,733 --> 00:19:03,966 on the other end of the county 397 00:19:03,966 --> 00:19:07,566 after he began registering Black voters. 398 00:19:07,566 --> 00:19:11,400 Or the church burnings and KKK rallies not far away. 399 00:19:13,066 --> 00:19:16,533 Or the two civil rights workers beaten in Leland 400 00:19:16,533 --> 00:19:19,400 during Freedom Summer in 1964, 401 00:19:19,400 --> 00:19:23,766 the year I and most of my classmates were born. 402 00:19:23,766 --> 00:19:27,566 I can't remember hearing anything about Emmett Till, 403 00:19:27,566 --> 00:19:30,333 the African American 14-year-old 404 00:19:30,333 --> 00:19:33,933 brutally killed barely 50 miles from my hometown 405 00:19:33,933 --> 00:19:38,600 for supposedly whistling at a white woman. 406 00:19:40,233 --> 00:19:44,866 And the grown-ups I knew rarely ever offered any explanation 407 00:19:44,866 --> 00:19:46,733 for why Black people all around us 408 00:19:46,733 --> 00:19:52,033 suffered such relentless, grinding poverty. 409 00:19:52,033 --> 00:19:55,566 That was at the heart of racial segregation, 410 00:19:55,566 --> 00:19:58,866 and separating Black and white children during the school day 411 00:19:58,866 --> 00:20:03,733 was the cornerstone of an entire system of life designed 412 00:20:03,733 --> 00:20:07,933 to deny education and services for Black children 413 00:20:07,933 --> 00:20:09,533 and to trap their parents 414 00:20:09,533 --> 00:20:12,000 in work that made some white people wealthy, 415 00:20:12,000 --> 00:20:16,600 but left millions of Black families desperate. 416 00:20:16,600 --> 00:20:20,266 VERNICE SANDERS: My family were sharecroppers. 417 00:20:20,266 --> 00:20:22,600 Any family that lives on a farm, 418 00:20:22,600 --> 00:20:24,900 you know, their kids was out there, too. 419 00:20:26,100 --> 00:20:28,433   We chopped cotton, picked cotton. 420 00:20:28,433 --> 00:20:30,733 It was a hard, difficult life. 421 00:20:30,733 --> 00:20:34,966 I really wanted an education. 422 00:20:34,966 --> 00:20:36,666 I would get up early in the morning 423 00:20:36,666 --> 00:20:40,700 and go out and do work, and then go to school. 424 00:20:42,066 --> 00:20:44,466 But the boss man stopped that. 425 00:20:44,466 --> 00:20:48,466 He told my dad that I had to be out there chopping cotton. 426 00:20:48,466 --> 00:20:50,000 And so I had to go to school 427 00:20:50,000 --> 00:20:51,800 whenever there wasn't anything else to do. 428 00:20:53,566 --> 00:20:56,400 SCOTT: We picked cotton and worked in the field, 429 00:20:56,400 --> 00:20:58,866 but we owned our own farm. 430 00:20:58,866 --> 00:21:01,466 We, we weren't on a white person's farm. 431 00:21:01,466 --> 00:21:02,966 (insects chirping) 432 00:21:02,966 --> 00:21:06,366 One day, my daddy had gone to the cotton gin. 433 00:21:06,366 --> 00:21:09,733 (chuckling): And I got on my knees in the cotton. 434 00:21:09,733 --> 00:21:11,700 Boy, he didn't like you to get on your knees. 435 00:21:11,700 --> 00:21:13,766 And I prayed. 436 00:21:13,766 --> 00:21:15,533 I asked the Lord, I said, "Lord, you got to help me 437 00:21:15,533 --> 00:21:17,000 to find something else to do." 438 00:21:17,000 --> 00:21:20,466 I said, "I can't stay in this cotton field all my life." 439 00:21:20,466 --> 00:21:21,800 So I made up my mind. 440 00:21:21,800 --> 00:21:22,933 I said, "I want to go to school. 441 00:21:22,933 --> 00:21:24,500 I want to go to college." 442 00:21:24,500 --> 00:21:27,833 So when my dad came back, I went up to him and I said, 443 00:21:27,833 --> 00:21:29,666 "Dad," I said, "I, I want to go to school." 444 00:21:29,666 --> 00:21:30,933 He said, "You want to go to school?" 445 00:21:30,933 --> 00:21:32,100 He said, "You go to school." 446 00:21:32,100 --> 00:21:33,733 I said, "I want to go to college," 447 00:21:33,733 --> 00:21:34,800 I said, "when I finish school." 448 00:21:34,800 --> 00:21:36,600 He, he hesitated, 449 00:21:36,600 --> 00:21:38,100 and he waited a minute. 450 00:21:38,100 --> 00:21:39,566 He said, "Well, if you want to go," 451 00:21:39,566 --> 00:21:41,666 he said, "I'll help you, if that's what you want to do." 452 00:21:41,666 --> 00:21:43,033 And he did. 453 00:21:43,033 --> 00:21:45,300 ♪ ♪ 454 00:21:45,300 --> 00:21:49,866 COLEMAN: I was born and raised here in Leland, Mississippi. 455 00:21:49,866 --> 00:21:52,300 My father died before I was born, 456 00:21:52,300 --> 00:21:54,233 so my mom raised me. 457 00:21:55,600 --> 00:21:58,100 (laughing): I'm the only hell she ever raised. 458 00:21:58,100 --> 00:21:59,700 ♪ ♪ 459 00:21:59,700 --> 00:22:02,033 We lived in a little shotgun house 460 00:22:02,033 --> 00:22:05,333 in an area called Black Dog. 461 00:22:05,333 --> 00:22:07,000 I think what we're talking about here 462 00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:09,166 is the different sides of the track. 463 00:22:09,166 --> 00:22:10,433 We lived over on this side. 464 00:22:10,433 --> 00:22:13,200 Was a completely segregated neighborhood, 465 00:22:13,200 --> 00:22:15,133 completely segregated. 466 00:22:15,133 --> 00:22:17,666 That's the way we grew up. 467 00:22:17,666 --> 00:22:21,666 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: Veronica Richardson-- still Mrs. Richardson to me-- 468 00:22:21,666 --> 00:22:24,833 was one of the daughters of A.B. Levison, 469 00:22:24,833 --> 00:22:26,900 probably the most influential 470 00:22:26,900 --> 00:22:29,533 African American leader in my town 471 00:22:29,533 --> 00:22:32,300 in the years of segregation. 472 00:22:32,300 --> 00:22:34,533 He had been in charge of Leland's Black schools 473 00:22:34,533 --> 00:22:36,900   since the 1940s, 474 00:22:36,900 --> 00:22:40,333 quietly walking an impossible tightrope, 475 00:22:40,333 --> 00:22:43,600 pushing white leaders to provide more for schools 476 00:22:43,600 --> 00:22:46,166 that were overflowing with Black students, 477 00:22:46,166 --> 00:22:50,200 but always knowing that the slightest push too hard 478 00:22:50,200 --> 00:22:52,866 would backfire. 479 00:22:52,866 --> 00:22:55,866 My dad was the principal at this school, 480 00:22:55,866 --> 00:22:58,000 and we lived on the school campus. 481 00:22:58,000 --> 00:23:01,333 Our house was across the street. 482 00:23:01,333 --> 00:23:05,433 (chuckles): So I actually rode my bicycle all around the schoolyard. 483 00:23:08,333 --> 00:23:11,200 COLEMAN: The area where I lived was a lot of families. 484 00:23:11,200 --> 00:23:13,633 Two-parent families, most of them. 485 00:23:13,633 --> 00:23:14,966 If it was a single-parent, 486 00:23:14,966 --> 00:23:18,166 Mama took care of business. 487 00:23:18,166 --> 00:23:20,833 Was very supportive of education, 488 00:23:20,833 --> 00:23:23,333 because at that time, that was your only way out. 489 00:23:25,700 --> 00:23:27,466 Your restaurants-- 490 00:23:27,466 --> 00:23:30,300 you had to go to the back door. 491 00:23:30,300 --> 00:23:33,333 SANDERS: I worked at the Leland Cafe for years. 492 00:23:33,333 --> 00:23:34,733 Even though I was a cook, 493 00:23:34,733 --> 00:23:36,500 I had to come through the back door to cook. 494 00:23:36,500 --> 00:23:39,466 Doctors, they had an entrance for Black people 495 00:23:39,466 --> 00:23:41,100 and they had an entrance 496 00:23:41,100 --> 00:23:42,266 for white people. 497 00:23:42,266 --> 00:23:44,933 They had a waiting room for Black people 498 00:23:44,933 --> 00:23:46,800 and they had a waiting room for white people. 499 00:23:46,800 --> 00:23:49,800 VERONICA RICHARDSON: The thing that I hated, though, 500 00:23:49,800 --> 00:23:53,366 was the fact that I couldn't go to the library downtown, 501 00:23:53,366 --> 00:23:54,500 the city library. 502 00:23:54,500 --> 00:23:57,033 We would pass by, 503 00:23:57,033 --> 00:23:58,900 and I'd want to look in, you know. 504 00:23:58,900 --> 00:24:00,900 But, "No, you can't stop there." 505 00:24:00,900 --> 00:24:03,800 They didn't really tell me why. 506 00:24:03,800 --> 00:24:05,533 ♪ ♪ 507 00:24:05,533 --> 00:24:08,266 COLEMAN: We passed by the Leland Hotel down there, 508 00:24:08,266 --> 00:24:10,366 and it was nice linen on, 509 00:24:10,366 --> 00:24:11,866 and you peep in the window. 510 00:24:11,866 --> 00:24:13,166 But I always thought, "One of these days, 511 00:24:13,166 --> 00:24:14,633 I'm going to be able to do that, too." 512 00:24:14,633 --> 00:24:17,333 WOOLFOLK: The Temple Theater. 513 00:24:17,333 --> 00:24:21,066 The Black people had to sit in the balcony, 514 00:24:21,066 --> 00:24:24,400 and the white people sat on the floor. 515 00:24:24,400 --> 00:24:26,066 It just didn't feel right. 516 00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:29,300 SANDERS: This lady had hired me 517 00:24:29,300 --> 00:24:31,966 to do some housecleaning for her. 518 00:24:31,966 --> 00:24:34,200 This one time, I was working, 519 00:24:34,200 --> 00:24:36,533 she went to bridge club or something and she left me there. 520 00:24:37,600 --> 00:24:40,933 The phone rang, so I picked up and said hello, 521 00:24:40,933 --> 00:24:43,033 and she didn't hear me. 522 00:24:43,033 --> 00:24:45,966 And she was talking to somebody in the background, 523 00:24:45,966 --> 00:24:51,833 and she said she had to call to check on... 524 00:24:51,833 --> 00:24:55,566 This N, to see what this N is doing. 525 00:24:55,566 --> 00:24:58,333 It, it really did something to me. 526 00:24:58,333 --> 00:25:00,100 It really did. 527 00:25:02,133 --> 00:25:06,400 ♪ ♪ 528 00:25:08,166 --> 00:25:10,033 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: My family wasn't wealthy, 529 00:25:10,033 --> 00:25:13,200 but we had a comfortable life. 530 00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:16,433 Dad had a good job. 531 00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:22,033 Mom taught algebra at Leland High. 532 00:25:22,033 --> 00:25:25,533 We lived in a little house on Redbud Drive. 533 00:25:25,533 --> 00:25:26,700 Birthday parties, 534 00:25:26,700 --> 00:25:28,466 camping trips, 535 00:25:28,466 --> 00:25:30,733 and every year what seemed like 536 00:25:30,733 --> 00:25:32,900 a perfect Christmas. 537 00:25:32,900 --> 00:25:34,200 It was a long time 538 00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:37,433 before I realized just how different that was 539 00:25:37,433 --> 00:25:41,466 from the lives of so many of my classmates. 540 00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:46,733 KING: When I was very young, 541 00:25:46,733 --> 00:25:50,800 we were living on Neill's Plantation. 542 00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:54,733 The Black families were sharecroppers. 543 00:25:54,733 --> 00:25:58,900 My dad drove tractors, plowed fields, 544 00:25:58,900 --> 00:26:01,966 worked at the barn. 545 00:26:01,966 --> 00:26:05,666 My mom was the maid for a white family. 546 00:26:05,666 --> 00:26:08,300 And they worked all the time-- all the time. 547 00:26:10,366 --> 00:26:12,233 CEDRIC BUSH: I lived on Walker Farm. 548 00:26:12,233 --> 00:26:14,300 Mr. Jimmy Walker was the owner of the farm, 549 00:26:14,300 --> 00:26:19,166 and my dad did dairy farming for him. 550 00:26:19,166 --> 00:26:23,100   You raised hogs, and we had cows, we had goats. 551 00:26:23,100 --> 00:26:26,133 It was a difficult life-- it was really a difficult life. 552 00:26:27,733 --> 00:26:30,833 We had a shotgun house. 553 00:26:30,833 --> 00:26:32,800 We didn't have heat. 554 00:26:32,800 --> 00:26:37,133 We did not have indoor plumbing. 555 00:26:37,133 --> 00:26:38,433 (water stops) 556 00:26:38,433 --> 00:26:43,300 BUSH: We had outside toilets-- outhouses. 557 00:26:43,300 --> 00:26:45,133 We had to go out to the outhouses 558 00:26:45,133 --> 00:26:48,633 by yourself at night, with creepy-crawly things outside. 559 00:26:50,833 --> 00:26:52,800 Later, we moved from one community to another. 560 00:26:52,800 --> 00:26:55,500 We had a chance to experience having an inside toilet. 561 00:26:55,500 --> 00:26:56,933 That was in 1977. 562 00:26:56,933 --> 00:26:58,566 Yeah, I thought it was the greatest thing on Earth, 563 00:26:58,566 --> 00:26:59,766 the greatest invention on Earth. 564 00:27:01,933 --> 00:27:05,300 KING: My dad had accepted, "This is how it is. 565 00:27:05,300 --> 00:27:08,066 This is the way it's going to be." 566 00:27:08,066 --> 00:27:12,200 But my mom always thought that there must be a better way. 567 00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:14,333 (insects chirping) 568 00:27:14,333 --> 00:27:18,766 I'll never forget this particular evening. 569 00:27:18,766 --> 00:27:22,400 We were sitting on the porch, waiting on him to get off work. 570 00:27:23,466 --> 00:27:25,533 We did that every day, 571 00:27:25,533 --> 00:27:27,833 because we didn't eat before he got home. 572 00:27:29,300 --> 00:27:32,600 Back then, there were straw bosses 573 00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:37,033 or plantation managers who supervised the laborers. 574 00:27:37,033 --> 00:27:40,566 My father must have done something that, um, 575 00:27:40,566 --> 00:27:44,900 did not gel with the straw boss, 576 00:27:44,900 --> 00:27:46,533 and he kicked him 577 00:27:46,533 --> 00:27:48,333 once he got out of the truck and... 578 00:27:48,333 --> 00:27:49,533 SAM POLLARD: He kicked your father? 579 00:27:49,533 --> 00:27:50,533 Kicked my father, 580 00:27:50,533 --> 00:27:52,300 in front of my mom 581 00:27:52,300 --> 00:27:55,166 and my brothers and sisters. 582 00:27:56,233 --> 00:28:00,666 I was shocked, because that was my dad. 583 00:28:00,666 --> 00:28:02,200 I was so shocked 584 00:28:02,200 --> 00:28:05,533 that I didn't know what to say, what to do. 585 00:28:05,533 --> 00:28:07,466 It was like we were frozen, 586 00:28:07,466 --> 00:28:12,766 we were hurt, because that was our hero. 587 00:28:12,766 --> 00:28:15,166 My mom, of course, 588 00:28:15,166 --> 00:28:19,433 knew that if he had struck back, 589 00:28:19,433 --> 00:28:21,666 he would also die. 590 00:28:21,666 --> 00:28:23,166 She knew that. 591 00:28:24,733 --> 00:28:28,333 That was the straw that broke the camel's back for her. 592 00:28:28,333 --> 00:28:32,533 She wanted her children not to be trapped on a plantation. 593 00:28:32,533 --> 00:28:36,300 She wanted her children to get an education, 594 00:28:36,300 --> 00:28:38,500 where he and she were not granted one. 595 00:28:38,500 --> 00:28:41,600 My mom packed everything, 596 00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:44,900 and we moved to Leland. 597 00:28:44,900 --> 00:28:48,733 And when Dad got off work, he found an empty house. 598 00:28:48,733 --> 00:28:51,833 Next thing we knew, he had shown up. 599 00:28:51,833 --> 00:28:54,133 I think he said, "What are you doing here? 600 00:28:54,133 --> 00:28:56,333 Who told you to do this?" 601 00:28:56,333 --> 00:28:59,500 And her response was, "Your bath water's ready." 602 00:28:59,500 --> 00:29:03,966 And next thing I knew, he was in there taking a bath, 603 00:29:03,966 --> 00:29:07,166 and that was the end of the story. 604 00:29:09,066 --> 00:29:12,166 When I came to Leland in 1953, 605 00:29:12,166 --> 00:29:15,466 the building that the elementary students were in 606 00:29:15,466 --> 00:29:17,200 was a wooden building. 607 00:29:17,200 --> 00:29:19,233 COLEMAN: I started first grade there. 608 00:29:19,233 --> 00:29:21,500 I doubt if there were ten rooms in there. 609 00:29:21,500 --> 00:29:24,333 But it was one long hallway. 610 00:29:24,333 --> 00:29:26,866 And on each side, there were your classrooms. 611 00:29:26,866 --> 00:29:30,500   The textbooks had been used when they came over. 612 00:29:30,500 --> 00:29:34,000 They might have somebody's name in the front of them. 613 00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:38,266 SCOTT: We didn't have a lot of materials and things like that, 614 00:29:38,266 --> 00:29:40,966 but we worked well with what we had. 615 00:29:40,966 --> 00:29:42,633 You had dedicated teachers, 616 00:29:42,633 --> 00:29:44,000 people who cared about the students, 617 00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:48,366 and saw their needs, and just really helped them. 618 00:29:48,366 --> 00:29:51,300 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: For most white people in Mississippi, 619 00:29:51,300 --> 00:29:55,866 making the changes ordered by the Supreme Court in 1954 620 00:29:55,866 --> 00:29:59,733 was unimaginable, or even repulsive. 621 00:29:59,733 --> 00:30:03,333 So instead of abolishing racially separate schools, 622 00:30:03,333 --> 00:30:06,700 Mississippi did exactly the opposite, 623 00:30:06,700 --> 00:30:10,866 launching an aggressive campaign to convince the rest of America 624 00:30:10,866 --> 00:30:13,833 that white and Black people should remain separate forever, 625 00:30:13,833 --> 00:30:16,866 and began building and expanding 626 00:30:16,866 --> 00:30:20,200 even more segregated schools. 627 00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:23,666 Since 1956, 628 00:30:23,666 --> 00:30:25,700 the state legislature 629 00:30:25,700 --> 00:30:28,200 has provided $80 million 630 00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:29,833 for school construction. 