Brown v. Board
of Education:
Witness to
segregation's
end
SPECIAL TO
THE ARIZONA
DAILY STAR
May 16, 2004
|
A.E.
Araiza /
Arizona
Daily
Star
"The
black
kids
were
more
aware of
segregation
than the
others.
We could
go to
the
stores
and
shop,
but we
couldn't
eat in
restaurants,
and at
the Fox
Theater
we had
to sit
upstairs."
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|
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http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/education/22253
The Tucson native graduated from Tucson
High School in 1954, and was in the last class
to graduate from Dunbar School, just north of
Downtown. Dunbar was Tucson's segregated primary
and intermediate school for black students from
1918 until 1951.
The black kids were more aware of
segregation than the others. We could go to the
stores and shop, but we couldn't eat in
restaurants, and at the Fox Theater we had to
sit upstairs. We went to Mickey Mouse Club on
Saturdays and all of that. There was no
segregation of the line of the kids going into
the theater. We lined up first-come,
first-served …
(Morgan Maxwell Sr.) was my principal when I
started first grade and the whole nine years,
and he lived in the neighborhood. That was the
good part of segregation; we'd see the teachers
and principal at church and at the grocery
store.
Mr. Maxwell, anytime there was a noted black who
was anywhere near Tucson, he would snap up that
person and get them to come over to the school
and speak to us. He wanted to expose us to
blacks who had made a success of their lives.
(Opera singer) Marian Anderson came to speak to
us and sang once. She was already famous and
couldn't stay in the hotel. Someone in the
community took her into her home. The black
baseball players couldn't stay in the hotel, so
they stayed with the Willis family over by the
school.
When the Dunbar School, named for the famous
black poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar, became
integrated, the district changed the name to
John Spring. The students and parents didn't
like the idea the name was being changed. … My
brother was in the year behind me and he went to
Spring. When we were at Dunbar we got used
textbooks from Mansfeld and Roskruge, and my
mother said when they changed to John Spring
they threw out all the old text books and
brought in new ones. We never had new ones.
- Inger Sandal
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