THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 3, 1995 TAG: 9512020162
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 225 lines
THERE WAS NO FIRE in the fireplace, but a feeling of warmth filled the small, cozy living room.
Their meetings usually broke up in less than two hours. But this night, people seemed reluctant to leave.
They didn't seem able to concentrate on their discussions of race and racism either, even though that had been their topic for five weeks.
It was the last night of their Face to Face With Race study circle.
On this night, they acted more like old friends afraid they might not see each other again.
Some time before 11, one of the six people stood up and, the others apparently noticing the time, began to gather their things.
``Group hug,'' said Joy Cooley, an associate professor of psychology at Norfolk State University, holding her arms out.
No one needed prodding. They clasped arms and huddled in a giant embrace - six people, black and white, who went out into the night with renewed hope.
If they understood each other and liked each other, maybe the world outside could do the same.
Those six people had met for five weeks in the Shea Terrace home of Cecil and Sharon Salyer, the group's facilitator.
They had talked about affirmative action. They had discussed articles they ran across in the newspaper about racial problems across the country. They had talked about a heated racial debate at City Hall.
They didn't always agree. But they never got angry with each other. And sometimes they changed their minds about something they had believed before or at least saw it in a different light because of people in the group they had come to respect.
When those weeks were over, they joined the ranks of a small but determined number of people who come together this way in the hope of bringing a little harmony and understanding to a city that could use a lot of both.
It's not that this city is so different from other areas of the country. But being typical is small comfort when unity could go a long way in the battle to survive the economic and societal problems that challenge old urban cities like Portsmouth.
Instead, distrust and resentment between the races surfaces in almost every local election and often stands in the way of the city's progress, city and civic leaders acknowledge.
In 1992, a group of citizens and city employees that met to identify the city's problems and come up with solutions voted racial problems as Portsmouth's No. 1 hurdle.
A Cultural Diversity Action Team was formed, and, among other things, it began to plan Face to Face With Race study circles. About a year and a half ago, the diversity team launched pilot study groups.
One group drew residents from communities like Cavalier Manor, a large, suburban, black neighborhood, and Port Norfolk and Simonsdale, two older, predominantly white neighborhoods.
Another group brought together black and white employees of Portsmouth General Hospital; a third, black and white students at Tidewater Community College.
A black church and a white church tried to get a group going but disbanded without completing the sessions.
Planners had dreamed of bringing thousands of people to the study circles.
They were disappointed. In September, when those who had completed the sessions held a picnic at City Park, the number had reached only 58.
Helen Fooshe, study circle committee chairwoman, concedes she has been disappointed that there is not ``a greater outpouring of persons willing to take a risk and become involved.''
But Fooshe, who is white, is not less determined.
``All over America now, you're finding places where people are doing things to help make understanding an achievable goal. The persons that I know are pretty much open, and I think that's going to grow.''
Committee members now have a more realistic outlook on how fast their movement can grow.
``I think we're about on target for my expectations,'' says Reginald Connor, a Cavalier Manor resident who has served as a facilitator for several groups. ``It's not going to be like turning on a light switch - zero today and 4,000 tomorrow.''
Dr. Max C. King, a member of the most recent study circle at the Salyers' home, agreed.
``I think it's going to be a slow, geometric process. Out of study circles, other study circles should grow. It would take many years to get a significant number of people in a town this size involved, so we have to be patient. We're talking about problems that have existed a long time.''
And there are signs that make committee members hopeful.
Representatives of at least one church have asked the committee to send someone to explain how the study circles work and how the church might start one.
Hoechst Celanese Corp., the chemical company that has a plant in Portsmouth, had Connor facilitate a study circle for employees, and he says they are continuing the process on their own.
And last month, the study circle committee held a town meeting to get past participants to commit to serving as facilitators or organizers of new groups. Fourteen people signed up.
``Looking at it from the positive side, at least somebody stepped up to the plate,'' says Connor of the circles' first year. ``That proved there are people who want to make sure our city is a better place for all of us.''
Apathy is not a trait found among those who have signed up for the study circles. Many of them already have facilitated other groups or at least committed to doing so.
For Sharon Salyer, it was a natural undertaking.
She and her husband moved from Virginia Beach to Portsmouth because they wanted to play a part in the city's renewal.
``We wanted to move to a small neighborhood near the center of town,'' she says, ``and we wanted to work.''
So they joined the Shea Terrace Civic League. He joined the neighborhood watch and the crime prevention steering committee. She joined the Cultural Diversity Action Team and, after participating in one study circle, became a facilitator.
Sharon Salyer has met her share of like-minded citizens, but she is not blind to the problem of race relations in Portsmouth.
``I'm surprised at how bad they are in my own neighborhood.''