631 00:30:29,833 --> 00:30:33,933 70% has been spent for colored schools 632 00:30:33,933 --> 00:30:37,033 and 30% for white schools. 633 00:30:37,033 --> 00:30:40,866 Each week for the past three years, 634 00:30:40,866 --> 00:30:45,166 we have completed an average of three new buildings 635 00:30:45,166 --> 00:30:47,200 or additions to buildings. 636 00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:52,700 Contracts have been awarded for over 5,000 classrooms, 637 00:30:52,700 --> 00:30:56,700 about 3,500 for colored children 638 00:30:56,700 --> 00:30:59,866 and approximately 1,500 for white children. 639 00:31:01,700 --> 00:31:03,566 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: Leland's all-white school board 640 00:31:03,566 --> 00:31:05,966 doubled down on segregation, too, 641 00:31:05,966 --> 00:31:08,466 adding a new classroom wing, 642 00:31:08,466 --> 00:31:12,800 gymnasium, cafeteria, and library 643 00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:17,900 to the dilapidated school for African American kids. 644 00:31:17,900 --> 00:31:21,633 And they named it, yes, after Abraham Lincoln. 645 00:31:21,633 --> 00:31:24,633 ♪ ♪ 646 00:31:24,633 --> 00:31:28,666 An aerial photograph of Leland's Black campus 647 00:31:28,666 --> 00:31:31,733 was added to the Mississippi history textbook 648 00:31:31,733 --> 00:31:35,133 used by almost every ninth-grader in the state, 649 00:31:35,133 --> 00:31:38,700 including me, 25 years later. 650 00:31:38,700 --> 00:31:40,700 The caption described it as a model 651 00:31:40,700 --> 00:31:45,033 for the education of Black pupils. 652 00:31:46,166 --> 00:31:48,633 Nothing else changed for a decade. 653 00:31:48,633 --> 00:31:50,333 Black and white children 654 00:31:50,333 --> 00:31:53,366 still attended completely separate schools. 655 00:31:53,366 --> 00:31:56,666 Until 1965, when the federal government 656 00:31:56,666 --> 00:31:59,566 finally began pressuring Southern schools 657 00:31:59,566 --> 00:32:01,900 to obey the law. 658 00:32:01,900 --> 00:32:05,633 Leland adopted what was called a "freedom of choice" plan 659 00:32:05,633 --> 00:32:10,166 that supposedly allowed any family, regardless of race, 660 00:32:10,166 --> 00:32:12,966 to attend whichever school they chose. 661 00:32:14,233 --> 00:32:17,766 SANDERS: My daughter, under freedom of choice, she went to 662 00:32:17,766 --> 00:32:19,500 the Leland High School in the ninth grade, 663 00:32:19,500 --> 00:32:21,366 and integrated the school. 664 00:32:21,366 --> 00:32:23,133 TEACHER: All the people... 665 00:32:23,133 --> 00:32:25,133 SANDERS: I thought by having these integrated schools, 666 00:32:25,133 --> 00:32:26,933 that our kids would have an opportunity 667 00:32:26,933 --> 00:32:30,766 to have a better education-- this is what I thought. 668 00:32:30,766 --> 00:32:35,633 WOOLFOLK: I was very much aware of freedom of choice, 669 00:32:35,633 --> 00:32:37,166 and that I could have chosen 670 00:32:37,166 --> 00:32:41,500 to go to the white school. 671 00:32:41,500 --> 00:32:46,800 As little girl, you know, I was very fair. 672 00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:49,500 And I remember talking to my mother and dad about, 673 00:32:49,500 --> 00:32:52,766 I could go to the white school. 674 00:32:52,766 --> 00:32:54,833 I said I would fit right in, 675 00:32:54,833 --> 00:32:57,366 and my mother said, "You are going to Lincoln." 676 00:32:57,366 --> 00:32:59,733 SCOTT: At that time, 677 00:32:59,733 --> 00:33:02,733 I was assistant principal of the Black elementary school. 678 00:33:02,733 --> 00:33:04,700 Several Black students went over there. 679 00:33:04,700 --> 00:33:08,300 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: And how many white students chose to go to the Black school? 680 00:33:08,300 --> 00:33:10,066 None. 681 00:33:11,433 --> 00:33:13,700 Wasn't any white students over here. 682 00:33:13,700 --> 00:33:16,100 None. 683 00:33:19,033 --> 00:33:20,500 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: In reality, 684 00:33:20,500 --> 00:33:22,500 freedom of choice was a ruse, 685 00:33:22,500 --> 00:33:26,166 designed to technically comply with federal law, 686 00:33:26,166 --> 00:33:29,200 but for all practical intents and purposes, 687 00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:32,066 still preserve segregation. 688 00:33:32,066 --> 00:33:36,100 No white family was ever going to choose the Black school, 689 00:33:36,100 --> 00:33:40,566 and Black parents knew there could be serious consequences 690 00:33:40,566 --> 00:33:44,366 if they sent their children to the all-white schools. 691 00:33:44,366 --> 00:33:48,900 VERONICA RICHARDSON: A few Black parents sent their children to the white school, 692 00:33:48,900 --> 00:33:52,433 even though you knew that you would have 693 00:33:52,433 --> 00:33:55,233 some animosity toward you. 694 00:33:56,300 --> 00:33:58,733 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: That threat was real. 695 00:33:58,733 --> 00:34:01,933 As far back as the 1950s, the state of Mississippi 696 00:34:01,933 --> 00:34:04,000 established a sovereignty commission 697 00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:06,000 with private detectives 698 00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:08,900 and its own agents to spy on and harass 699 00:34:08,900 --> 00:34:11,666 anyone who supported the Civil Rights Movement. 700 00:34:14,166 --> 00:34:17,600 They even hired a paid informant in Leland. 701 00:34:18,766 --> 00:34:21,633 And when local police heard that the town plumber, 702 00:34:21,633 --> 00:34:24,633 a Black man named B.T. Grossley, 703 00:34:24,633 --> 00:34:28,566 had secretly formed a local chapter of the NAACP, 704 00:34:28,566 --> 00:34:31,900 they threatened that white customers would refuse 705 00:34:31,900 --> 00:34:35,166 to hire him and ruin his business. 706 00:34:37,166 --> 00:34:40,600 But there was one group of African Americans 707 00:34:40,600 --> 00:34:42,800 who had little to fear anymore. 708 00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:48,333 The families out at Strike City already had lost everything. 709 00:34:48,333 --> 00:34:50,333 They never got their homes or jobs back. 710 00:34:50,333 --> 00:34:54,633 They'd been harassed and terrorized. 711 00:34:54,633 --> 00:34:57,633 But still, they managed to build for themselves houses 712 00:34:57,633 --> 00:35:00,366 and a meeting hall. 713 00:35:00,366 --> 00:35:03,100 They received federal war on poverty funds 714 00:35:03,100 --> 00:35:06,533 to open up a Head Start program for preschoolers. 715 00:35:06,533 --> 00:35:12,200 Strike City became a hub of civil rights activism. 716 00:35:12,200 --> 00:35:14,400 The strikers even took their tents 717 00:35:14,400 --> 00:35:16,933 to the lawn of the U.S. Capitol. 718 00:35:16,933 --> 00:35:19,900 And in 1966, their leader, 719 00:35:19,900 --> 00:35:23,233 a former tractor driver named John Henry Sylvester, 720 00:35:23,233 --> 00:35:26,000 testified before Congress about the hardships 721 00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:28,466 and abuse in Mississippi. 722 00:35:30,833 --> 00:35:33,133 When freedom of choice finally opened up 723 00:35:33,133 --> 00:35:37,000 those first few seats in Leland's white schools, 724 00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:41,533 the families at Strike City were not intimidated. 725 00:35:41,533 --> 00:35:44,033 EMMA SYLVESTER ADAMS: I was one of the first kids that 726 00:35:44,033 --> 00:35:45,933 integrated the white school. 727 00:35:45,933 --> 00:35:47,333 Dean, Dean School out there. 728 00:35:47,333 --> 00:35:52,033 I was 13 years old, in the sixth grade. 729 00:35:52,033 --> 00:35:54,900 It was hard when we first moved over there. 730 00:35:54,900 --> 00:35:56,566 If you sat at a table 731 00:35:56,566 --> 00:35:58,866 with some of the whites, they'd get up and move. 732 00:35:58,866 --> 00:36:00,500 They didn't want to be by you. 733 00:36:00,500 --> 00:36:02,033 And another thing, 734 00:36:02,033 --> 00:36:06,966 we had to go to the bathroom separate from the white kids. 735 00:36:06,966 --> 00:36:10,100 We had to wait till they go to the bathroom, then we went. 736 00:36:10,100 --> 00:36:13,200 Some of the teachers was all right. 737 00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:14,700 Some of them wasn't. 738 00:36:14,700 --> 00:36:18,366 Some of them, they didn't want to help you learn, they... 739 00:36:18,366 --> 00:36:20,900 You know, like, you'd be asking them something, 740 00:36:20,900 --> 00:36:22,033 they'd tell you to sit down. 741 00:36:22,033 --> 00:36:23,700 "Go do like I told you. 742 00:36:23,700 --> 00:36:25,300 Look in the book if you want to know this here." 743 00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:28,300 The principal over there, 744 00:36:28,300 --> 00:36:31,566 that was the meanest white man I ever seen in my life. 745 00:36:31,566 --> 00:36:34,566 If he caught you in the bathroom with a white, 746 00:36:34,566 --> 00:36:38,200 that man made you sit out in that hallway. 747 00:36:38,200 --> 00:36:39,466 And they'd sit out in that hallway 748 00:36:39,466 --> 00:36:40,800 till it was time to go home. 749 00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:43,133 He wouldn't let you go back to the classroom. 750 00:36:43,133 --> 00:36:45,533 Then you had to come up there with your parents the next day. 751 00:36:45,533 --> 00:36:48,600 Well, I took my dad up there with me. 752 00:36:49,600 --> 00:36:51,800 Most folks said my daddy mean, 753 00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:54,233 but John Henry Sylvester wasn't mean. 754 00:36:54,233 --> 00:36:57,133 He just didn't like nobody picking on his kid for nothing. 755 00:36:57,133 --> 00:37:00,700 He went in the office-- they wouldn't let me go in there. 756 00:37:00,700 --> 00:37:02,500 And from that day on, 757 00:37:02,500 --> 00:37:04,533 I didn't have no problem at the school. 758 00:37:05,933 --> 00:37:09,000 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: After a few years, 759 00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:13,166 freedom of choice had turned out the way it was always intended. 760 00:37:13,166 --> 00:37:16,066 Barely three percent of Black children in Mississippi 761 00:37:16,066 --> 00:37:19,266 were attending school with white children. 762 00:37:19,266 --> 00:37:22,966 The Leland High graduating class of 1969 763 00:37:22,966 --> 00:37:28,500 had only three African Americans out of a class of 70. 764 00:37:28,500 --> 00:37:31,266 White Southerners always insisted 765 00:37:31,266 --> 00:37:34,766 that if segregation truly had to be abandoned, 766 00:37:34,766 --> 00:37:38,733 it should happen as slowly as possible. 767 00:37:38,733 --> 00:37:44,600 But the time for that kind of gradual change was running out. 768 00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:49,633 ♪ ♪ 769 00:37:50,833 --> 00:37:55,200 In 1969, tensions in Leland boiled over. 770 00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:59,533 African Americans launched a boycott of white-owned stores. 771 00:37:59,533 --> 00:38:03,066 Students at the Black high school organized a walkout 772 00:38:03,066 --> 00:38:06,166 and tried to march across town to the white high school, 773 00:38:06,166 --> 00:38:09,266 but they were tear-gassed by the town police chief. 774 00:38:09,266 --> 00:38:10,766 (crowd shouting in panic) 775 00:38:10,766 --> 00:38:12,700 A melee began. 776 00:38:12,700 --> 00:38:13,966 (glass shattering) 777 00:38:13,966 --> 00:38:16,066 Windows were broken. 778 00:38:16,066 --> 00:38:19,500 A white man confronted two Black teenagers 779 00:38:19,500 --> 00:38:22,200 outside a store near the edge of town, 780 00:38:22,200 --> 00:38:23,966 pulled out a pistol... (gun fires) 781 00:38:23,966 --> 00:38:27,166 ...and shot a 16-year-old African American. 782 00:38:27,166 --> 00:38:29,433 He survived, 783 00:38:29,433 --> 00:38:32,333 but there was no serious investigation. 784 00:38:32,333 --> 00:38:34,833 The white man was never charged. 785 00:38:36,933 --> 00:38:38,866 There were news stories all of the time 786 00:38:38,866 --> 00:38:40,666 about the push for integration 787 00:38:40,666 --> 00:38:42,100 in different parts of the South. 788 00:38:42,100 --> 00:38:46,566 So as school year 1969 started, 789 00:38:46,566 --> 00:38:49,400 there was a lot more discussion 790 00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:53,466 that full integration is getting closer. 791 00:38:53,466 --> 00:38:57,933 It's likely that there will be a major change. 792 00:38:57,933 --> 00:38:59,766 I don't know if this is sort of 793 00:38:59,766 --> 00:39:01,333 the best time to tell this story, 794 00:39:01,333 --> 00:39:04,933 but since we're talking about integration, 795 00:39:04,933 --> 00:39:07,100 in 1962, 796 00:39:07,100 --> 00:39:09,833 I had just graduated from Louisiana Tech, 797 00:39:09,833 --> 00:39:12,166 and we moved to North Carolina 798 00:39:12,166 --> 00:39:15,033 for your father to go to graduate school. 799 00:39:15,033 --> 00:39:17,600 And so I had to have a job. 800 00:39:17,600 --> 00:39:22,633 I took a job teaching in a small rural school. 801 00:39:22,633 --> 00:39:25,600 When I interviewed, the principal said, 802 00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:27,633 "Well, you should know that this year, 803 00:39:27,633 --> 00:39:29,233 we're going to be integrated." 804 00:39:29,233 --> 00:39:32,366 And I, there... 805 00:39:32,366 --> 00:39:34,300 (stammering): I couldn't even... 806 00:39:34,300 --> 00:39:36,000 I didn't have a choice of thinking about 807 00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:37,366 whether that was okay with me or not, 808 00:39:37,366 --> 00:39:39,000 because I had to have a job. 809 00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:42,400 Then he said that 810 00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:46,433 the Native American school close by was being closed, 811 00:39:46,433 --> 00:39:48,800 so we would have Indian students. 812 00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:50,900 That was the integration he was talking about. 813 00:39:50,900 --> 00:39:53,033 And I was, I was totally confused. 814 00:39:53,033 --> 00:39:55,466 I... I had no idea 815 00:39:55,466 --> 00:39:59,100 that Indian students had been kept apart, 816 00:39:59,100 --> 00:40:01,266 and I didn't know that I was supposed to be 817 00:40:01,266 --> 00:40:04,566 prejudiced against them, so I wasn't. 818 00:40:04,566 --> 00:40:08,033 During that year, I kept trying to figure out 819 00:40:08,033 --> 00:40:10,733 why there was this prejudice. 820 00:40:10,733 --> 00:40:12,166 And as I began to realize 821 00:40:12,166 --> 00:40:15,633 that the prejudice I saw 822 00:40:15,633 --> 00:40:18,900 was, in my opinion, wrong, 823 00:40:18,900 --> 00:40:22,166 then my ideas began to change 824 00:40:22,166 --> 00:40:25,766 about what was right and what was wrong about race. 825 00:40:25,766 --> 00:40:29,133 I realized that we had to open up society 826 00:40:29,133 --> 00:40:32,166 and open up educational opportunities 827 00:40:32,166 --> 00:40:36,933 to other groups of people, including Blacks. 828 00:40:38,733 --> 00:40:42,566 ♪ ♪ 829 00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:47,033 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: In October 1969, 830 00:40:47,033 --> 00:40:49,433 the Supreme Court finally issued the decision 831 00:40:49,433 --> 00:40:51,166 that would change everything. 832 00:40:51,166 --> 00:40:52,466 ♪ ♪ 833 00:40:52,466 --> 00:40:54,833 The ruling in Alexander v. Holmes 834 00:40:54,833 --> 00:40:56,700 combined dozens of lawsuits 835 00:40:56,700 --> 00:40:59,400 against white school systems in Mississippi 836 00:40:59,400 --> 00:41:02,000 and ordered all of them 837 00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:06,533 to genuinely integrate every school immediately. 838 00:41:06,533 --> 00:41:08,166 No more "take your time," 839 00:41:08,166 --> 00:41:11,200 no more "with all due speed." 840 00:41:11,200 --> 00:41:13,700 The ruling was crystal-clear: 841 00:41:13,700 --> 00:41:17,033 close all segregated public schools 842 00:41:17,033 --> 00:41:19,466 in the middle of the academic year, 843 00:41:19,466 --> 00:41:21,566 combine them, and then reopen 844 00:41:21,566 --> 00:41:25,133 as fully integrated schools. 845 00:41:25,133 --> 00:41:27,000 In the South, reaction to 846 00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:28,533 the Supreme Court ruling was 847 00:41:28,533 --> 00:41:30,366 predictable, angry, and swift. 848 00:41:30,366 --> 00:41:32,066 Governor Lester Maddox of Georgia 849 00:41:32,066 --> 00:41:33,166 called it criminal. 850 00:41:33,166 --> 00:41:34,600 Others characterized it 851 00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:37,000 as a disaster for public education. 852 00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:40,000 Now we're going to have 853 00:41:40,000 --> 00:41:43,133 a great number of private schools 854 00:41:43,133 --> 00:41:46,500 that will be formed in this state. 