The Education of a WASP

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen Ben had never talked so much about his work as he did now. He told me of his trips to see school officials in Georgia, Alabama, and Florida and his occasional visits to other states when he was needed. His assignment was to explain the federal requirements for school desegregation and to try to persuade school superintendents to go ahead with "all deliberate speed" as demanded by the Supreme Court decision in 1954. It was now eleven years since the Supreme Court decision; a Negro child in first grade then would now be out of high school. And, in many districts, Ben found that this was exactly what happened. Negro children waited for the decision to be enforced while delays ate up the years that could have been theirs. Some districts had complied, but most looked for every possible means of delay. Citizens who subscribed to law and order didn't mean unpopular law or immediate order. Ben was also finding that he had no .weapon except persuasion with which to enforce the federal law requiring school desegregation. Theoretically, the government could bring suit against a school district and if it could be proved - 2 1 7 - that the district was deliberately refusing to desegregate, then eventually federal funds could be withheld. This would mean, however, months and even years of court battles. Ben explained that if the case was won, withholding money was still politically unpopular (as was proved when Chicago's school funds were withheld only to be released, immediately and without explanation). Meanwhile, all he could do was to tell school officials what was required by law. "I feel like a policeman asking people to please not park in the no-parking zones," he said one week end. "They keep saying, 'Yup, one of these days we'll stop.' But those Negro kids get older and older waiting for the places that belong to them." Ben was also learning-and teaching me-what else happens between the law and its enforcement. Some of the people he worked with in "\Vashington were completely dedicated ; some were solely interested in keeping their jobs with a minimum of effort. Color had little to do with the difference . Some black people were as cautious about rocking no boats as were some of the whites. And some whites charged with enforcing the Supreme Court decision sympathized, consciously or unconsciously, with the Southern schools and accepted all the tactics of delay. We finally understood why Ben had been hired without academic credits or professional experience . Mac Puccelli, the head of his department, was a sincere and determined man; he believed Ben's demonstrated belief in integration was more important than degrees on paper. Some of the experiences Ben related on week ends were funllY, others were deeply moving. He told me about the school superintendent in Lincoln County, Georgia, to whom he had said, "Well, integration shouldn't be a problem in a county named after Lincoln!" The man looked horrified. "Oh, Lord, not that Lincoln," he said. In the Florida Panhandle Ben was constantly followed by - 218 - a white Volkswagen when he visited the homes of black families to encourage them to register at the formerly all-white schools. At each stop the car would be parked nearby and the white man inside held a newspaper in front of his face. The black families assured Ben passionately that they liked the all-Negro schools. In Alabama there was no subtlety. Cars with official license plates parked outside Ben's motel door. One night, Ben said, Governor "\Vallace made a speech on television about federal people coming to town to force "race-mixing." "He was getting so specific," Ben told me, "I half expected him to give my name and room number." After the speech, school officials suddenly lost whatever spirit of co-operation they had shown before. Ben had found that he could apply extra pressure through the Justice Department which could bring suit against school districts for "depriving a citizen of his civil rights" to register in the school of his choice. He began to visit black famlies in Alabama with a Justice Department man who was also checking on voter registration. Most of these visits, Ben told me, had to be made at night. Black families were afraid to be seen talking to federal men in the daytime. One night Ben and the man from the...