She says some neighbors, assuming she would agree, have made negative comments about black residents who have moved into the neighborhood. And she was saddened to hear comments from people who were glad when a bridge was torn down that connected Shea Terrace to a more integrated neighborhood.
While she heard similar comments about people in a nearby low-income neighborhood when she lived in Virginia Beach, no one ever said ``the blacks'' like she's heard people do in Portsmouth, she says.
``I feel like there's more of an ingrained prejudice in this town, maybe because people living in this neighborhood have lived here more years than people lived in the Virginia Beach neighborhood.''
But one of the things Salyer promised herself, once she got involved in the study circles, was that she would not be silent when someone made that type of remark.
She lets them know she likes the idea of living in an integrated neighborhood. And she invites them to the study circle.
``What worries me about people in the group now is that they are already people that have ideas of unity. They've reached out. We need to find some way to reach out and get the people to come that aren't necessarily as agreeable.''
Black residents can be just as hard to reach.
King, who was in the Salyers' study circle, recalls the reaction when he tried to interest neighbors at a civic league meeting.
``I didn't try to push it. I didn't talk a lot about it, but I explained what the study circles were for.''
King says he didn't actually hand out the brochures but placed them where people could pick one up before they left.
``Not a single one was picked up,'' yet, he adds, ``this is supposed to be a group of intelligent people.''
King is a retired radiologist who spent his professional life in New York's Westchester County. He lived in a small, affluent town and worked and socialized with many white people.
But when he and his wife retired to this area, they chose to live in Crystal Lake, a neighborhood that draws many upper middle-class black home buyers.
``I think the big difference here is the ratio of blacks and whites so that the confrontation is much more evident than where I lived.''
No matter how open-minded they are, the people who have showed up for study circles say they learn something.
Connor, the Cavalier Manor resident and circle facilitator, remembers a particular session: People were just getting to know each other, and everyone was asked to talk about a time they had been discriminated against.
A white woman related how she had grown up in Pennsylvania and how she ``understood what racial discrimination was'' because of her Polish ancestry. When she decided she wanted to be an engineer, people said that an engineer and a Polish person would be a contradiction in terms, she says.
``This was white-on-white discrimination,'' Connor says.
``A few minutes later, we had a black woman speak up. When she was younger, in a segregated black high school, she wanted to be a majorette.''
But she wasn't selected because only light-skinned black students were picked as majorettes, he says.
``This was black-on-black discrimination.
``We had powerful statements made by black and white persons that involved discrimination from their own groups - and so often we think of discrimination between a black person and a white person.''
For King, the lesson learned was that there are ``more good people'' in the world than he had believed.
``I mean sincerely good. I don't just mean that they are tolerant - tolerance implies that something needs to be excused - but people who have a sincere belief that all folks are equally children of God. . . .
``The differences between us are superficial and unimportant.''
King says he also found that some white people in study circles he assumed would be prejudiced were not.
``That surprised me. We thought it was universal. That's why you don't see too many blacks in the study circles yet. They feel it's hopeless.''
King concedes he has felt that way as well.
``But this gives me some hope. As I read, I find out all over the country people are doing what we are doing here.''
For Salyer, what she learned is that ``all black people don't think alike and that maybe some of my ideas are more liberal than what some of their ideas are.
``I only hear the people most outspoken, the ones who complain,'' she says. ``But there is no black mind-set. There's different opinions with different social-economic levels, just as there is with whites.''
Overall, people who take part in the study circles often find, even with vastly different life experiences, that their views are not that far apart. And they also share the same concerns: safe neighborhoods, good education and job security.
``We realized we have more common problems than we have different problems, but we spend a whole lot of time concentrating on the differences,'' says Carlton Carrington, president of the Cavalier Manor Civic League.
He isn't surprised the study circles haven't picked up momentum as quickly as its founders had hoped. But Carrington still has an upbeat attitude about fighting racism in the future.
``I don't think, on this planet, we'll ever rid ourselves of it. MEMO: For more information on the Face to Face With Race study circles, call
Helen Fooshe at 398-9044 or Van Johnson, the city staff liaison, at
393-8874.
ILLUSTRATION: [Cover, Color Illustration]
EARLE
Photo by GARY C. KNAPP
``It would take many years to get a significant number of people in
a town this size involved . . . '' said Max King, right. At left is
Cecil Salyer.
In the photo above, Joy Cooley, an associate professor of psychology
at Norfolk State University, considers an article about blacks.
Below, she and Schumacker listen to another member's views.
Sharon Salyer, far left, and Loretta Schumacker join in the
conversation at the last meeting of the study circle. At the end of
the evening, they acted more like old friends, afraid they might not
see each other again.
Photos by
GARY C. KNAPP
by CNB