855 00:41:46,500 --> 00:41:52,633 And I have found that neither race desires 856 00:41:52,633 --> 00:41:55,500 highly integrated schools. 857 00:41:55,500 --> 00:41:57,266 Oh, terrible. 858 00:41:57,266 --> 00:42:00,500 He, he would, he would trade off 859 00:42:00,500 --> 00:42:02,433 any votes for segregation. 860 00:42:02,433 --> 00:42:05,200 They come along today with this kind of stuff, 861 00:42:05,200 --> 00:42:07,500 well, it's excusing somebody's activities 862 00:42:07,500 --> 00:42:09,366 like Senator Eastland's activities: 863 00:42:09,366 --> 00:42:10,900 "That's just the way it was back then." 864 00:42:10,900 --> 00:42:12,400 Well, that's, that's baloney. 865 00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:14,266 That's the way Eastland was back then, 866 00:42:14,266 --> 00:42:15,833 that wasn't the way things were back then. 867 00:42:15,833 --> 00:42:17,766 He could have been different if he wanted to be. 868 00:42:17,766 --> 00:42:20,800 ♪ ♪ 869 00:42:20,800 --> 00:42:23,566 COLEMAN: In the middle of the school year, 870 00:42:23,566 --> 00:42:25,066 we had to desegregate. 871 00:42:25,066 --> 00:42:26,900 If the order came down on Thursday, 872 00:42:26,900 --> 00:42:28,300 Monday, they were backing up trucks, 873 00:42:28,300 --> 00:42:30,266 'cause they had to get the, the, 874 00:42:30,266 --> 00:42:32,066 all the little desks at one school 875 00:42:32,066 --> 00:42:33,966 and then all the larger desks at another school. 876 00:42:33,966 --> 00:42:36,133 We got this big truck, 877 00:42:36,133 --> 00:42:39,100 and we started hauling books and things. 878 00:42:39,100 --> 00:42:42,266 SCOTT: The superintendent called me into the office and told me, 879 00:42:42,266 --> 00:42:45,900 you're going to be going to Dean School as principal. 880 00:42:45,900 --> 00:42:48,366 First thing I did, I lost my voice, I got, I, 881 00:42:48,366 --> 00:42:50,066 I was so nervous and upset. 882 00:42:50,066 --> 00:42:54,233 White parents were reluctant, a lot of them, 883 00:42:54,233 --> 00:42:56,600 about Blacks teaching their children. 884 00:42:56,600 --> 00:42:58,033 My principal told me, 885 00:42:58,033 --> 00:43:00,866 "You will teach science." 886 00:43:00,866 --> 00:43:03,500 I guess they said, "That's not an important subject, 887 00:43:03,500 --> 00:43:05,533 "so let her teach the science. 888 00:43:05,533 --> 00:43:07,666 "She's Black, she can't teach the reading. 889 00:43:07,666 --> 00:43:10,166 "She's not equipped to teach the math. 890 00:43:10,166 --> 00:43:11,700 "We'll give her something insignificant, 891 00:43:11,700 --> 00:43:13,466 so we'll let her teach science." 892 00:43:13,466 --> 00:43:18,700 Well, I didn't like science, really, but I said, "Okay. 893 00:43:18,700 --> 00:43:21,100 "If I have to teach science, 894 00:43:21,100 --> 00:43:23,633 "it's going to be the best science class 895 00:43:23,633 --> 00:43:25,266 that they've ever had." 896 00:43:25,266 --> 00:43:29,033 ♪ ♪ 897 00:43:29,033 --> 00:43:32,633 We quickly learned that many of the, 898 00:43:32,633 --> 00:43:34,633 of the African American teachers 899 00:43:34,633 --> 00:43:38,333   had degrees from prestigious universities-- 900 00:43:38,333 --> 00:43:40,800 Ohio State, Michigan State. 901 00:43:40,800 --> 00:43:43,733 You know, and, and we couldn't quite figure out why. 902 00:43:43,733 --> 00:43:45,900 And then we learned that the state of Mississippi 903 00:43:45,900 --> 00:43:47,966 gave those people scholarships 904 00:43:47,966 --> 00:43:49,800 to go out of state to get their degree, 905 00:43:49,800 --> 00:43:53,033 rather than having them integrate places like 906 00:43:53,033 --> 00:43:54,533 Ole Miss and Mississippi State. 907 00:43:54,533 --> 00:43:57,366 And that's why the, the teachers, 908 00:43:57,366 --> 00:43:59,066 on the surface of it, the Black teachers 909 00:43:59,066 --> 00:44:01,033 seemed more qualified than the white teachers. 910 00:44:01,033 --> 00:44:03,100 When the school integration thing came along, 911 00:44:03,100 --> 00:44:07,466 there was this effort to support the public school. 912 00:44:07,466 --> 00:44:09,566 SARAH BLACKMON: Your father and I, 913 00:44:09,566 --> 00:44:12,533 we were very strong supporters of public school. 914 00:44:12,533 --> 00:44:15,000 Now, there are at least two different reasons. 915 00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:17,433 One is financial. 916 00:44:17,433 --> 00:44:20,200 We didn't feel like that we could afford 917 00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:23,933 to send our children to a private school. 918 00:44:23,933 --> 00:44:28,000 But then also philosophically, we believed that 919 00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:30,800 integration was okay. 920 00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:34,600 We were not marching for integration, 921 00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:37,166 but we were not as opposed to it 922 00:44:37,166 --> 00:44:39,866 as many people that I knew. 923 00:44:39,866 --> 00:44:42,566 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: Did you have any reservations? 924 00:44:42,566 --> 00:44:45,566 SARAH BLACKMON: We had many reservations about it. 925 00:44:45,566 --> 00:44:48,400 You have one shot at raising your children. 926 00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:51,000 You don't get do-overs. 927 00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:54,966 And we were very, very concerned 928 00:44:54,966 --> 00:44:57,333 that our children get a good education. 929 00:44:57,333 --> 00:45:00,266 It was something that nobody had done before. 930 00:45:00,266 --> 00:45:03,033 We didn't know how it was going to go. 931 00:45:03,033 --> 00:45:06,200 But we felt strongly that we had to, 932 00:45:06,200 --> 00:45:07,933 had to give it a chance. 933 00:45:07,933 --> 00:45:11,400 LACEY: We had Bert Tuggle, a young preacher there 934 00:45:11,400 --> 00:45:13,066 in the Presbyterian church, 935 00:45:13,066 --> 00:45:15,766 got up and said the unthinkable: 936 00:45:15,766 --> 00:45:19,200 "Segregation is un-Christian." 937 00:45:19,200 --> 00:45:23,333 Now, that was a bold, bold statement for that time. 938 00:45:23,333 --> 00:45:25,233 I'd never heard a preacher say it 939 00:45:25,233 --> 00:45:26,800 and nobody else around had ever heard a preacher say it. 940 00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:29,600 Maybe in private, but not from the pulpit. 941 00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:31,600 The reaction was upset, 942 00:45:31,600 --> 00:45:33,733 indignation, rage. 943 00:45:33,733 --> 00:45:36,566 My personal reaction: I was proud of him. 944 00:45:36,566 --> 00:45:39,400 He spoke bravely from the pulpit 945 00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:41,400 that this was the right thing to do. 946 00:45:41,400 --> 00:45:45,500 His position essentially divided that church. 947 00:45:45,500 --> 00:45:47,333 There was about a third of the congregation 948 00:45:47,333 --> 00:45:50,400 that didn't like what he was saying, 949 00:45:50,400 --> 00:45:52,600 and they left the church. 950 00:45:52,600 --> 00:45:54,366 But guess what? 951 00:45:54,366 --> 00:45:56,400 The church was better off without them. 952 00:45:57,866 --> 00:45:59,766 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: A group of Black and white parents 953 00:45:59,766 --> 00:46:03,566 began meeting privately every Thursday night, 954 00:46:03,566 --> 00:46:06,033 mostly at Black churches and often led by 955 00:46:06,033 --> 00:46:09,033 Mr. Grossley, the African American plumber 956 00:46:09,033 --> 00:46:12,300 who refused to back down when the state of Mississippi 957 00:46:12,300 --> 00:46:16,566 threatened to ruin his business. 958 00:46:16,566 --> 00:46:18,733 Mrs. Scott, 959 00:46:18,733 --> 00:46:20,900 the uncompromising Black principal 960 00:46:20,900 --> 00:46:24,133 at our elementary school, also joined in. 961 00:46:24,133 --> 00:46:29,600 Those sessions led to even larger public gatherings. 962 00:46:29,600 --> 00:46:33,033 SARAH BLACKMON: There were several community meetings, as I recall, 963 00:46:33,033 --> 00:46:35,133 in the school auditorium, 964 00:46:35,133 --> 00:46:38,000 where these issues were discussed. 965 00:46:39,633 --> 00:46:43,700 There were little placards passed out that said, 966 00:46:43,700 --> 00:46:45,533 "Think positive." 967 00:46:45,533 --> 00:46:48,166 "Keep a positive attitude about this. 968 00:46:48,166 --> 00:46:52,133 Don't assume that it's going to all be negative." 969 00:46:52,133 --> 00:46:54,633 One man, I never will forget, he had a patch over his eye. 970 00:46:54,633 --> 00:46:56,933 He got up in the meeting and asked, 971 00:46:56,933 --> 00:46:59,733 "How come they, they want to come over here to our school?" 972 00:46:59,733 --> 00:47:02,100 He said, "Let them stay in their own school." 973 00:47:02,100 --> 00:47:04,700 Some white people really didn't think 974 00:47:04,700 --> 00:47:06,566 it was going to ever happen. 975 00:47:06,566 --> 00:47:10,466 SARAH BLACKMON: A group of people began to say, publicly, 976 00:47:10,466 --> 00:47:13,266 "We're going to keep our children in public school." 977 00:47:14,600 --> 00:47:18,700 We decided to buy an ad in the local newspaper, 978 00:47:18,700 --> 00:47:20,266 "The Leland Progress," 979 00:47:20,266 --> 00:47:23,866 and put our name on the line 980 00:47:23,866 --> 00:47:28,566 that we are committed to public education. 981 00:47:28,566 --> 00:47:33,233 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: My parents' names were near the top of the list. 982 00:47:33,233 --> 00:47:36,200 Then, a few days later, the Ku Klux Klan 983 00:47:36,200 --> 00:47:39,100 dropped threatening fliers on the front yard 984 00:47:39,100 --> 00:47:42,066 of our home and every other house on our street. 985 00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:45,700 But the newspaper ad kept appearing, 986 00:47:45,700 --> 00:47:50,833 every week for a month, each time with more names. 987 00:47:53,733 --> 00:47:56,566 ♪ ♪ 988 00:47:56,566 --> 00:47:58,800 Finally, it was time 989 00:47:58,800 --> 00:48:02,933 for me and my classmates to begin first grade. 990 00:48:02,933 --> 00:48:06,400 Our class arrived on September 4, 1970, 991 00:48:06,400 --> 00:48:10,600 under a still blistering-hot Mississippi Delta sky. 992 00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:12,800 When that day came, 993 00:48:12,800 --> 00:48:16,933 more than half of Leland's white children didn't show up, 994 00:48:16,933 --> 00:48:19,033 but the other half did. 995 00:48:20,033 --> 00:48:22,400 MAGEE: First day of school for me, 996 00:48:22,400 --> 00:48:24,033 I don't know, I guess it just felt like 997 00:48:24,033 --> 00:48:25,733 anybody else's first day of school. 998 00:48:25,733 --> 00:48:27,200 A little scary. 999 00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:29,566 My mother went to school with me 1000 00:48:29,566 --> 00:48:32,200 to, to get you all registered 1001 00:48:32,200 --> 00:48:35,633 and hand her baby boy off to 1002 00:48:35,633 --> 00:48:38,600 Miss Scott, who the was principal. 1003 00:48:38,600 --> 00:48:41,266 BUSH: You had the plantation owners' children 1004 00:48:41,266 --> 00:48:43,200 going to school with us. 1005 00:48:43,200 --> 00:48:44,200 You would think 1006 00:48:44,200 --> 00:48:45,633 they would treat you differently, 1007 00:48:45,633 --> 00:48:47,300 and it didn't really happen like that. 1008 00:48:47,300 --> 00:48:51,133   We did playground, recess, ate lunch together. 1009 00:48:51,133 --> 00:48:53,233 We just didn't ride the bus together, 1010 00:48:53,233 --> 00:48:55,466 because their parents, I guess, you know, at that time, 1011 00:48:55,466 --> 00:48:56,833 were fortunate enough to drive them to school. 1012 00:48:56,833 --> 00:48:59,533 The only explicit, 1013 00:48:59,533 --> 00:49:02,300 racially specific memory 1014 00:49:02,300 --> 00:49:04,300 that I have from those very early days 1015 00:49:04,300 --> 00:49:06,766 was being out on the playground one day, 1016 00:49:06,766 --> 00:49:09,100 and another little white boy comes along, 1017 00:49:09,100 --> 00:49:11,300 and clearly, he's repeating something 1018 00:49:11,300 --> 00:49:13,533 he heard from his parents. 1019 00:49:13,533 --> 00:49:15,700 But he says, "I think all of the... 1020 00:49:15,700 --> 00:49:19,233 I think all the Blacks should go back to Africa." 1021 00:49:19,233 --> 00:49:21,833 And I remember my amazement 1022 00:49:21,833 --> 00:49:24,033 at the idea that they were from Africa. 1023 00:49:24,033 --> 00:49:26,800 (chuckling): Because in my limited imagination, 1024 00:49:26,800 --> 00:49:28,966 I could only hear that as to mean that, 1025 00:49:28,966 --> 00:49:30,666 that these kids I knew 1026 00:49:30,666 --> 00:49:34,100 were born in Africa and had come to Leland, Mississippi, 1027 00:49:34,100 --> 00:49:35,633 to go to school. 1028 00:49:35,633 --> 00:49:37,833 And I said, I remember saying, 1029 00:49:37,833 --> 00:49:42,300 "Anthony and Craig and Donald, they're from Africa?" 1030 00:49:42,300 --> 00:49:44,933 And then he said, "Yeah, they're all from Africa." 1031 00:49:44,933 --> 00:49:47,933 (laughing): And, and so... 1032 00:49:47,933 --> 00:49:50,500 And to me, it's... 1033 00:49:50,500 --> 00:49:51,933 To me, I thought, "Wow," you know, 1034 00:49:51,933 --> 00:49:53,266 "that's, that's incredible." 1035 00:49:53,266 --> 00:49:56,100 You may have been taught things at home, 1036 00:49:56,100 --> 00:49:58,000 but, you know, it wasn't taught in school. 1037 00:49:58,000 --> 00:49:59,700 Some of my Black friends 1038 00:49:59,700 --> 00:50:01,300 pulled me to the side, 1039 00:50:01,300 --> 00:50:03,133 as a matter of fact, one on each side, 1040 00:50:03,133 --> 00:50:04,833 and said, "You're coming to play with us today. 1041 00:50:04,833 --> 00:50:06,800 You're going to play with the Black boys today." 1042 00:50:06,800 --> 00:50:08,300 You know, "You're not supposed to be over there 1043 00:50:08,300 --> 00:50:09,666 "with the white boys, you're supposed to be... 1044 00:50:09,666 --> 00:50:11,300 You're supposed to be with the Black boys." 1045 00:50:11,300 --> 00:50:15,033 And, I mean, they kind of pressured me, 1046 00:50:15,033 --> 00:50:17,533 and they were serious, and they were... 1047 00:50:17,533 --> 00:50:19,000 They seemed to be upset to a degree. 1048 00:50:19,000 --> 00:50:20,166 And I told them, I said, 1049 00:50:20,166 --> 00:50:21,666 "Hey, let's go all play together. 1050 00:50:21,666 --> 00:50:22,666 "They don't mind you playing with them, 1051 00:50:22,666 --> 00:50:23,933 I'm going over there." 1052 00:50:23,933 --> 00:50:26,233 But they still were kind of adamant about it, 1053 00:50:26,233 --> 00:50:27,566 and I didn't go with them. 1054 00:50:27,566 --> 00:50:28,766 I went with my friend Jimmy, 1055 00:50:28,766 --> 00:50:30,266 because that's who I played with every day. 1056 00:50:30,266 --> 00:50:33,033 It was great, I don't think you could've... 1057 00:50:33,033 --> 00:50:35,133 Especially the elementary years, 1058 00:50:35,133 --> 00:50:38,000 I don't know that you could've had a better experience 1059 00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:40,600 or better teachers or better supervision. 1060 00:50:40,600 --> 00:50:44,166 I just don't remember ever having a problem 1061 00:50:44,166 --> 00:50:45,733 with anything then. 1062 00:50:45,733 --> 00:50:47,833 We always got along at the school. 1063 00:50:47,833 --> 00:50:48,833 I'm, I'm sure there were things 1064 00:50:48,833 --> 00:50:49,833 that maybe I'm forgetting 1065 00:50:49,833 --> 00:50:50,833 where we didn't get along 1066 00:50:50,833 --> 00:50:52,500 from a racial perspective, 1067 00:50:52,500 --> 00:50:54,200 but it seemed to me, 1068 00:50:54,200 --> 00:50:56,300 when you removed the school 1069 00:50:56,300 --> 00:50:58,633 and you went outside and into the community, 1070 00:50:58,633 --> 00:51:00,566 and I hate to say this, but to the adults, 1071 00:51:00,566 --> 00:51:03,400 that there wasn't the embrace of the integration. 1072 00:51:03,400 --> 00:51:05,166 MAGEE: I, I, I do remember, 1073 00:51:05,166 --> 00:51:07,066 there were several people I was friends with, you know. 1074 00:51:07,066 --> 00:51:09,600 I remember my mother having to tell me, 1075 00:51:09,600 --> 00:51:10,966 "Well, they're not going to go to school with you, 1076 00:51:10,966 --> 00:51:13,033 they're going to go somewhere else." 1077 00:51:13,033 --> 00:51:14,933 And I thought it was a little weird. 1078 00:51:14,933 --> 00:51:17,633 How come they're not going to school with us? 1079 00:51:20,566 --> 00:51:22,600 ♪ ♪ 1080 00:51:22,600 --> 00:51:24,100 LACEY: The group of people who 1081 00:51:24,100 --> 00:51:26,366 could not stand integration 1082 00:51:26,366 --> 00:51:30,633 got together and created Leland Academy, 1083 00:51:30,633 --> 00:51:34,500 and that threw a lot of children out of the public school. 1084 00:51:34,500 --> 00:51:35,833 I was on the original board 1085 00:51:35,833 --> 00:51:38,000 to start the Leland Academy. 