Yazoo: Integration in a Deep-Southern Town

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13 The school paper had taken a random poll of black students, which had been censored by the paper's sponsor. Here is a sampling of what the blacks wrote: People are finally realizing togetherness and acting to that effect. It will only work if Black and White would work without malice toward none. It won't be fair until classes are desegregated. It might as well be two schools again. I had hoped it would be different. The atmosphere at YHS is dull and strained. The students are under strain as to whether to be friendly with the opposite race, which they want so badly to do, or to be hostile and aloft. It will work if the people at the school would communicate more, and if they let that thing called prejudice be in the past. Because they can't all do much about it no way. I'm 102 Yazoo not speaking inteam of color people but with some of the white act as if it will hurt them to talk or even speak to the other young men or younger lady. It will work just as soon as we realize, meaning both black and white students, that we were put here to love and live with one another, we will find that it wasn't as bad as we thought it was. In the black students' classes you can count the no. of whites present in one or two counts, while in other classes the black students can be counted on one hand. I think the classes need to be desegregated on a ratio of 50 to 50. After this is accomplished the situation will be a success. May YHS be in peace! An editorial by one of the white students, Bruce Darby, was also not allowed to run in the Yazooan. It said: Mississippians have witnessed the passing of an era. In a society traditionally closed to integration the crisis of desegregation has been met with reservations by many and passed in a frenzy of uncertainty. What Mississippi and Yazoo High School face now is an extended period of controlled progress. The era of segregation has ended though not without noisy struggle and a new era has opened with new channels of racial communication and harmony. The recent Federal Court order to desegregate 30 school districts in the state was the climax of many years of pressure to insure equal administration of federal and local programs without regard to race. The court order set off a vehement and very typical reaction on the part of most 103 Willie Morris Mississippians. Children were tossed into overnight institutions for the well-to-do citizenry of the state. They were thrown about excitedly as the white pieces in the game of chess in which the blacks had the advantage of national kings and queens. After a slough of overreactions came the final move. The white, playing the defensive, came back to surprise even itself with a change that thousands upon thousands of traditional white segregationists and resentful blacks will have to make in order for it to become a functioning reality. We have been deluged with publicity from the instant outside evaluators. But we will not understand the full significance of what has taken place until we try to explain it to our children.... In years to come Yazooans will increasingly appreciate the efforts of this generation. It will take patience, compassion , and empathy from all students at YHS to re-create the good school spirit that formerly existed in each of the separate schools. We can do this by being courteous, by consciously trying to understand other viewpoints, by expecting cooperation rather than expecting resentment. It is a daily chore. Weeks of careful bUilding of confidence can be diSSIpated in a rash moment of irritation. We have a good start. Our basketball team worked together . Our chorus sounds great. Our student councils are communicating well with each other. We think we can do it. This time I talked with a larger group of the white students. They said there had been "fifty million rumors " going around town about white girls being molested , about fights and violence, and none of them 104 Yazoo were true. They were still dissatisfied with the way most of the extracurricular activities had been abolished . The most interesting area over the past several weeks, they reported, had been sports. During spring...