1086 00:51:39,366 --> 00:51:44,133 I don't know how deep you want to get into the mindset, 1087 00:51:44,133 --> 00:51:45,733 but I don't think it was 1088 00:51:45,733 --> 00:51:50,300 so much a racial thing as it was a, 1089 00:51:50,300 --> 00:51:55,633 uh, social, cultural, uh, 1090 00:51:55,633 --> 00:52:01,033 moral, economic, uh, thing. 1091 00:52:01,033 --> 00:52:02,666 Um... 1092 00:52:02,666 --> 00:52:04,433 And educational. 1093 00:52:04,433 --> 00:52:07,800 Uh, there was a... 1094 00:52:07,800 --> 00:52:12,300 I, I think those figured into it more than race, 1095 00:52:12,300 --> 00:52:14,733 although 1096 00:52:14,733 --> 00:52:17,500 there was a racial factor involved. 1097 00:52:18,800 --> 00:52:20,366 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: All over Mississippi, 1098 00:52:20,366 --> 00:52:22,566 and soon all across the South, 1099 00:52:22,566 --> 00:52:25,600 white people opposed to racial integration 1100 00:52:25,600 --> 00:52:27,833 were doing something the Supreme Court 1101 00:52:27,833 --> 00:52:30,700 would never have believed possible. 1102 00:52:30,700 --> 00:52:33,200 All-white private schools, 1103 00:52:33,200 --> 00:52:34,800 like the one in Leland, 1104 00:52:34,800 --> 00:52:36,333 popped up almost overnight 1105 00:52:36,333 --> 00:52:39,066 in dozens of towns. 1106 00:52:39,066 --> 00:52:40,566 PHIL JONES: In the Canton, Mississippi, school district, 1107 00:52:40,566 --> 00:52:42,433 parents and their children 1108 00:52:42,433 --> 00:52:44,033 have been working around the clock 1109 00:52:44,033 --> 00:52:46,533 to convert this former tent manufacturing plant 1110 00:52:46,533 --> 00:52:49,166 into an academy for grades one through 12. 1111 00:52:49,166 --> 00:52:52,466 Most of the 1,400 white students in the district 1112 00:52:52,466 --> 00:52:54,133 are now enrolled. 1113 00:52:54,133 --> 00:52:56,133 ♪ ♪ 1114 00:52:56,133 --> 00:52:59,000 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: Soon, there were more than 100 of those schools 1115 00:52:59,000 --> 00:53:01,366 across Mississippi and nearby states, 1116 00:53:01,366 --> 00:53:05,366 attended by more than 30,000 white students. 1117 00:53:06,700 --> 00:53:08,600 Most of the new schools, 1118 00:53:08,600 --> 00:53:10,266 including Leland Academy, 1119 00:53:10,266 --> 00:53:13,933 claimed not to exclude African American children. 1120 00:53:13,933 --> 00:53:15,266 But, in fact, 1121 00:53:15,266 --> 00:53:18,800 they were part of an association of private schools 1122 00:53:18,800 --> 00:53:21,600 that for years secretly required them 1123 00:53:21,600 --> 00:53:24,866 to refuse admission to any Black child 1124 00:53:24,866 --> 00:53:27,800 and never to hire a Black teacher. 1125 00:53:27,800 --> 00:53:31,266 Leland Academy opened in 1969 1126 00:53:31,266 --> 00:53:34,733 in the education building of a nearby Baptist church, 1127 00:53:34,733 --> 00:53:38,433 while organizers rapidly constructed a new school 1128 00:53:38,433 --> 00:53:39,800 on vacant land 1129 00:53:39,800 --> 00:53:43,766 right next to the Leland High School football field. 1130 00:53:44,800 --> 00:53:46,233 Oh, at the time of integration, 1131 00:53:46,233 --> 00:53:49,766 my expectations of what white families would do 1132 00:53:49,766 --> 00:53:51,433 would be to leave. 1133 00:53:51,433 --> 00:53:54,866 SCOTT: I wasn't surprised-- I wasn't surprised at all. 1134 00:53:54,866 --> 00:53:57,566 I knew the reason they was doing that. 1135 00:53:57,566 --> 00:54:00,766 They just didn't want to be with the Black people. 1136 00:54:00,766 --> 00:54:03,666   And see, a lot of that, I think, had to do with... 1137 00:54:03,666 --> 00:54:05,200 (clicks tongue) 1138 00:54:05,200 --> 00:54:07,266 Ignorance-- I'm sorry. 1139 00:54:07,266 --> 00:54:09,166 I mean, I mean it "not knowing." 1140 00:54:09,166 --> 00:54:12,233 If you don't know something, you're fearful of it. 1141 00:54:12,233 --> 00:54:15,700 And so, many of the white families 1142 00:54:15,700 --> 00:54:18,000 had only known 1143 00:54:18,000 --> 00:54:21,233 their maids. 1144 00:54:21,233 --> 00:54:24,333 And for some of them, just, 1145 00:54:24,333 --> 00:54:26,433 they were people, but not people. 1146 00:54:26,433 --> 00:54:28,600 SARAH BLACKMON: Before I moved to Leland, 1147 00:54:28,600 --> 00:54:32,666 I really had never had a conversation 1148 00:54:32,666 --> 00:54:37,433 with a Black person as equals 1149 00:54:37,433 --> 00:54:39,900 until my children started school in Leland, 1150 00:54:39,900 --> 00:54:41,833 and Veronica Richardson 1151 00:54:41,833 --> 00:54:46,033 was one of my oldest son, Glenn's, teachers. 1152 00:54:46,033 --> 00:54:48,466 And I always met all of my teachers. 1153 00:54:48,466 --> 00:54:50,866 And she would have been the first person 1154 00:54:50,866 --> 00:54:56,433 that I can remember where I and a Black person 1155 00:54:56,433 --> 00:55:00,600 had a conversation as absolute equals. 1156 00:55:00,600 --> 00:55:02,400 You know, it... 1157 00:55:02,400 --> 00:55:04,866 I just had never had that experience before. 1158 00:55:04,866 --> 00:55:07,300 ♪ ♪ 1159 00:55:07,300 --> 00:55:09,900 VERONICA RICHARDSON: I always wondered, how could all the whites 1160 00:55:09,900 --> 00:55:11,500 go to the private school? 1161 00:55:11,500 --> 00:55:14,200 How they could afford to go. 1162 00:55:14,200 --> 00:55:16,866 And what was there that was so different? 1163 00:55:16,866 --> 00:55:20,266   Because we catered to the whites a good bit 1164 00:55:20,266 --> 00:55:22,666 when they were in the school system. 1165 00:55:23,766 --> 00:55:26,966 PAM PEPPER: I started school at Leland Academy. 1166 00:55:26,966 --> 00:55:28,533 It was an all-white school. 1167 00:55:28,533 --> 00:55:33,033 It was, I think, a combination of kids whose parents 1168 00:55:33,033 --> 00:55:38,366 actively did not want them to go to the public school 1169 00:55:38,366 --> 00:55:40,933 and kids whose parents 1170 00:55:40,933 --> 00:55:43,700 were maybe interested in the public school, 1171 00:55:43,700 --> 00:55:47,800   but worried that this was a new experiment thing, 1172 00:55:47,800 --> 00:55:49,600 and nobody knew quite where it was headed. 1173 00:55:49,600 --> 00:55:52,366 So, there was a combination of, 1174 00:55:52,366 --> 00:55:54,566 "My child will never go to a public school," 1175 00:55:54,566 --> 00:55:56,200 and, "I'd like my child to, to go to public school, 1176 00:55:56,200 --> 00:55:59,000 but I don't know how this is all gonna go." 1177 00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:02,733 It felt like a makeshift, 1178 00:56:02,733 --> 00:56:04,833 which I suppose it was. 1179 00:56:04,833 --> 00:56:06,900 It, it was kind of out on the highway 1180 00:56:06,900 --> 00:56:10,566 in a building that looked sort of like a school building. 1181 00:56:10,566 --> 00:56:12,800 It was very small, 1182 00:56:12,800 --> 00:56:14,366 weren't a whole lot of kids there, 1183 00:56:14,366 --> 00:56:16,133 and it was very barren. 1184 00:56:16,133 --> 00:56:17,600 There were no trees or anything. 1185 00:56:17,600 --> 00:56:19,600 I mean, it looked like it had just gone up. 1186 00:56:19,600 --> 00:56:21,000 My memory of it is, 1187 00:56:21,000 --> 00:56:24,566 "Well, this is a temporary installation," sort of. 1188 00:56:24,566 --> 00:56:26,766 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: In the year before full integration, 1189 00:56:26,766 --> 00:56:28,200 Leland's public schools 1190 00:56:28,200 --> 00:56:31,833 had barely changed from a decade earlier. 1191 00:56:31,833 --> 00:56:35,933 The African American schools remained 100% Black. 1192 00:56:35,933 --> 00:56:39,533 Leland's previously all-white schools 1193 00:56:39,533 --> 00:56:43,166 were still more than 90% white. 1194 00:56:43,166 --> 00:56:47,400 Only 81 Black kids had shared classrooms 1195 00:56:47,400 --> 00:56:51,000 with more than 1,000 white children. 1196 00:56:51,000 --> 00:56:53,900 After it all became one system, 1197 00:56:53,900 --> 00:56:58,733 Leland's schools were 80% Black and 20% white. 1198 00:57:01,866 --> 00:57:03,233 SARAH BLACKMON: That school year, 1199 00:57:03,233 --> 00:57:06,500 I started back teaching full-time. 1200 00:57:06,500 --> 00:57:10,566 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: How did you react to being around all these Black folks? 1201 00:57:10,566 --> 00:57:12,866 I had to do some fast learning. 1202 00:57:12,866 --> 00:57:16,033 There were things that I had said all of my life, 1203 00:57:16,033 --> 00:57:19,866 like calling my students "boys and girls." 1204 00:57:19,866 --> 00:57:22,666 But I began to realize that, 1205 00:57:22,666 --> 00:57:25,066 to my Black students, 1206 00:57:25,066 --> 00:57:28,466 being called a "boy"-- 1207 00:57:28,466 --> 00:57:33,333 always being called a "boy"-- was very offensive. 1208 00:57:33,333 --> 00:57:35,900 I didn't want to offend my students. 1209 00:57:35,900 --> 00:57:41,466 So I began to work at never calling them boys. 1210 00:57:41,466 --> 00:57:45,666 I worked at not doing things that I knew were offensive. 1211 00:57:45,666 --> 00:57:47,866 I am a teacher. 1212 00:57:47,866 --> 00:57:50,300 I wanted my students to learn. 1213 00:57:50,300 --> 00:57:54,633 And if my behavior kept them from learning, 1214 00:57:54,633 --> 00:57:57,800 then I needed to do something about my behavior. 1215 00:57:59,766 --> 00:58:01,000 SCOTT: At first, I went through 1216 00:58:01,000 --> 00:58:03,533 some challenges there with teachers. 1217 00:58:03,533 --> 00:58:05,566 There were some teachers, 1218 00:58:05,566 --> 00:58:06,933 you know, going to other schools 1219 00:58:06,933 --> 00:58:09,533 because they refused to work under me or with me. 1220 00:58:09,533 --> 00:58:13,300 One in particular was something to deal with, 1221 00:58:13,300 --> 00:58:15,933 let me tell you. 1222 00:58:15,933 --> 00:58:19,500 I hated to see a school where one shade is up 1223 00:58:19,500 --> 00:58:23,033 and one's half down. 1224 00:58:23,033 --> 00:58:24,300 So I made an announcement, I said, 1225 00:58:24,300 --> 00:58:27,533 "Please adjust your shades before leaving." 1226 00:58:27,533 --> 00:58:28,766 She said she had been at that school 1227 00:58:28,766 --> 00:58:29,866 don't know how many years. 1228 00:58:29,866 --> 00:58:31,266 I don't know how many years she said. 1229 00:58:31,266 --> 00:58:34,766 But she said nobody ever told her to adjust her shades. 1230 00:58:34,766 --> 00:58:37,400 I said, "Okay"-- I just said, "Okay." 1231 00:58:37,400 --> 00:58:39,733 So in the evening, when school was out, 1232 00:58:39,733 --> 00:58:42,633 I'd walk down the hall, walk in her room. 1233 00:58:42,633 --> 00:58:44,600 She'd be sitting at her desk, all the children would be gone. 1234 00:58:44,600 --> 00:58:46,066 "Hey, how you doing?" 1235 00:58:46,066 --> 00:58:47,700 Walk over to her window, 1236 00:58:47,700 --> 00:58:49,933 adjust her shades, and walk out. 1237 00:58:49,933 --> 00:58:52,866 (shades sliding) (footsteps retreating) 1238 00:58:52,866 --> 00:58:57,466 I did that for three evenings straight. 1239 00:58:57,466 --> 00:59:00,700 The fourth evening I walked in there, I never will forget it. 1240 00:59:00,700 --> 00:59:02,100 She said, "You don't have to come in here 1241 00:59:02,100 --> 00:59:04,033 and adjust my shades-- I can adjust my shades." 1242 00:59:04,033 --> 00:59:05,366 I said, "Well, I don't mind it. 1243 00:59:05,366 --> 00:59:06,966 I don't mind it at all." 1244 00:59:06,966 --> 00:59:08,733 Since then, 1245 00:59:08,733 --> 00:59:10,333 when I would get down there, 1246 00:59:10,333 --> 00:59:13,166 her shades was adjusted, and she was gone. 1247 00:59:14,666 --> 00:59:18,633 I worked that out, me and the good Lord. 1248 00:59:18,633 --> 00:59:22,333 ♪ ♪ 1249 00:59:25,233 --> 00:59:27,966 VERONICA RICHARDSON: The faculties actually got along pretty well, 1250 00:59:27,966 --> 00:59:29,333 the whites and the Blacks. 1251 00:59:29,333 --> 00:59:31,966 Some of us became friends on down through the years. 1252 00:59:31,966 --> 00:59:34,633 Teaching strategies, how do you do this, 1253 00:59:34,633 --> 00:59:35,966 how do you teach this, 1254 00:59:35,966 --> 00:59:38,966 and shared the ways that we could, uh, 1255 00:59:38,966 --> 00:59:41,033 handle the children. 1256 00:59:41,033 --> 00:59:43,333 We didn't talk race too much. 1257 00:59:43,333 --> 00:59:44,833 We just more or less talked people. 1258 00:59:46,166 --> 00:59:48,500 POINDEXTER: The way we were set up in school was, 1259 00:59:48,500 --> 00:59:52,133 they had A, B, C, D, 1260 00:59:52,133 --> 00:59:55,166 all the way, I think all the way down to G and H, 1261 00:59:55,166 --> 00:59:58,833 as far as grouping children into classes. 1262 00:59:58,833 --> 01:00:00,866   (children calling and talking in background) 1263 01:00:00,866 --> 01:00:03,100 MAGEE: Early in elementary school, 1264 01:00:03,100 --> 01:00:04,533 we had to take a test, and, and, 1265 01:00:04,533 --> 01:00:06,133 and people were grouped afterwards. 1266 01:00:06,133 --> 01:00:09,133 DONALD RICHARDSON: That whole A, B, C group, I... 1267 01:00:09,133 --> 01:00:13,333 The whole, uh, the connotation behind it. 1268 01:00:13,333 --> 01:00:15,533 I, I remember, I starkly remember, 1269 01:00:15,533 --> 01:00:19,266 conversations with other Black kids, Black males, 1270 01:00:19,266 --> 01:00:21,133 about the ability groups. 1271 01:00:22,866 --> 01:00:24,766 Paul Chambers, 1272 01:00:24,766 --> 01:00:28,066 and I'm trying to think, maybe Craig Rainey, 1273 01:00:28,066 --> 01:00:29,633 and that's it. 1274 01:00:29,633 --> 01:00:33,200 Only three African American males in the A group, you know, 1275 01:00:33,200 --> 01:00:36,966 in a town that is, uh, to say the least, 1276 01:00:36,966 --> 01:00:40,633 chock-full of African American males. (laughing) 1277 01:00:40,633 --> 01:00:44,866 The A section was mostly gonna be your white students. 1278 01:00:44,866 --> 01:00:47,766 But I was in the B section. 1279 01:00:47,766 --> 01:00:51,200 The B section were mostly Blacks, some white kids. 1280 01:00:51,200 --> 01:00:54,100 You kind of remember that, right? (laughs) 1281 01:00:54,100 --> 01:00:57,733 Later in our elementary, elementary career, 1282 01:00:57,733 --> 01:00:59,833 some of the African American students 1283 01:00:59,833 --> 01:01:03,266 got a real sense of that A, B, C group. 1284 01:01:03,266 --> 01:01:06,833 And, and I left Leland as a sixth-grader 1285 01:01:06,833 --> 01:01:09,500 and went to Greenville, because we had moved. 1286 01:01:09,500 --> 01:01:11,233 And so, I'm talking about fourth-graders 1287 01:01:11,233 --> 01:01:14,133 and third-graders who understood, 1288 01:01:14,133 --> 01:01:16,733 "Oh, we are ability-grouped, 1289 01:01:16,733 --> 01:01:19,866 but this may not be fair." 1290 01:01:19,866 --> 01:01:23,366 POINDEXTER: I started out in fourth grade in C. 1291 01:01:23,366 --> 01:01:26,666 You knew, if you were in C, 1292 01:01:26,666 --> 01:01:30,666 you're not as smart as the kids in 4, 4B or 4A, 1293 01:01:30,666 --> 01:01:33,266 you're not as good as the kids in 4B or 4A. 1294 01:01:33,266 --> 01:01:36,966 And so you knew that, you know, you were kind of.... 1295 01:01:36,966 --> 01:01:38,566 What's a C? A C is average. 1296 01:01:38,566 --> 01:01:40,133 You knew that you were average, 1297 01:01:40,133 --> 01:01:42,066 and it was kind of taken that way. 1298 01:01:42,066 --> 01:01:44,333 What we did at that time 1299 01:01:44,333 --> 01:01:47,833 was to group by ability. 1300 01:01:47,833 --> 01:01:49,266 You know, after a test? 1301 01:01:49,266 --> 01:01:53,000 The white parents who stayed with the school systems 1302 01:01:53,000 --> 01:01:55,433 were kind of forward-thinking people, you know. 1303 01:01:55,433 --> 01:01:57,300 So, naturally, their children were pretty, 1304 01:01:57,300 --> 01:01:59,666 in pretty good shape, and so, when they took those tests, 1305 01:01:59,666 --> 01:02:02,100 it ended up with a lot of whites together. 1306 01:02:02,100 --> 01:02:07,266 And so you still had, in a way, a, a sort of a segregation. 1307 01:02:07,266 --> 01:02:09,800 I decided that I'm not gonna stay in 4C. 1308 01:02:09,800 --> 01:02:12,100 I think I belong in A, 1309 01:02:12,100 --> 01:02:14,066 and I'm gonna work to make sure I did, and I did. 1310 01:02:14,066 --> 01:02:17,466 In the fifth grade, I moved to 5B, 1311 01:02:17,466 --> 01:02:20,300 and there were a few more white children, 1312 01:02:20,300 --> 01:02:21,900 but still mostly Black. 1313 01:02:21,900 --> 01:02:23,833 But then I moved to 6A. 1314 01:02:23,833 --> 01:02:27,300 That's where you and I met-- 6A almost flipped. 1315 01:02:27,300 --> 01:02:31,300 It was mostly white, 1316 01:02:31,300 --> 01:02:36,433 and mostly middle-class and upper-middle-class children 1317 01:02:36,433 --> 01:02:37,833 that were in those classes. 1318 01:02:37,833 --> 01:02:40,533 I'm a new guy, just coming in, 1319 01:02:40,533 --> 01:02:43,900 so I was an interloper. 1320 01:02:43,900 --> 01:02:45,466 They're looking at me, like, 1321 01:02:45,466 --> 01:02:47,200 "How did you get in here? 1322 01:02:47,200 --> 01:02:48,766 Where did you come from?" 1323 01:02:48,766 --> 01:02:52,300 Not just the white students, but more so the Black students. 1324 01:02:52,300 --> 01:02:53,766 And so I had issues. 1325 01:02:53,766 --> 01:02:57,700 I had bullying issues with several of the folks. 1326 01:02:57,700 --> 01:03:00,866 And I won't mention names, so... 1327 01:03:02,033 --> 01:03:04,533 PEPPER: Leland Academy only went through the sixth grade. 1328 01:03:04,533 --> 01:03:07,200 And so my parents had a choice, 1329 01:03:07,200 --> 01:03:11,000 and that was either put me on a bus to another town 1330 01:03:11,000 --> 01:03:12,466 or go to the public school. 1331 01:03:12,466 --> 01:03:15,533 And by that time, the public school had been six years, 1332 01:03:15,533 --> 01:03:19,166 and the world hadn't collapsed, and the sky hadn't fallen. 1333 01:03:19,166 --> 01:03:21,166 And my dad was teaching, I think, 1334 01:03:21,166 --> 01:03:23,500 at Leland High School at that time. 1335 01:03:23,500 --> 01:03:26,600 And my mom had got, gotten to know a lot of the teachers. 1336 01:03:26,600 --> 01:03:28,866 And I think she started to feel 1337 01:03:28,866 --> 01:03:31,566 the teaching was, in many ways, better at public school 1338 01:03:31,566 --> 01:03:34,600 than, uh, at some private schools. 1339 01:03:34,600 --> 01:03:36,866 And so they just made the decision 1340 01:03:36,866 --> 01:03:40,300 that they were gonna send me to, to public school, 1341 01:03:40,300 --> 01:03:41,900 which turned out to be one of the best things 1342 01:03:41,900 --> 01:03:43,900 that ever happened to me, so... 1343 01:03:43,900 --> 01:03:46,666 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: Leland's public schools 1344 01:03:46,666 --> 01:03:48,333 were not perfect, 1345 01:03:48,333 --> 01:03:50,466 but it meant something when families 1346 01:03:50,466 --> 01:03:53,300 like Pam Pepper's came back. 1347 01:03:53,300 --> 01:03:55,466 Things were changing. 1348 01:03:55,466 --> 01:03:57,966 (drums beating in distance, crowd talking in background) 1349 01:03:57,966 --> 01:04:03,033 In 1976, Leland geared up for a classic small-town celebration 1350 01:04:03,033 --> 01:04:05,566 of the 200th anniversary 1351 01:04:05,566 --> 01:04:07,066 of the founding of America. 1352 01:04:07,066 --> 01:04:09,400 (marching band playing) 1353 01:04:09,400 --> 01:04:12,600 The town renovated the old train station. 1354 01:04:12,600 --> 01:04:15,900 Our congressman came to speak. 1355 01:04:15,900 --> 01:04:17,366 ♪ ♪ 1356 01:04:17,366 --> 01:04:19,766 There were two parades, 1357 01:04:19,766 --> 01:04:24,200 wagon rides, R.O.T.C. units, 1358 01:04:24,200 --> 01:04:27,233 a float celebrating Leland High's 1359 01:04:27,233 --> 01:04:29,766 integrated championship football team. 1360 01:04:29,766 --> 01:04:34,800 ♪ ♪ 1361 01:04:36,933 --> 01:04:39,466 And the Cub Scouts marching down Main Street 1362 01:04:39,466 --> 01:04:42,966 with my mother were both white and Black. 1363 01:04:42,966 --> 01:04:46,800 ♪ ♪ 1364 01:04:46,800 --> 01:04:51,366 I marched in the junior high school band. 1365 01:04:51,366 --> 01:04:54,033 We proudly wore blue and gold, 1366 01:04:54,033 --> 01:04:58,200 the old colors of Breisch High. 1367 01:04:58,200 --> 01:05:03,300 BOB BLACKMON: We thought that this is gonna ultimately work out. 1368 01:05:03,300 --> 01:05:07,033 We believed that we had done something good. 1369 01:05:07,033 --> 01:05:09,566 We were gonna change things, 1370 01:05:09,566 --> 01:05:11,433 and maybe begin to create 1371 01:05:11,433 --> 01:05:14,533 Martin Luther King's "beloved community." 1372 01:05:14,533 --> 01:05:16,300 We were optimistic. 1373 01:05:16,300 --> 01:05:18,933 I mean, you know, that, 1374 01:05:18,933 --> 01:05:21,466 that many years after desegregation, we were, 1375 01:05:21,466 --> 01:05:24,766 we were pretty optimistic that it was gonna work out. 1376 01:05:26,600 --> 01:05:30,633 (insects chirping, birds trilling) 1377 01:05:32,766 --> 01:05:34,166 One white child 1378 01:05:34,166 --> 01:05:35,833 that had gone to the private school all his life, 1379 01:05:35,833 --> 01:05:37,633 and then he came to our school, 1380 01:05:37,633 --> 01:05:41,233 he seemed to be okay on the front end, 1381 01:05:41,233 --> 01:05:42,733 but, but I could tell, 1382 01:05:42,733 --> 01:05:44,133 and my other Black classmates could tell, 1383 01:05:44,133 --> 01:05:45,400 and my other white classmates could tell, 1384 01:05:45,400 --> 01:05:47,033 that he hadn't been around Black kids. 1385 01:05:48,300 --> 01:05:50,366 We were in line, and I tripped over a rock, 1386 01:05:50,366 --> 01:05:51,833 and I bumped into him. 1387 01:05:51,833 --> 01:05:53,766 And he told the teacher that I pushed him in the back. 1388 01:05:53,766 --> 01:05:55,133 And my teacher took me outside, 1389 01:05:55,133 --> 01:05:56,800 my white teacher took me outside. 1390 01:05:56,800 --> 01:05:58,133 She went across the hall, 1391 01:05:58,133 --> 01:06:00,266 and she called another teacher, who was Black, 1392 01:06:00,266 --> 01:06:02,133 and she punished me. 1393 01:06:02,133 --> 01:06:05,933 I got, I got, uh, three licks for that. 1394 01:06:05,933 --> 01:06:11,000 And I remember, um, being very upset, I remember crying. 1395 01:06:11,000 --> 01:06:13,466 I remember being very confused 1396 01:06:13,466 --> 01:06:16,200 about why the Black teacher had to come punish me. 1397 01:06:16,200 --> 01:06:18,666 But, even more so, why did the white teacher 1398 01:06:18,666 --> 01:06:22,100 just take what he said as law? 1399 01:06:22,100 --> 01:06:25,966 I started, my first year in the Leland school system 1400 01:06:25,966 --> 01:06:27,433 was the sixth grade. 1401 01:06:27,433 --> 01:06:29,033 (children calling in background) 1402 01:06:29,033 --> 01:06:31,566 So on the very first day, we're out on the playground, 1403 01:06:31,566 --> 01:06:34,666 and I ran into a Black boy that was in the same grade. 1404 01:06:34,666 --> 01:06:36,866 It was purely accidental, 1405 01:06:36,866 --> 01:06:38,666 but, you know, his friends, like, "You gonna let this guy 1406 01:06:38,666 --> 01:06:39,900 do this to you?" 1407 01:06:39,900 --> 01:06:43,100 It became very adversarial very quickly. 1408 01:06:43,100 --> 01:06:46,866 And, um, so we got into a fight. 1409 01:06:46,866 --> 01:06:51,766 There was tension, um, between some of the white students 1410 01:06:51,766 --> 01:06:53,066 and some of the Black students, 1411 01:06:53,066 --> 01:06:54,933 and... 1412 01:06:54,933 --> 01:06:58,933 Gosh, it wasn't too far around the time when "Roots" 1413 01:06:58,933 --> 01:07:02,266 was on television for eight nights. 1414 01:07:02,266 --> 01:07:03,733 (breathing heavily) 1415 01:07:03,733 --> 01:07:06,600 POINDEXTER: That stoked even more of the, 1416 01:07:06,600 --> 01:07:08,600 kind of the racial fervor. 1417 01:07:10,000 --> 01:07:13,400 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: There seemed to be some kind of tension or animosity at school, 1418 01:07:13,400 --> 01:07:14,633 even though it wasn't really clear 1419 01:07:14,633 --> 01:07:17,666 what this was about or where it started. 1420 01:07:17,666 --> 01:07:19,033 You know, was it the white kids 1421 01:07:19,033 --> 01:07:20,200 who were, had animosity first 1422 01:07:20,200 --> 01:07:22,466 or the Black-- it didn't, I didn't know. 1423 01:07:22,466 --> 01:07:24,900 Probably didn't matter, probably wasn't a first. 1424 01:07:24,900 --> 01:07:28,400 But there was just this unexplained tension 1425 01:07:28,400 --> 01:07:30,066 between the Black kids and the white kids, 1426 01:07:30,066 --> 01:07:33,233 uh, that built on itself. 1427 01:07:33,233 --> 01:07:37,100 ♪ ♪ 1428 01:07:37,100 --> 01:07:39,466 POINDEXTER: Your parents talked to you about, "Well, you know, 1429 01:07:39,466 --> 01:07:43,133 you need to speak to white people a certain way." 1430 01:07:43,133 --> 01:07:44,700 It was ingrained in them, 1431 01:07:44,700 --> 01:07:47,933 and they were kind of giving us the, the talk, if you will, 1432 01:07:47,933 --> 01:07:50,266 to say, you know, "You need to kind of conduct yourself 1433 01:07:50,266 --> 01:07:53,600 a certain way around white folks or you're gonna get in trouble." 1434 01:07:53,600 --> 01:07:55,100 We've had the talk. 1435 01:07:55,100 --> 01:07:57,300 We don't like the fact that we've had the talk. 1436 01:07:57,300 --> 01:08:00,633 And now I'm, I'm in with a guy who's basically my peer 1437 01:08:00,633 --> 01:08:02,866 that I have to walk around on eggshells with. 1438 01:08:02,866 --> 01:08:05,500 And that's where a lot of tension was. 1439 01:08:05,500 --> 01:08:08,266 I'm not gonna walk around on eggshells. 1440 01:08:08,266 --> 01:08:09,966 And there were fights. 1441 01:08:09,966 --> 01:08:12,733 The guy that I had the wrestling match with, 1442 01:08:12,733 --> 01:08:15,033 or, it was more a wrestling match than a fight, 1443 01:08:15,033 --> 01:08:16,800 was Billy Barber. 1444 01:08:16,800 --> 01:08:18,866 And, uh, I gave him a bloody nose. 1445 01:08:18,866 --> 01:08:20,000 I know that for a fact, 1446 01:08:20,000 --> 01:08:21,600 because I can still see it in my mind. 1447 01:08:21,600 --> 01:08:24,633 So, about that time, the teachers come and separate us 1448 01:08:24,633 --> 01:08:26,466 and we got off to the principal's office, 1449 01:08:26,466 --> 01:08:27,900 and we didn't even know each other. 1450 01:08:27,900 --> 01:08:29,300 How could we be angry with each other? 1451 01:08:29,300 --> 01:08:30,866 We didn't even know each other. 1452 01:08:30,866 --> 01:08:33,033 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: Don, I got this memory, 1453 01:08:33,033 --> 01:08:35,433 and I'm trying to remember if it's right. 1454 01:08:35,433 --> 01:08:36,800 It was the, I was really 1455 01:08:36,800 --> 01:08:39,833 into G.I. Joes, you were really into G.I. Joes. 1456 01:08:39,833 --> 01:08:41,900 COMMERCIAL ANNOUNCER: And here's Super Joe's Rocket Command Center, 1457 01:08:41,900 --> 01:08:43,233 assembly required. You can imagine 1458 01:08:43,233 --> 01:08:44,366 fun and adventures you'll have 1459 01:08:44,366 --> 01:08:45,833 with Super Joe's Rocket Command Center. 1460 01:08:45,833 --> 01:08:47,000 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: Do you remember that? 1461 01:08:47,000 --> 01:08:48,000 DONALD RICHARDSON: Very well. 1462 01:08:48,000 --> 01:08:51,133 We were into G.I. Joes big-time. 1463 01:08:51,133 --> 01:08:55,033 I don't think they developed the Kung Fu grip yet, but, uh, 1464 01:08:55,033 --> 01:08:58,200 we wanted to play at home, as opposed to school. 1465 01:08:58,200 --> 01:09:00,666 So we both made mention to our parents, 1466 01:09:00,666 --> 01:09:03,333 "Hey, I want to go over to Doug's house. 1467 01:09:03,333 --> 01:09:05,133 Hey, Doug wants to go over to my house." 1468 01:09:05,133 --> 01:09:09,366 I remember doing that with my Black friends all the time. 1469 01:09:09,366 --> 01:09:12,600 I remember a discussion in my home. 1470 01:09:12,600 --> 01:09:14,866 I don't remember what was said, exactly, 1471 01:09:14,866 --> 01:09:19,033 but I could understand: Oh, that might be tricky. 1472 01:09:19,033 --> 01:09:20,733 They didn't say "bad." 1473 01:09:20,733 --> 01:09:21,900 They said, 1474 01:09:21,900 --> 01:09:24,500 or they implied, okay, 1475 01:09:24,500 --> 01:09:28,466 that that might be, uh, controversial. 1476 01:09:28,466 --> 01:09:30,633 They, without using the word "controversial," 1477 01:09:30,633 --> 01:09:32,100 without using the word "tricky." 1478 01:09:32,100 --> 01:09:35,733 I don't even remember the word "black" or "white." 1479 01:09:35,733 --> 01:09:38,166 Or "Black boy" or "white boy." 1480 01:09:38,166 --> 01:09:39,833 I just remember 1481 01:09:39,833 --> 01:09:43,400 them sort of glossing over it a bit, 1482 01:09:43,400 --> 01:09:46,466 and saying, "Well, we'll see." 1483 01:09:46,466 --> 01:09:48,900 Of course, my son always reminds me, 1484 01:09:48,900 --> 01:09:51,466 "Oh, Dad, whenever you say we'll see or maybe, that means no." 1485 01:09:51,466 --> 01:09:52,800 (chuckles) 1486 01:09:52,800 --> 01:09:55,300 I can't remember even now anyone ever saying, 1487 01:09:55,300 --> 01:09:57,366 "No, you can't do that." 1488 01:09:57,366 --> 01:09:59,566 But somehow, we got the message. 1489 01:09:59,566 --> 01:10:02,300 Those kinds of experiences did begin to stack up. 1490 01:10:02,300 --> 01:10:06,533 And by middle school, I began to think about, 1491 01:10:06,533 --> 01:10:09,400 oh, it's very strange that school 1492 01:10:09,400 --> 01:10:13,200 is Black and white and combined, but church is all white. 1493 01:10:13,200 --> 01:10:15,700 Little League baseball in the summer is all white. 1494 01:10:15,700 --> 01:10:17,066 My Boy Scout troop is all white. 1495 01:10:17,066 --> 01:10:18,833 The swimming pool I go to 1496 01:10:18,833 --> 01:10:20,600 never has a Black person in it. 1497 01:10:20,600 --> 01:10:22,066 Every other dimension of life 1498 01:10:22,066 --> 01:10:25,233 is as archly segregated as it ever was. 1499 01:10:25,233 --> 01:10:28,666 But here in this one place, for a few hours every day, 1500 01:10:28,666 --> 01:10:30,600 it's Black and white. 1501 01:10:32,600 --> 01:10:36,633 ♪ ♪ 1502 01:10:40,200 --> 01:10:43,933 PEPPER: I don't recall having even the remotest consciousness 1503 01:10:43,933 --> 01:10:47,733 that something was significant 1504 01:10:47,733 --> 01:10:50,866 about going to an integrated school. 1505 01:10:50,866 --> 01:10:52,333 I don't remember having 1506 01:10:52,333 --> 01:10:53,833 a consciousness of the fact 1507 01:10:53,833 --> 01:10:56,300 that there was a Civil Rights Movement, quite frankly, 1508 01:10:56,300 --> 01:10:58,866   at that age, which is horrifying and embarrassing to say. 1509 01:10:58,866 --> 01:11:01,733 ♪ ♪ 1510 01:11:01,733 --> 01:11:04,700 BARBER: Leland was one of the best districts 1511 01:11:04,700 --> 01:11:07,366 that you could go to school in. 1512 01:11:07,366 --> 01:11:09,766 We had a tough grading system. 1513 01:11:09,766 --> 01:11:12,133 Anything below 75 was an F. 1514 01:11:12,133 --> 01:11:13,800 And I think it helped us. 1515 01:11:13,800 --> 01:11:16,833 It helped us a lot, and, and it helped us to value things 1516 01:11:16,833 --> 01:11:20,033 and, and to want more and to do more. 1517 01:11:20,033 --> 01:11:22,866 We had great English teachers, math teachers, 1518 01:11:22,866 --> 01:11:25,166 home economics teachers 1519 01:11:25,166 --> 01:11:28,333 right here in this small community. 1520 01:11:28,333 --> 01:11:29,966 I was able to do a term paper 1521 01:11:29,966 --> 01:11:31,766 because we had teachers 1522 01:11:31,766 --> 01:11:34,566 like Miss Quimby, for example. 1523 01:11:34,566 --> 01:11:38,633 She made certain that we knew how to do an essay. 1524 01:11:38,633 --> 01:11:41,100 When I got to college, I knew how to do it. 1525 01:11:41,100 --> 01:11:44,166 There was every kind of club and every kind of activity, 1526 01:11:44,166 --> 01:11:46,533 and that's how we formed our friendships, mostly. 1527 01:11:47,700 --> 01:11:52,000 Van Poindexter, he and I were in the school play together. 1528 01:11:52,000 --> 01:11:54,033 The friendships came from common interests. 1529 01:11:55,533 --> 01:11:56,933 Because the school was small, there were a lot 1530 01:11:56,933 --> 01:11:58,400 of overlapping common interests. 1531 01:11:58,400 --> 01:12:00,933 So you might be on the school newspaper with somebody 1532 01:12:00,933 --> 01:12:02,500 and be a cheerleader with somebody. 1533 01:12:02,500 --> 01:12:06,300 And so you, you kind of have crossover friendships. 1534 01:12:06,300 --> 01:12:09,700 BRYAN BLACKMON: I was fairly athletic, I played football. 1535 01:12:09,700 --> 01:12:11,033 You developed 1536 01:12:11,033 --> 01:12:13,066 the same sorts of relationships, really, 1537 01:12:13,066 --> 01:12:16,866 uh, with the Black kids as you did the white kids. 1538 01:12:16,866 --> 01:12:20,166 Probably had a lot to do with, we were a team, 1539 01:12:20,166 --> 01:12:23,366 and we had to work together. 1540 01:12:24,533 --> 01:12:26,166 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: I wasn't the greatest athlete in the world, 1541 01:12:26,166 --> 01:12:28,900 but I played basketball all the time. 1542 01:12:28,900 --> 01:12:33,266 In my junior high school years, I'd been afraid to try out, 1543 01:12:33,266 --> 01:12:36,866 because, in fact, the team was overwhelmingly Black. 1544 01:12:36,866 --> 01:12:39,966 Uh, they were clearly better athletes 1545 01:12:39,966 --> 01:12:42,266 than I believed myself to be at the time. 1546 01:12:42,266 --> 01:12:44,266 And so I get to high school, 1547 01:12:44,266 --> 01:12:46,733 and I've decided I'm not gonna let that happen again. 1548 01:12:46,733 --> 01:12:49,233 I'm gonna try out for the high school team. 1549 01:12:49,233 --> 01:12:52,833 So I was the only white kid on the team. 1550 01:12:52,833 --> 01:12:55,000 We were an overwhelmingly Black team 1551 01:12:55,000 --> 01:12:56,533 from a majority Black school 1552 01:12:56,533 --> 01:13:00,466 playing in a league made up of other schools 1553 01:13:00,466 --> 01:13:03,333 that were pretty much all 100% Black. 1554 01:13:03,333 --> 01:13:06,433 That experience of being the one white kid on that team 1555 01:13:06,433 --> 01:13:08,633 was a singular one in my life. 1556 01:13:09,766 --> 01:13:12,666 TAYLOR: I was focused, you know, as far as being 1557 01:13:12,666 --> 01:13:13,966 a good student and a good, 1558 01:13:13,966 --> 01:13:15,133 you know, athlete, as well. 1559 01:13:15,133 --> 01:13:17,800 My senior year, we went 21 and five. 1560 01:13:17,800 --> 01:13:19,833 We won some big tournaments. 1561 01:13:19,833 --> 01:13:21,600 We were serious about what we were doing, you know? 1562 01:13:21,600 --> 01:13:24,233 MAGEE: Brandon Taylor was, uh, 1563 01:13:24,233 --> 01:13:28,133 one of the best basketball players that any of us had seen. 1564 01:13:28,133 --> 01:13:30,066 He could slam it in the hoop any time he wanted to, 1565 01:13:30,066 --> 01:13:31,733 and nobody could really stop him. 1566 01:13:31,733 --> 01:13:33,366   TAYLOR: I mean, they had us sharp. 1567 01:13:33,366 --> 01:13:34,666 We ran, you know, the sprints, 1568 01:13:34,666 --> 01:13:36,333 jump rope, the long distance, as well. 1569 01:13:36,333 --> 01:13:38,833 Because as a big guy, you know, being six-seven, 1570 01:13:38,833 --> 01:13:41,633 when I was jumping that rope, man, my quickness was, 1571 01:13:41,633 --> 01:13:42,933 I mean, it was phenomenal. 1572 01:13:42,933 --> 01:13:44,266 You know, the little guards blow by you, 1573 01:13:44,266 --> 01:13:46,700 they think they're going to get a layup. 1574 01:13:46,700 --> 01:13:48,066 (slaps table): You pin against the board. 1575 01:13:48,066 --> 01:13:50,000 And he's, like, "Hey, where did you come from?" 1576 01:13:50,000 --> 01:13:52,833 (chuckling): That was fun. 1577 01:13:52,833 --> 01:13:54,900 We represented ourselves, 1578 01:13:54,900 --> 01:13:57,133 our families, and the city of Leland. 1579 01:13:57,133 --> 01:13:59,700 And we wanted to, you know, come out on top. 1580 01:13:59,700 --> 01:14:02,066 Every night we wanted to win. 1581 01:14:02,066 --> 01:14:04,633 I think, as a unit, 1582 01:14:04,633 --> 01:14:06,700 we cared about each other. 1583 01:14:06,700 --> 01:14:10,100 COGGIN: The neat thing about that story of the bloody nose 1584 01:14:10,100 --> 01:14:13,800 with Billy Barber is that, in high school, 1585 01:14:13,800 --> 01:14:16,066 we were one of the best baseball teams in the state. 1586 01:14:16,066 --> 01:14:17,733 He was a catcher, I played shortstop. 1587 01:14:17,733 --> 01:14:20,866 He was such a great leader. 1588 01:14:20,866 --> 01:14:22,200 He was such a great leader. 1589 01:14:22,200 --> 01:14:23,500 And I just, 1590 01:14:23,500 --> 01:14:25,166 when I think of him, I can't help but smile, 1591 01:14:25,166 --> 01:14:28,300 because I think about how it started... 1592 01:14:28,300 --> 01:14:30,500 (quietly): ...and how it ended. 1593 01:14:30,500 --> 01:14:35,466 I recall wonderful experiences in high school. 1594 01:14:35,466 --> 01:14:37,900 One is when I was a part of 1595 01:14:37,900 --> 01:14:41,166 the Future Farmers of America, 1596 01:14:41,166 --> 01:14:42,766 the FFA. 1597 01:14:42,766 --> 01:14:45,366 We had two sponsors, 1598 01:14:45,366 --> 01:14:48,366 Terry James and Allen Clark. 1599 01:14:48,366 --> 01:14:51,400 They took me in like I was their son. 1600 01:14:51,400 --> 01:14:55,466 They made me parliamentarian. 1601 01:14:55,466 --> 01:14:57,766 Barely knew the word parliamentarian. 1602 01:14:57,766 --> 01:14:59,700 Certainly didn't know what it meant. 1603 01:14:59,700 --> 01:15:01,733 But they gave me an opportunity. 1604 01:15:01,733 --> 01:15:05,333 And there was a young guy that was the president. 1605 01:15:05,333 --> 01:15:06,833 Last name was Smyly. 1606 01:15:06,833 --> 01:15:08,200 I was a freshman. 1607 01:15:08,200 --> 01:15:10,133 He was a senior. 1608 01:15:10,133 --> 01:15:13,466 But Smyly took me under his wings 1609 01:15:13,466 --> 01:15:16,066 and told me I could do it. 1610 01:15:16,066 --> 01:15:19,066 And we had drilled and drilled 1611 01:15:19,066 --> 01:15:21,933 over the parliamentarian procedures. 1612 01:15:21,933 --> 01:15:25,333 We had "Robert's Rules of Order" contests. 1613 01:15:25,333 --> 01:15:29,133 We had to learn how to distinguish 1614 01:15:29,133 --> 01:15:33,766 between the Jersey cows and the Brahman cows. 1615 01:15:33,766 --> 01:15:37,266 Everywhere they would go, I found myself going. 1616 01:15:37,266 --> 01:15:40,366 And there were times I didn't have money, 1617 01:15:40,366 --> 01:15:43,400 but they did not let me go without. 1618 01:15:43,400 --> 01:15:48,066 And if Smyly and Allen and James had the money, 1619 01:15:48,066 --> 01:15:50,033 Jessie did, too. 1620 01:15:50,033 --> 01:15:52,866 It increased my confidence. 1621 01:15:52,866 --> 01:15:57,766 And when I became a junior, nobody had to ask me, 1622 01:15:57,766 --> 01:16:01,633 "Will you run for junior class officer?" 1623 01:16:01,633 --> 01:16:03,633 I was ready. 1624 01:16:03,633 --> 01:16:07,166 I did it without second-guessing myself. 1625 01:16:10,200 --> 01:16:14,000 PEPPER: It wasn't all delightful and, and perfect and wonderful. 1626 01:16:14,000 --> 01:16:16,666 One time, a bunch of us 1627 01:16:16,666 --> 01:16:19,100 went to cheerleader camp at Ole Miss, 1628 01:16:19,100 --> 01:16:22,533 and I remember ordering a frozen yogurt, because I had 1629 01:16:22,533 --> 01:16:23,733 always heard about it and heard about it, 1630 01:16:23,733 --> 01:16:24,866 and it sounded so cool, 1631 01:16:24,866 --> 01:16:26,000 and I wanted to try frozen yogurt. 1632 01:16:27,400 --> 01:16:29,333 And one of the Black cheerleaders said, 1633 01:16:29,333 --> 01:16:30,600 "Well, what does it taste like?" 1634 01:16:30,600 --> 01:16:31,666 And I said, "Well, taste it." 1635 01:16:31,666 --> 01:16:33,700 And I gave it to her. 1636 01:16:33,700 --> 01:16:36,033 And one of the white cheerleaders said, 1637 01:16:36,033 --> 01:16:39,000 "Are you gonna use the spoon after her?" 1638 01:16:39,000 --> 01:16:42,033 I remember thinking, "What did you just say?" 1639 01:16:42,033 --> 01:16:46,466 Um, and I don't remember how the Black cheerleader reacted. 1640 01:16:46,466 --> 01:16:48,900 I, I remember going, 1641 01:16:48,900 --> 01:16:52,833 "Give me my yogurt back, I'm gonna keep eating it." 1642 01:16:54,266 --> 01:16:57,633 Looking back, I have sadness now 1643 01:16:57,633 --> 01:16:59,833 that I didn't have then 1644 01:16:59,833 --> 01:17:01,333 about the fact 1645 01:17:01,333 --> 01:17:04,833 that there were wonderful social relationships 1646 01:17:04,833 --> 01:17:07,366 between 8:15 and 3:30, 1647 01:17:07,366 --> 01:17:09,066 and at football games, 1648 01:17:09,066 --> 01:17:12,833 and working on homecoming floats and whatever else 1649 01:17:12,833 --> 01:17:15,000 but they didn't extend beyond that 1650 01:17:15,000 --> 01:17:17,100 between Black kids and white kids. 1651 01:17:17,100 --> 01:17:20,366 Outside, going to each other house... 1652 01:17:20,366 --> 01:17:22,333 Didn't do that often. 1653 01:17:22,333 --> 01:17:24,700 Once you got out of school in May, 1654 01:17:24,700 --> 01:17:26,633 you know, you may see each other at the store, 1655 01:17:26,633 --> 01:17:28,100 in passing, you'd speak. 1656 01:17:28,100 --> 01:17:31,166 But really, you may not see your white friends 1657 01:17:31,166 --> 01:17:32,866 until August or September. 1658 01:17:32,866 --> 01:17:34,833 In hindsight, you look at it and think, well, why? 1659 01:17:34,833 --> 01:17:36,033 That doesn't make sense. 1660 01:17:36,033 --> 01:17:37,833 It's not the way you live your life now. 1661 01:17:37,833 --> 01:17:39,733 It was just the way it was. 1662 01:17:39,733 --> 01:17:44,733 The fact that we didn't have any events together, 1663 01:17:44,733 --> 01:17:46,833 Black and white, was noticeable. 1664 01:17:46,833 --> 01:17:50,700 The one thing I do remember was prom. 1665 01:17:53,200 --> 01:17:55,833 That was it. 1666 01:17:55,833 --> 01:17:58,766 And it was... 1667 01:17:58,766 --> 01:18:02,133 It was kind of tenuous then. 1668 01:18:02,133 --> 01:18:04,100 You know, the whites were together 1669 01:18:04,100 --> 01:18:05,733 and the Blacks were together. 1670 01:18:05,733 --> 01:18:07,333 And even though we were dancing 1671 01:18:07,333 --> 01:18:09,500 with our significant others... 1672 01:18:09,500 --> 01:18:10,600 (chuckling): ...at the time, 1673 01:18:10,600 --> 01:18:12,400 it was still a division. 1674 01:18:12,400 --> 01:18:13,833 And you could see it. 1675 01:18:13,833 --> 01:18:16,900 Whites on one side, Blacks kind of on another side. 1676 01:18:16,900 --> 01:18:18,633 That was, that was weird. 1677 01:18:20,133 --> 01:18:21,466 PEPPER: We had Blacks kids and white kids 1678 01:18:21,466 --> 01:18:22,833 on the homecoming court, 1679 01:18:22,833 --> 01:18:25,233 but no joint homecoming dance. 1680 01:18:25,233 --> 01:18:27,333 After homecoming was over, 1681 01:18:27,333 --> 01:18:29,200 all the white kids went to the garden club 1682 01:18:29,200 --> 01:18:30,633 or wherever we went. 1683 01:18:30,633 --> 01:18:32,900 And the Blacks kids went to wherever they went. 1684 01:18:32,900 --> 01:18:34,933 And we had separate homecoming dances, 1685 01:18:34,933 --> 01:18:37,133 even though everybody had sat right there 1686 01:18:37,133 --> 01:18:39,133 on the homecoming court together. 1687 01:18:40,266 --> 01:18:42,933 After the senior play, my mom and dad wanted to do 1688 01:18:42,933 --> 01:18:44,900 a cast party at our house. 1689 01:18:44,900 --> 01:18:46,733 Van said something about 1690 01:18:46,733 --> 01:18:48,600 he didn't think he was going to come. 1691 01:18:48,600 --> 01:18:51,133 And I remember sort of having my feelings hurt. 1692 01:18:52,133 --> 01:18:55,033 And he said, you know, "I don't know if my parents will let me, 1693 01:18:55,033 --> 01:18:57,333 "'cause if I'm over there in the white neighborhood, 1694 01:18:57,333 --> 01:18:58,666 "my mother would be worried 1695 01:18:58,666 --> 01:19:00,633 "that I could be stopped 1696 01:19:00,633 --> 01:19:02,033 or I could get in some sort of trouble." 1697 01:19:02,033 --> 01:19:04,466 It was just the way we thought. 1698 01:19:04,466 --> 01:19:08,533 "You can't go to white people's houses like that." 1699 01:19:08,533 --> 01:19:10,133 He said it, and I thought, "Well, no!" 1700 01:19:10,133 --> 01:19:11,533 I mean, "How could that be? 1701 01:19:11,533 --> 01:19:13,566 It's just our neighborhood, it's just our house." 1702 01:19:13,566 --> 01:19:15,400 I'll be honest with you, we were just frightened 1703 01:19:15,400 --> 01:19:17,333 of the trouble you could get into 1704 01:19:17,333 --> 01:19:20,700 by going to an, a white person's house. 1705 01:19:20,700 --> 01:19:21,900 We just, we just didn't do it. 1706 01:19:21,900 --> 01:19:24,100 (birds chirping, insects buzzing) 1707 01:19:24,100 --> 01:19:26,666 And I've heard stories, and you probably have, too, 1708 01:19:26,666 --> 01:19:28,733 that if you're around a white girl, you know, 1709 01:19:28,733 --> 01:19:31,166 make sure you know your bearings, 1710 01:19:31,166 --> 01:19:34,433 because if she cries anything untoward towards you, 1711 01:19:34,433 --> 01:19:35,733 you're in trouble. 1712 01:19:35,733 --> 01:19:37,566 She's right, you're wrong, you're in trouble. 1713 01:19:37,566 --> 01:19:41,900 A Black guy and a white girl, it just didn't happen here. 1714 01:19:41,900 --> 01:19:43,166 It was not gonna happen. 1715 01:19:43,166 --> 01:19:47,433 ♪ ♪ 1716 01:19:47,433 --> 01:19:49,133 We were learning to talk to each other 1717 01:19:49,133 --> 01:19:51,333 in our safe school environment, 1718 01:19:51,333 --> 01:19:54,000 but we never really took it to the next level, the next step, 1719 01:19:54,000 --> 01:19:56,866 which was learning to deal with each other socially. 1720 01:19:56,866 --> 01:19:58,600 (insects chirping) 1721 01:19:58,600 --> 01:20:03,333 It was still the creek and the railroad track dividing us. 1722 01:20:03,333 --> 01:20:08,033 (train horn blows) 1723 01:20:08,033 --> 01:20:09,800 (train bell ringing) 1724 01:20:09,800 --> 01:20:13,966 ♪ ♪ 1725 01:20:18,533 --> 01:20:22,566 ♪ ♪ 1726 01:20:26,400 --> 01:20:28,833 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: Those 12 years of school hadn't turned out 1727 01:20:28,833 --> 01:20:33,566 exactly the way anyone predicted at the beginning. 1728 01:20:33,566 --> 01:20:35,533 But the segregationists who said 1729 01:20:35,533 --> 01:20:38,033 it would never work to put Black and white kids 1730 01:20:38,033 --> 01:20:41,266 in the same schools were proven wrong. 1731 01:20:41,266 --> 01:20:43,400 The first harvest 1732 01:20:43,400 --> 01:20:46,866 of all that effort, the class of 1982, 1733 01:20:46,866 --> 01:20:49,600   crossed the stage on commencement night 1734 01:20:49,600 --> 01:20:51,600 and stepped out into the world, 1735 01:20:51,600 --> 01:20:55,833 Black and white together. 1736 01:20:55,833 --> 01:20:57,533 That was a milestone. 1737 01:20:57,533 --> 01:21:00,300 Because we wanted equality. 1738 01:21:01,700 --> 01:21:05,166 PEPPER: Brown was supposed to get rid of the "separate" 1739 01:21:05,166 --> 01:21:06,633 in separate but equal. 1740 01:21:06,633 --> 01:21:08,766 And to an extent it did. 1741 01:21:08,766 --> 01:21:10,866 We went to school together. 1742 01:21:10,866 --> 01:21:13,000 For a long time, a lot of us went to school together. 1743 01:21:13,000 --> 01:21:14,600 Some of us really liked it. (chuckles) 1744 01:21:15,600 --> 01:21:18,333 Hope a lot of us really liked it. 1745 01:21:18,333 --> 01:21:22,733 KING: 1982, integration was a reality. 1746 01:21:22,733 --> 01:21:26,300 And then here come the children of integration 1747 01:21:26,300 --> 01:21:30,666 who had to be taught about racial biases, 1748 01:21:30,666 --> 01:21:35,133 had to be told about-- we didn't know it. 1749 01:21:35,133 --> 01:21:39,300 And thank God nobody really just drove it in. 1750 01:21:39,300 --> 01:21:40,533 You had a few, 1751 01:21:40,533 --> 01:21:43,533 but you had more who were saying, 1752 01:21:43,533 --> 01:21:48,366 "In Leland, it's time-- it's time." 1753 01:21:48,366 --> 01:21:53,300 And it really was time. 1754 01:21:53,300 --> 01:21:58,000 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: As it turned out, I didn't get to be one of those graduates. 1755 01:21:58,000 --> 01:22:00,900 My dad got a new job in another town, 1756 01:22:00,900 --> 01:22:05,000 and my family moved there while I was still in high school. 1757 01:22:05,000 --> 01:22:07,333 I went to college, 1758 01:22:07,333 --> 01:22:09,100 became a journalist, 1759 01:22:09,100 --> 01:22:11,233 even won a Pulitzer Prize. 1760 01:22:11,233 --> 01:22:12,633 And for a long time, 1761 01:22:12,633 --> 01:22:16,433 lost touch with most of my childhood friends. 1762 01:22:16,433 --> 01:22:17,866 (insects chirping) 1763 01:22:17,866 --> 01:22:21,500 I imagined that progress in Leland would just keep going. 1764 01:22:21,500 --> 01:22:26,666 It seemed like we in the town had done the hardest work. 1765 01:22:26,666 --> 01:22:28,633 (people talking in background) 1766 01:22:28,633 --> 01:22:31,100 Three decades later, I decided to go back 1767 01:22:31,100 --> 01:22:34,966 and watch another Leland High School graduation. 1768 01:22:34,966 --> 01:22:36,966 ("Pomp and Circumstance" playing) 1769 01:22:36,966 --> 01:22:39,033 The stage, the auditorium, 1770 01:22:39,033 --> 01:22:41,866 and the excitement of the graduates 1771 01:22:41,866 --> 01:22:46,966 all seemed the same as back in 1982. 1772 01:22:46,966 --> 01:22:50,166 (audience cheering) 1773 01:22:52,200 --> 01:22:54,666 (playing gentle piece) 1774 01:22:54,666 --> 01:22:59,100 (man announcing graduate's name) 1775 01:22:59,100 --> 01:23:03,266 (audience cheering) 1776 01:23:04,600 --> 01:23:07,600 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: But the classes looked very different 1777 01:23:07,600 --> 01:23:11,100 than the one I'd been part of. 1778 01:23:11,100 --> 01:23:14,166 Almost all the white kids were gone. 1779 01:23:14,166 --> 01:23:17,166 (audience cheering) 1780 01:23:17,166 --> 01:23:19,600 MAN: You may now turn your tassels. 1781 01:23:19,600 --> 01:23:23,166 (cheering) 1782 01:23:23,166 --> 01:23:25,033 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: It was almost as if everything 1783 01:23:25,033 --> 01:23:27,400 from those remarkable years together 1784 01:23:27,400 --> 01:23:30,333 had never happened. 1785 01:23:30,333 --> 01:23:35,466 TAYLOR: Back when Doug and I were in school, we had a good mix. 1786 01:23:35,466 --> 01:23:38,966 Now it's 90% Black, you know? 1787 01:23:38,966 --> 01:23:40,533 Maybe a little higher. 1788 01:23:41,866 --> 01:23:43,933 There have been changes. 1789 01:23:43,933 --> 01:23:45,933 A lot of people have sent their, you know, kids 1790 01:23:45,933 --> 01:23:47,400 to private schools. 1791 01:23:47,400 --> 01:23:49,500 You don't have that many whites 1792 01:23:49,500 --> 01:23:51,233 in Leland Public School District. 1793 01:23:51,233 --> 01:23:53,433 A lot of the whites have moved out. 1794 01:23:53,433 --> 01:23:55,500 If they come to the Leland Public School, 1795 01:23:55,500 --> 01:23:57,600 they'll take their kids in the elementary part, 1796 01:23:57,600 --> 01:23:59,566 and once they get past elementary, 1797 01:23:59,566 --> 01:24:01,733 by the time they make it to junior high, 1798 01:24:01,733 --> 01:24:03,166 they're going to the private school. 1799 01:24:04,666 --> 01:24:07,600 COLEMAN: Some of the families are not pleased 1800 01:24:07,600 --> 01:24:10,733 with what public schools are doing. 1801 01:24:10,733 --> 01:24:12,100 Blacks and whites who want 1802 01:24:12,100 --> 01:24:14,500 their children to be educated 1803 01:24:14,500 --> 01:24:16,333 will seek other means. 1804 01:24:17,700 --> 01:24:19,433 Even Black churches. 1805 01:24:19,433 --> 01:24:22,333 Unity Church has its own school 1806 01:24:22,333 --> 01:24:26,833 because of faith-based money that's out there. 1807 01:24:26,833 --> 01:24:30,400 And it's a sad statement. 1808 01:24:31,833 --> 01:24:34,500 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: In the decade after my class graduated, 1809 01:24:34,500 --> 01:24:39,166 Leland's public schools performed well academically. 1810 01:24:39,166 --> 01:24:42,700 A steady trickle of white students returned. 1811 01:24:42,700 --> 01:24:44,400 ♪ ♪ 1812 01:24:44,400 --> 01:24:47,433 And Leland Academy, the white private school, 1813 01:24:47,433 --> 01:24:50,233 closed its doors. 1814 01:24:50,233 --> 01:24:53,400 But that was an illusion. 1815 01:24:53,400 --> 01:24:56,666 Most white families were gone forever. 1816 01:24:56,666 --> 01:24:58,866 They still lived in Leland, 1817 01:24:58,866 --> 01:25:01,200 but the hundreds of white students 1818 01:25:01,200 --> 01:25:02,766 who left during integration 1819 01:25:02,766 --> 01:25:05,733 and the brothers and sisters who came after 1820 01:25:05,733 --> 01:25:08,800 almost all were sent to other private schools 1821 01:25:08,800 --> 01:25:11,733 in nearby towns. 1822 01:25:11,733 --> 01:25:14,400 Those schools eventually began accepting 1823 01:25:14,400 --> 01:25:17,533 a few students who were not white. 1824 01:25:17,533 --> 01:25:19,466 But the schools set up to preserve 1825 01:25:19,466 --> 01:25:23,233 segregation had accomplished their purpose. 1826 01:25:25,000 --> 01:25:28,033 Integration didn't stick the way we thought it was gonna stick. 1827 01:25:29,233 --> 01:25:31,133 We're segregated again. 1828 01:25:31,133 --> 01:25:33,233 The thing that we have been fighting 1829 01:25:33,233 --> 01:25:37,366 for years and years, we're there again. 1830 01:25:37,366 --> 01:25:40,166 Now it's back to almost the way it was. 1831 01:25:41,166 --> 01:25:44,466 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: The failure to genuinely integrate public schools 1832 01:25:44,466 --> 01:25:48,300 affected more than just what happened in kids' classrooms. 1833 01:25:48,300 --> 01:25:51,400 The dream had been to build a community 1834 01:25:51,400 --> 01:25:53,566 of different kinds of people 1835 01:25:53,566 --> 01:25:55,600 who could trust each other enough 1836 01:25:55,600 --> 01:26:00,166 to work through the troubles that eventually hit every town. 1837 01:26:00,166 --> 01:26:02,600 But that never really happened. 1838 01:26:02,600 --> 01:26:05,133 And places like Leland 1839 01:26:05,133 --> 01:26:09,933 had a lot of trouble to work through in the 1990s. 1840 01:26:10,933 --> 01:26:15,266 Technology eliminated massive numbers of farm jobs. 1841 01:26:17,033 --> 01:26:20,866 Dramatic cuts to public education, 1842 01:26:20,866 --> 01:26:23,433 the war on drugs, 1843 01:26:23,433 --> 01:26:25,800 one store after another closing down 1844 01:26:25,800 --> 01:26:28,900 in the center of town. 1845 01:26:28,900 --> 01:26:31,100 It all took a terrible toll. 1846 01:26:31,100 --> 01:26:35,766 ♪ ♪ 1847 01:26:39,966 --> 01:26:41,333 (sirens wailing) 1848 01:26:41,333 --> 01:26:43,066 Then, in 1996, 1849 01:26:43,066 --> 01:26:48,100 Leland was tested when a Black TV repairman named Aaron White 1850 01:26:48,100 --> 01:26:51,033 crashed his truck on Deer Creek Drive 1851 01:26:51,033 --> 01:26:53,433 and tried to flee the scene. 1852 01:26:53,433 --> 01:26:55,400 He exchanged gunfire 1853 01:26:55,400 --> 01:26:59,533 with a white policeman named Jackie Blaylock, 1854 01:26:59,533 --> 01:27:03,166 a former Leland High School quarterback. 1855 01:27:03,166 --> 01:27:07,266 White died from a gunshot wound to the head. 1856 01:27:08,933 --> 01:27:13,133 Black residents erupted in days of angry protests. 1857 01:27:13,133 --> 01:27:15,666 Hundreds of state troopers were called in 1858 01:27:15,666 --> 01:27:19,166 to enforce a nightly curfew. 1859 01:27:19,166 --> 01:27:21,800 We stood for something that we believed in. 1860 01:27:21,800 --> 01:27:25,300 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: Cedric Bush, one of my former schoolmates, 1861 01:27:25,300 --> 01:27:27,633 was one of the leaders of those protests. 1862 01:27:27,633 --> 01:27:32,666 He was arrested for refusing to comply with the curfew. 1863 01:27:34,333 --> 01:27:35,533 BUSH: There were a lot of questions 1864 01:27:35,533 --> 01:27:37,133 behind the death of the young man, 1865 01:27:37,133 --> 01:27:38,966 and the community thought 1866 01:27:38,966 --> 01:27:41,133 that we should have had some answers, 1867 01:27:41,133 --> 01:27:42,733 or someone in leadership 1868 01:27:42,733 --> 01:27:45,500 would come forth and tell us something. 1869 01:27:45,500 --> 01:27:48,133 Tried to keep it hush-hush. 1870 01:27:48,133 --> 01:27:52,033 A lot of people were upset behind how that, 1871 01:27:52,033 --> 01:27:54,533 that particular, you know, thing went down, 1872 01:27:54,533 --> 01:27:55,933 and the only thing they were asking for was, 1873 01:27:55,933 --> 01:27:57,766 what, what was the investigation, 1874 01:27:57,766 --> 01:27:58,933 is the investigation ongoing? 1875 01:27:58,933 --> 01:28:00,933 You know, just tell us something. 1876 01:28:00,933 --> 01:28:03,000 You know, we just thought that this man 1877 01:28:03,000 --> 01:28:04,933 had been killed in cold blood. 1878 01:28:04,933 --> 01:28:09,433 Leland has not been the same since. 1879 01:28:09,433 --> 01:28:13,066 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: In the end, an FBI investigation 1880 01:28:13,066 --> 01:28:16,466 concluded that the bullet that killed Aaron White 1881 01:28:16,466 --> 01:28:18,733 came from his own gun. 1882 01:28:18,733 --> 01:28:23,666 Publicly, they said it was a tragic accident, 1883 01:28:23,666 --> 01:28:27,200 but the possibility that a Black man in Mississippi 1884 01:28:27,200 --> 01:28:31,166 would kill himself rather than face a white policeman 1885 01:28:31,166 --> 01:28:33,233 still haunts me. 1886 01:28:33,233 --> 01:28:35,800 Leland was supposed to have been the town 1887 01:28:35,800 --> 01:28:38,800 that exorcised its racial demons, 1888 01:28:38,800 --> 01:28:40,933 or at least a lot of them. 1889 01:28:40,933 --> 01:28:44,566 I began to wonder if failed school integration 1890 01:28:44,566 --> 01:28:47,900 was as much a cornerstone of my hometown 1891 01:28:47,900 --> 01:28:53,066 as segregation had been 50 years before. 1892 01:28:53,066 --> 01:28:56,433 For us to still be fractured 1893 01:28:56,433 --> 01:28:59,600 along racial lines is heartbreaking. 1894 01:28:59,600 --> 01:29:01,066 A lot of very important people 1895 01:29:01,066 --> 01:29:03,333 put their lives on the line 1896 01:29:03,333 --> 01:29:06,800 to make sure that we would have 1897 01:29:06,800 --> 01:29:08,266 and would see better days. 1898 01:29:08,266 --> 01:29:10,400 And I don't think people think about 1899 01:29:10,400 --> 01:29:13,000 that part of our history now. 1900 01:29:13,000 --> 01:29:14,233 You know? 1901 01:29:14,233 --> 01:29:16,633 Um, that's something that should be 1902 01:29:16,633 --> 01:29:19,266 near and dear to everybody's heart, you know, 1903 01:29:19,266 --> 01:29:20,633 regardless of what color you are. 1904 01:29:20,633 --> 01:29:22,566 I mean, 'cause, that was a struggle, 1905 01:29:22,566 --> 01:29:24,800 and it's a struggle now. 1906 01:29:24,800 --> 01:29:28,066 I don't know why resegregation is happening, 1907 01:29:28,066 --> 01:29:30,966 but I can anticipate that, 1908 01:29:30,966 --> 01:29:34,833 or I can imagine, that part of it might be 1909 01:29:34,833 --> 01:29:36,766 that there are experiences 1910 01:29:36,766 --> 01:29:40,133 that Black people have had 1911 01:29:40,133 --> 01:29:42,000 that they feel like 1912 01:29:42,000 --> 01:29:45,200 they can't really talk to white people about, 1913 01:29:45,200 --> 01:29:47,533 because there won't be any comprehension 1914 01:29:47,533 --> 01:29:49,666 of a similar experience. 1915 01:29:49,666 --> 01:29:51,466 I think it's difficult 1916 01:29:51,466 --> 01:29:54,700 for people to, uh, remember, 1917 01:29:54,700 --> 01:29:57,933 because they, then they have to talk about it. 1918 01:29:57,933 --> 01:30:01,366 You know? And that's a difficult conversation 1919 01:30:01,366 --> 01:30:05,300 that, um, to have with each other 1920 01:30:05,300 --> 01:30:08,266 and to have with a, a Black person. 1921 01:30:08,266 --> 01:30:12,266 But, and, and then, perhaps, uh, as children, 1922 01:30:12,266 --> 01:30:14,333 they were shielded from some of that. 1923 01:30:14,333 --> 01:30:16,200 I, I have no idea. 1924 01:30:16,200 --> 01:30:19,733 But, but I, I have talked with classmates who say, 1925 01:30:19,733 --> 01:30:22,900 my classmates who say, "Oh! I'm so sorry that happened to you. 1926 01:30:22,900 --> 01:30:25,600 I didn't know, you know, that was going on." 1927 01:30:25,600 --> 01:30:28,833 "So you didn't know why I was sitting up in the balcony?" 1928 01:30:28,833 --> 01:30:30,333 You know? 1929 01:30:30,333 --> 01:30:33,600 "You, you didn't know why we had to go through the side door, 1930 01:30:33,600 --> 01:30:35,333 "and we had-- you didn't know any of that? 1931 01:30:35,333 --> 01:30:38,333 Surely, you jest." 1932 01:30:38,333 --> 01:30:43,133 We work hard to forget things, we... 1933 01:30:43,133 --> 01:30:44,966 It is a human instinct, and there are things 1934 01:30:44,966 --> 01:30:46,833 that we don't want to remember, 1935 01:30:46,833 --> 01:30:49,166 uh, that we end up not remembering. 1936 01:30:49,166 --> 01:30:52,033 Or at least are able to pretend we don't remember 1937 01:30:52,033 --> 01:30:53,466 for a really long time. 1938 01:30:53,466 --> 01:30:57,600 Uh, and as hard as we work to forget, 1939 01:30:57,600 --> 01:31:00,366 we have to work just as hard to remember. 1940 01:31:00,366 --> 01:31:01,966 It's a difficult conversation. 1941 01:31:01,966 --> 01:31:05,766 But until we start having that, those difficult conversations, 1942 01:31:05,766 --> 01:31:10,200 we're always gonna be, you know, um, divided in some way. 1943 01:31:10,200 --> 01:31:12,200 Because it has to be reconciled. 1944 01:31:12,200 --> 01:31:15,366 My truth has to be reconciled with your truth. 1945 01:31:15,366 --> 01:31:16,966 It's hard to believe 1946 01:31:16,966 --> 01:31:19,100 that things wouldn't be better 1947 01:31:19,100 --> 01:31:21,233 if there were, certainly, people 1948 01:31:21,233 --> 01:31:24,033 with a more openness 1949 01:31:24,033 --> 01:31:26,333 to accept people for who they are. 1950 01:31:26,333 --> 01:31:29,433 And I do think that much of that in me 1951 01:31:29,433 --> 01:31:32,200 came from the time I was in public schools. 1952 01:31:32,200 --> 01:31:35,066 Maybe I didn't see that bigger picture then that I see now. 1953 01:31:35,066 --> 01:31:36,233 Maybe I didn't see that. 1954 01:31:36,233 --> 01:31:38,900 But I do think I saw a glimpse of it. 1955 01:31:38,900 --> 01:31:41,666 And so what if some of us, more of us had stayed around? 1956 01:31:41,666 --> 01:31:42,666 Would it be the same? 1957 01:31:42,666 --> 01:31:44,233 Was it a reasonable expectation 1958 01:31:44,233 --> 01:31:46,933 to think that simply putting 1959 01:31:46,933 --> 01:31:49,233 innocent little kids of one race 1960 01:31:49,233 --> 01:31:52,133 and innocent little kids of another in a school together, 1961 01:31:52,133 --> 01:31:55,033 then everything would be fine? 1962 01:31:55,033 --> 01:31:58,300 The everything would be fine part I think is unreasonable. 1963 01:31:58,300 --> 01:32:01,733 But I still think, I still believe 1964 01:32:01,733 --> 01:32:05,966 that it's really hard to hate somebody who you know. 1965 01:32:05,966 --> 01:32:08,966 It's really hard to hate somebody 1966 01:32:08,966 --> 01:32:10,866 who is smarter than you in math 1967 01:32:10,866 --> 01:32:13,300 and they're willing to sit with you for 15 minutes 1968 01:32:13,300 --> 01:32:15,233 and help you with it. 1969 01:32:15,233 --> 01:32:18,166 So, was it perfect? 1970 01:32:18,166 --> 01:32:19,700 Did it solve the world's problems? 1971 01:32:19,700 --> 01:32:22,633 Was it reasonable to expect that that was the only piece? 1972 01:32:22,633 --> 01:32:25,000 No. 1973 01:32:25,000 --> 01:32:28,766 But was there some, some kernel of reason 1974 01:32:28,766 --> 01:32:32,133 to the thought of, "Look, if you could just sit down and, 1975 01:32:32,133 --> 01:32:34,900 next to each other and see"? 1976 01:32:34,900 --> 01:32:37,066 I think that was reasonable. 1977 01:32:37,066 --> 01:32:41,066 Integration in its purest form, 1978 01:32:41,066 --> 01:32:45,300 uh, it dispels stereotype, 1979 01:32:45,300 --> 01:32:47,433 and it helps with prejudice. 1980 01:32:47,433 --> 01:32:48,633 We are all prejudiced. 1981 01:32:49,700 --> 01:32:53,100 We just have to find a way to move forward together, 1982 01:32:53,100 --> 01:32:55,166 and to make sure that everybody has a piece of the pie, 1983 01:32:55,166 --> 01:32:57,700 and a level playing field 1984 01:32:57,700 --> 01:33:01,000 to set our tables on to eat our pie. 1985 01:33:04,533 --> 01:33:08,566 ♪ ♪ 1986 01:33:11,500 --> 01:33:13,833 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: After I started returning to Leland, 1987 01:33:13,833 --> 01:33:16,533 I discovered something new happening. 1988 01:33:16,533 --> 01:33:21,600 Some of my former classmates were coming back home. 1989 01:33:21,600 --> 01:33:23,600 All right, everybody, looking at me. 1990 01:33:23,600 --> 01:33:24,866 (camera shutter clicks) 1991 01:33:24,866 --> 01:33:26,933 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: Billy Barber came back to Leland 1992 01:33:26,933 --> 01:33:28,333 to be chief of police. 1993 01:33:28,333 --> 01:33:30,000 Doug said he went to school with everybody. 1994 01:33:30,000 --> 01:33:31,433 Jessie King, you... 1995 01:33:31,433 --> 01:33:33,333 That's right, we all went to school together. 1996 01:33:34,333 --> 01:33:38,333 BARBER: After college, I left Leland. 1997 01:33:38,333 --> 01:33:41,166 I really felt like I was going to do ten years 1998 01:33:41,166 --> 01:33:45,033 in law enforcement and get out. 1999 01:33:45,033 --> 01:33:47,266 But it kept tugging at me 2000 01:33:47,266 --> 01:33:52,266 that Leland needed some leadership in law enforcement. 2001 01:33:52,266 --> 01:33:55,366 Not to say that I was, I'm the best. 2002 01:33:55,366 --> 01:34:00,233 But I know it was the Lord telling me, "Go back home 2003 01:34:00,233 --> 01:34:01,566 to help home out." 2004 01:34:03,333 --> 01:34:07,100 Brandon and Cedric and Evelyn Gordon told me, 2005 01:34:07,100 --> 01:34:10,333 said, "Come on back, come home." 2006 01:34:10,333 --> 01:34:12,000 I'm still here. 2007 01:34:12,000 --> 01:34:15,633 And I just think that this is where the Lord wanted me to be. 2008 01:34:18,233 --> 01:34:20,700 (congregation singing) 2009 01:34:20,700 --> 01:34:22,900 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: And I found out that on weekends, 2010 01:34:22,900 --> 01:34:26,866 Billy Barber has another calling. 2011 01:34:26,866 --> 01:34:31,400 (singing) 2012 01:34:31,400 --> 01:34:34,266 BARBER: Being a police chief 2013 01:34:34,266 --> 01:34:36,766 is actually not much different from being a pastor. 2014 01:34:36,766 --> 01:34:38,266 You have the same love. 2015 01:34:39,833 --> 01:34:42,600 And my love is for the citizens, 2016 01:34:42,600 --> 01:34:44,266 to keep them safe... 2017 01:34:44,266 --> 01:34:47,766 (congregation singing) 2018 01:34:47,766 --> 01:34:49,933 ...and just having the love of God, 2019 01:34:49,933 --> 01:34:52,033 and to love people, 2020 01:34:52,033 --> 01:34:54,433 and to treat people right and treat people with respect, 2021 01:34:54,433 --> 01:34:58,766 and, and to try to make the community better. 2022 01:34:58,766 --> 01:35:03,066 (singing) 2023 01:35:05,033 --> 01:35:06,400 (song ends, congregation applauding) 2024 01:35:06,400 --> 01:35:10,733 (marching band playing) 2025 01:35:13,300 --> 01:35:16,333 (shouting and cheering) 2026 01:35:16,333 --> 01:35:19,733 (speaking indistinctly) 2027 01:35:19,733 --> 01:35:21,833 Play your hearts out-- whatever position... 2028 01:35:21,833 --> 01:35:24,633 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: Cedric Bush had been a football superstar 2029 01:35:24,633 --> 01:35:25,966 in high school, 2030 01:35:25,966 --> 01:35:29,233 the kind of young athlete who actually had a shot 2031 01:35:29,233 --> 01:35:31,466 at playing professional football. 2032 01:35:31,466 --> 01:35:33,733 BUSH: I thought about a conversation 2033 01:35:33,733 --> 01:35:35,233 with one of my professors. 2034 01:35:35,233 --> 01:35:38,100 And, um, and he had asked the question, 2035 01:35:38,100 --> 01:35:40,133 he said, "What do you plan to do 2036 01:35:40,133 --> 01:35:42,866 once you're done with college?" 2037 01:35:42,866 --> 01:35:45,033 And I said, "Oh, man, I'm going to the pros, 2038 01:35:45,033 --> 01:35:46,566 "I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that, 2039 01:35:46,566 --> 01:35:48,866 and buy my dad a truck, I'm gonna build Mom a house." 2040 01:35:48,866 --> 01:35:51,600 He said, "Yeah, but what if that doesn't work out?" 2041 01:35:51,600 --> 01:35:53,300 I said, "What do you mean, if it doesn't work out? 2042 01:35:53,300 --> 01:35:56,033 I'm, I'm, you know, I'm good-- I, I'm gonna make it." 2043 01:35:56,033 --> 01:35:57,466 He said, "Listen. 2044 01:35:57,466 --> 01:36:00,833 "Your parents sent you to school to get an education. 2045 01:36:00,833 --> 01:36:02,500 "When you get the education, 2046 01:36:02,500 --> 01:36:03,566 "you're supposed to get the knowledge 2047 01:36:03,566 --> 01:36:04,933 "and take it back home 2048 01:36:04,933 --> 01:36:06,633 to help build your community." 2049 01:36:06,633 --> 01:36:08,800 Now, I never heard that before in my life. 2050 01:36:08,800 --> 01:36:10,566 No, right there! Right there! 2051 01:36:10,566 --> 01:36:12,900 (voiceover): He gave me the greatest tool 2052 01:36:12,900 --> 01:36:14,700 that I could ever hear as a young man. 2053 01:36:15,866 --> 01:36:17,233 I end up coming home. 2054 01:36:17,233 --> 01:36:20,533 I went to the school system to coach and teach. 2055 01:36:20,533 --> 01:36:23,700 ANNOUNCER: Touchdown, Cubs. 2056 01:36:23,700 --> 01:36:25,800 BUSH: And then I began my political career 2057 01:36:25,800 --> 01:36:28,033 and ran for the city council. 2058 01:36:28,033 --> 01:36:31,000 I served, uh, one term. 2059 01:36:31,000 --> 01:36:33,566 Now, serving as a justice court judge, 2060 01:36:33,566 --> 01:36:36,566 you do more help to people than harm to people. 2061 01:36:37,633 --> 01:36:39,533 Some people just need a second chance. 2062 01:36:39,533 --> 01:36:41,866 And that's who I am, that's the role I try to play 2063 01:36:41,866 --> 01:36:44,533 in coming back home to help my community. 2064 01:36:44,533 --> 01:36:47,633 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: Cedric and his wife also went into business, 2065 01:36:47,633 --> 01:36:51,600 taking over the old Leland Café. 2066 01:36:51,600 --> 01:36:53,366 They now run the restaurant 2067 01:36:53,366 --> 01:36:56,366 that wouldn't have let their parents enter 2068 01:36:56,366 --> 01:36:57,800 through the front door. 2069 01:37:00,300 --> 01:37:02,533 They also started a funeral home 2070 01:37:02,533 --> 01:37:05,100 at the center of Leland's downtown 2071 01:37:05,100 --> 01:37:06,700 and in the same building 2072 01:37:06,700 --> 01:37:12,266 where the segregated Rex Theater had once operated. 2073 01:37:12,266 --> 01:37:14,466 BUSH: To be proud owners of this particular building, 2074 01:37:14,466 --> 01:37:17,533 knowing the history behind it, you can't beat it. 2075 01:37:17,533 --> 01:37:18,566 You can't beat it. 2076 01:37:19,566 --> 01:37:21,466 Brandon Taylor and Evelyn Gordon-Murray 2077 01:37:21,466 --> 01:37:24,166 were elected to the school board. 2078 01:37:24,166 --> 01:37:27,600 She has served more than ten years. 2079 01:37:27,600 --> 01:37:31,500 Brandon is president of the board. 2080 01:37:31,500 --> 01:37:33,866 TAYLOR: I played basketball at, uh, Baylor. 2081 01:37:33,866 --> 01:37:35,966 And then I went across seas to Germany. 2082 01:37:35,966 --> 01:37:38,300 I could've stayed across seas and played in other countries, 2083 01:37:38,300 --> 01:37:40,966 but I love, you know, the smalltown feel, 2084 01:37:40,966 --> 01:37:42,233 the smalltown atmosphere. 2085 01:37:42,233 --> 01:37:44,933 There's nothing like being at home. 2086 01:37:44,933 --> 01:37:46,866 What made me decide to run for the school board? 2087 01:37:46,866 --> 01:37:48,466 My love for the kids. 2088 01:37:48,466 --> 01:37:50,633 I want to make sure the children 2089 01:37:50,633 --> 01:37:52,733 have someone fighting for them every day. 2090 01:37:52,733 --> 01:37:56,600 GORDON-MURRAY: I would like to see our school back like it used to be. 2091 01:37:56,600 --> 01:37:58,733 If we had 2092 01:37:58,733 --> 01:38:01,300 more whites in our school, 2093 01:38:01,300 --> 01:38:03,600 you would have the backing of the community. 2094 01:38:03,600 --> 01:38:05,700 MAN: ...the stadium, uh, you see the... 2095 01:38:05,700 --> 01:38:09,300 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: A few years later, after an unexpected drop 2096 01:38:09,300 --> 01:38:10,800 in the performance of Leland schools 2097 01:38:10,800 --> 01:38:12,866 and a succession of superintendents 2098 01:38:12,866 --> 01:38:16,433 who struggled to turn the system around... 2099 01:38:16,433 --> 01:38:19,533 And, and all great ideas, we welcome... 2100 01:38:19,533 --> 01:38:21,966 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: ...the board hired another of our classmates, 2101 01:38:21,966 --> 01:38:25,066 Jessie King, to be school superintendent. 2102 01:38:25,066 --> 01:38:26,366 We need to clear it up. 2103 01:38:28,600 --> 01:38:30,133 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: In the years since then, 2104 01:38:30,133 --> 01:38:31,933 student scores in Leland 2105 01:38:31,933 --> 01:38:35,866 have improved dramatically. 2106 01:38:35,866 --> 01:38:37,766 KING: When I was a teacher, 2107 01:38:37,766 --> 01:38:39,000 and the superintendent said, 2108 01:38:39,000 --> 01:38:42,266 "Jessie, what do you want to do in life? 2109 01:38:42,266 --> 01:38:44,500 I mean, what would be your dream job?" 2110 01:38:44,500 --> 01:38:48,166 I said to the superintendent, "To have your job." 2111 01:38:48,166 --> 01:38:51,166 And the superintendent smiled and said, 2112 01:38:51,166 --> 01:38:52,633 "You can have it someday." 2113 01:38:52,633 --> 01:38:54,133 And someday came. 2114 01:38:57,300 --> 01:38:59,700 I've been the superintendent of the Leland School District 2115 01:38:59,700 --> 01:39:03,700 since February of 2016. 2116 01:39:05,566 --> 01:39:07,066 Good morning. WOMAN: Good morning. 2117 01:39:07,066 --> 01:39:10,233 Just wanted to stop in and see how learning is progressing. 2118 01:39:13,033 --> 01:39:16,600 (voiceover): That first year, I walked into some situations 2119 01:39:16,600 --> 01:39:20,200 that I just did not know 2120 01:39:20,200 --> 01:39:23,066 existed in the school district. 2121 01:39:23,066 --> 01:39:26,000 The technology was not here. 2122 01:39:26,000 --> 01:39:29,900 The libraries did not have current, um, books. 2123 01:39:29,900 --> 01:39:32,166 And so we had a lot of challenges. 2124 01:39:34,733 --> 01:39:36,866 And our kids deserve better, 2125 01:39:36,866 --> 01:39:40,000 our kids should have better, 2126 01:39:40,000 --> 01:39:42,600 and our community, I hope, 2127 01:39:42,600 --> 01:39:45,666 will help us to make it better. 2128 01:39:48,366 --> 01:39:50,166 Hello, how are you? 2129 01:39:50,166 --> 01:39:52,066 ♪ ♪ 2130 01:39:52,066 --> 01:39:55,033 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: For reasons I've never entirely understood, 2131 01:39:55,033 --> 01:39:57,766 giving that little speech about Strike City 2132 01:39:57,766 --> 01:40:00,133 to the Lions Club long ago 2133 01:40:00,133 --> 01:40:02,433 seemed to connect me to that place 2134 01:40:02,433 --> 01:40:03,900 and the people who lived there 2135 01:40:03,900 --> 01:40:07,666 even decades after I no longer lived in Mississippi. 2136 01:40:07,666 --> 01:40:11,600 They were self-sufficient, really, on a lot of stuff. 2137 01:40:11,600 --> 01:40:14,933 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: I visited more than once over the years. 2138 01:40:14,933 --> 01:40:18,500 And in the 1990s, I took a cameraman along 2139 01:40:18,500 --> 01:40:20,700 and did one of the last interviews 2140 01:40:20,700 --> 01:40:22,700 with John Henry Sylvester, 2141 01:40:22,700 --> 01:40:24,266 the leader of the walkout, 2142 01:40:24,266 --> 01:40:27,666 a few years before he passed away. 2143 01:40:27,666 --> 01:40:31,366 And then, when we went on strike with him that day, 2144 01:40:31,366 --> 01:40:33,700 we had to, he, he put us all off the place that day... 2145 01:40:33,700 --> 01:40:36,700 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: I was struck by their determination and bravery, 2146 01:40:36,700 --> 01:40:40,266 basically still on strike 30 years 2147 01:40:40,266 --> 01:40:43,866 after the day they walked off that farm. 2148 01:40:43,866 --> 01:40:47,700 But Strike City was also crumbling by then. 2149 01:40:47,700 --> 01:40:51,366 Some of the houses had burned or been abandoned. 2150 01:40:51,366 --> 01:40:55,166 The painted sign with Black and white hands clasped in unity 2151 01:40:55,166 --> 01:40:58,400 had fallen long ago. 2152 01:40:58,400 --> 01:41:01,033 The original plans to make bricks, 2153 01:41:01,033 --> 01:41:04,066 to create an economy separate from white control, 2154 01:41:04,066 --> 01:41:06,166 were all abandoned. 2155 01:41:06,166 --> 01:41:10,433 I wasn't sure what to make of it all. 2156 01:41:10,433 --> 01:41:16,166 MINNIE BELL YOUNG (on record): ♪ Well, no matter how long it takes ♪ 2157 01:41:16,166 --> 01:41:17,566 ♪ Well, I know he... ♪ 2158 01:41:17,566 --> 01:41:18,666 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: That's your voice, isn't it? 2159 01:41:18,666 --> 01:41:21,333 Mm-hmm. 2160 01:41:21,333 --> 01:41:24,133 Yeah, that's it. (laughs) 2161 01:41:24,133 --> 01:41:27,166 I guess I got a little solo. 2162 01:41:27,166 --> 01:41:31,766 (singing along): ♪ Well, he may not come when you want him ♪ 2163 01:41:31,766 --> 01:41:35,566 ♪ But he's right on time ♪ 2164 01:41:35,566 --> 01:41:39,266 (recording stops) ♪ You can't hurry God ♪ 2165 01:41:39,266 --> 01:41:42,433 ♪ You just have to wait ♪ 2166 01:41:43,433 --> 01:41:47,100 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: I also realized that, among the many things I never knew 2167 01:41:47,100 --> 01:41:50,166 about my Black classmates when we were kids, 2168 01:41:50,166 --> 01:41:53,266 was that Jessie King and Billy Barber 2169 01:41:53,266 --> 01:41:57,566 both had deep connections to Strike City. 2170 01:41:57,566 --> 01:42:00,666 This is the place that I went to Head Start, 2171 01:42:00,666 --> 01:42:04,966 which was very popular for low-income children 2172 01:42:04,966 --> 01:42:07,566 going into public schools. 2173 01:42:07,566 --> 01:42:10,800 ♪ ♪ 2174 01:42:10,800 --> 01:42:13,666 This is Strike City here. 2175 01:42:13,666 --> 01:42:16,000 It used to be very vibrant. 2176 01:42:16,000 --> 01:42:17,933 A lot of the buildings are gone now, 2177 01:42:17,933 --> 01:42:20,633 but a few are still standing. 2178 01:42:23,500 --> 01:42:24,966 It was classroom space, 2179 01:42:24,966 --> 01:42:28,900 it was, um, a dining hall, lunchroom. 2180 01:42:28,900 --> 01:42:32,966 Was a huge playground here for us, 2181 01:42:32,966 --> 01:42:38,166 where we did not have the luxury on the plantations. 2182 01:42:39,733 --> 01:42:42,766 I remember very vividly, 2183 01:42:42,766 --> 01:42:46,033 you would only have standing room. 2184 01:42:46,033 --> 01:42:47,233 Kids were everywhere. 2185 01:42:47,233 --> 01:42:49,733 Teachers were everywhere. 2186 01:42:49,733 --> 01:42:51,766 Once you became a teacher in Head Start, 2187 01:42:51,766 --> 01:42:56,466 it was like you had really struck oil. 2188 01:42:57,733 --> 01:42:59,766 I think about the people 2189 01:42:59,766 --> 01:43:03,066 who actually came from the plantations. 2190 01:43:03,066 --> 01:43:06,366 Sharecropping no longer existed. 2191 01:43:06,366 --> 01:43:08,633 So we had the gardens up there 2192 01:43:08,633 --> 01:43:12,600 with greens and vegetables and crops. 2193 01:43:12,600 --> 01:43:14,900 If you pitched in, you'd get an opportunity 2194 01:43:14,900 --> 01:43:17,566 to get some of the vegetables. 2195 01:43:17,566 --> 01:43:19,200 Even when you didn't pitch in, 2196 01:43:19,200 --> 01:43:24,233 the kindness of the spirit would be, "Pitch in next time." 2197 01:43:24,233 --> 01:43:26,600 (birds chirping) 2198 01:43:26,600 --> 01:43:31,100 Strike City symbolized a step up for African Americans. 2199 01:43:31,100 --> 01:43:34,333 And it gave motivation and encouragement, 2200 01:43:34,333 --> 01:43:35,800 that this may be the first step, 2201 01:43:35,800 --> 01:43:40,466 but it was a huge step in the right direction. 2202 01:43:40,466 --> 01:43:42,866 You know, I have, I have-- 2203 01:43:42,866 --> 01:43:44,333 I'm not exaggerating this-- 2204 01:43:44,333 --> 01:43:46,800 in just this last few minutes of listening to you, 2205 01:43:46,800 --> 01:43:48,700 I've had a little epiphany. 2206 01:43:48,700 --> 01:43:50,100 Mm-hmm. 2207 01:43:50,100 --> 01:43:52,400 You could look at Strike City and say, 2208 01:43:52,400 --> 01:43:55,100 "Well, you know, it was a good thing to go on strike, 2209 01:43:55,100 --> 01:43:57,033 and they were right, but it didn't work." 2210 01:43:57,033 --> 01:43:58,966 Mm-hmm. You know, you can say that. 2211 01:43:58,966 --> 01:44:00,400 But the truth is, it did work. 2212 01:44:00,400 --> 01:44:02,100 Mm-hmm. And the story you're telling 2213 01:44:02,100 --> 01:44:03,766 is, is, it just worked in this different way. 2214 01:44:03,766 --> 01:44:05,000 Mm-hmm. The store and 2215 01:44:05,000 --> 01:44:06,733 the women who had been working in houses 2216 01:44:06,733 --> 01:44:08,233 becoming teachers, and, you know... Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. 2217 01:44:08,233 --> 01:44:10,500 Just, all the things that you're talking about. Yeah. 2218 01:44:10,500 --> 01:44:12,500 You're gonna get, you're gonna get me emotional. 2219 01:44:12,500 --> 01:44:13,900 I have... 2220 01:44:13,900 --> 01:44:15,466 I've always just known in my heart 2221 01:44:15,466 --> 01:44:18,033 that this was a story of a great success. Mm-hmm. 2222 01:44:18,033 --> 01:44:19,933 But I couldn't quite put it together 2223 01:44:19,933 --> 01:44:22,433 until I was listening to you just now. 2224 01:44:22,433 --> 01:44:24,333 Yeah, it, it really is. 2225 01:44:24,333 --> 01:44:27,100 KING: Um, if this had not existed, 2226 01:44:27,100 --> 01:44:29,800 living where we lived, 2227 01:44:29,800 --> 01:44:32,066 we only saw what we saw. 2228 01:44:32,066 --> 01:44:34,500 And just getting out of that 2229 01:44:34,500 --> 01:44:39,166 gave us another target to improve, 2230 01:44:39,166 --> 01:44:43,700 to advance, and to move forward. 2231 01:44:43,700 --> 01:44:45,933 I think about my mom, 2232 01:44:45,933 --> 01:44:49,900 who made the bold assertion, 2233 01:44:49,900 --> 01:44:52,666 "Enough is enough, and we're leaving. 2234 01:44:52,666 --> 01:44:54,200 We're leaving." 2235 01:44:54,200 --> 01:44:57,500 If she'd never decided to do that, 2236 01:44:57,500 --> 01:45:00,866 we would not have had choice. 2237 01:45:00,866 --> 01:45:04,633 I never would have made it to, um, superintendent. 2238 01:45:04,633 --> 01:45:07,000 Yeah, no! You would not be here. 2239 01:45:07,000 --> 01:45:08,800 You would not, you would not be doing the good things 2240 01:45:08,800 --> 01:45:10,866 you're doing now, which are a version of the same thing. 2241 01:45:10,866 --> 01:45:12,700 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Of looking out for each other. 2242 01:45:12,700 --> 01:45:14,600 Mm-hmm, it planted the seed. 2243 01:45:14,600 --> 01:45:17,533 Not just in education, but law enforcement, 2244 01:45:17,533 --> 01:45:18,766 with Billy Barber 2245 01:45:18,766 --> 01:45:21,333 and all of those who may have come this way. 2246 01:45:21,333 --> 01:45:22,366 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: That's exactly right. 2247 01:45:22,366 --> 01:45:23,533 KING: Mm-hmm. 2248 01:45:30,433 --> 01:45:32,466 ♪ ♪ 2249 01:45:32,466 --> 01:45:33,833 POINDEXTER: I spent, 2250 01:45:33,833 --> 01:45:36,833 all total, 20 years and ten months in the Air Force. 2251 01:45:37,966 --> 01:45:42,866 I retired in 2007 as a lieutenant colonel. 2252 01:45:42,866 --> 01:45:44,466 Now I'm a professor at, uh, 2253 01:45:44,466 --> 01:45:47,500 Defense Acquisition University. 2254 01:45:47,500 --> 01:45:50,233 I am a United States District Court judge 2255 01:45:50,233 --> 01:45:51,566 for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, 2256 01:45:51,566 --> 01:45:54,600 which is in Milwaukee. 2257 01:45:54,600 --> 01:45:55,966 I live in Little Rock, Arkansas. 2258 01:45:55,966 --> 01:45:57,433 I'm an assistant principal 2259 01:45:57,433 --> 01:46:02,166 at the famous and historic Little Rock Central High School. 2260 01:46:04,500 --> 01:46:07,166 WOOLFOLK: I am the president of Lincoln University 2261 01:46:07,166 --> 01:46:09,000 in Jefferson City, Missouri. 2262 01:46:09,000 --> 01:46:10,600 DOUGLAS BLACKMON: Doesn't that sound cool to say? 2263 01:46:10,600 --> 01:46:12,300 (laughing): Yeah, that sounds pretty cool. 2264 01:46:12,300 --> 01:46:15,433 For a little girl from Leland. 2265 01:46:19,266 --> 01:46:23,000 ♪ ♪ 2266 01:46:33,366 --> 01:46:38,366 ♪ ♪ 2267 01:46:51,800 --> 01:46:56,800 ♪ ♪ 2268 01:47:10,066 --> 01:47:14,600 ♪ ♪