THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 25, 1996 TAG: 9602220157
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JEFF ZEIGLER
CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Long : 162 lines
PIONEERS ARE the brave souls among us who venture into unknown territory in the name of discovery.
They are rarely thought of as children.
But 30 years ago last fall, six black children moved into a frontier that none of their peers had entered before - the white public schools of Elizabeth City.
They were pioneers of integration.
In the summer of 1965, rioting had erupted in the Watts section of Los Angeles, civil rights workers had been killed in Alabama, and blacks and the Ku Klux Klan had battled in the streets of Plymouth, N.C., just an hour from home.
More than a decade after the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that separate schools for black and white children were unconstitutional, merchants and officials in Elizabeth City were withdrawing signs proclaiming ``whites only'' from restaurants and public places.
It was in this atmosphere that six 12-year-olds stepped forward to permanently change the face of the Elizabeth City public schools.
Traditionally, students at what was then the all-black H.L. Trigg Elementary School went to P.W. Moore Junior High as their next step. But in 1965, some of these students had a choice: They could now go to the formerly all-white Elizabeth City Junior High School.
Among the six students who made that choice were Ruth Griffin (now Ruth Warren) and Charles Harris (now Dr. Charles Harris).
``I remember being tested, and my teachers were interviewed, and my parents were interviewed. You had to have your parents' permission,'' Warren, a developmental instructor at College of The Albemarle, said this month. ``I remember being called out of class one day to the auditorium. Me and five other students were told we had been selected to go to Elizabeth City Junior High School.
``I felt proud. It was a big deal,'' Warren added. ``I don't understand why now.''
Harris, now an obstretician-gynecologist in Durham, tells a similar story of aspiring to be all that he could.
In 1965, for the first time, ``we had freedom of choice,'' Harris said. ``It was an election that your parents could make. I think there were a few of us that made that election.
``Both of my parents were educators. My father had taught 30 years in the school system. He was a sixth-grade teacher at Bank Street Elementary School. My mother taught at P.W. Moore. I came from a long line of people who attended college after Reconstruction. So I knew at an early age that I was going to go to college.
``The black schools were `separate but not equal.' Our books were frequently discarded by the majority system, and the amount of money allocated to facilities and programs was not equal.
``Although they had pride in their school system, my parents realized they were not equal,'' Harris added. ``They asked me if I was interested in attending the white junior high. I wanted to get the best education I could.''
So that fall, Warren and Harris were among the handful who left their friends behind at P.W. Moore and entered a world that had previously been alien to blacks.
On the first day of school in 1965, Warren and her mother drove to the school in their yellow Chevy Impala. Warren's mother escorted her to her homeroom.
``I didn't see anybody's name I knew,'' Warren said. ``Each one of us was split up. They put one black in each class.
``I could tell that my homeroom teacher was nervous. She seemed to want to kind of pamper me,'' Warren recalled. ``When we went for the seats, there was a radius around me. I remember a girl named Becky sat down beside me. The students were kind of distant for the first couple of weeks. It was like they wanted to see what I could do.''
Integrating the schools meant change for everyone, blacks and whites alike. Black students were leaving the world of security and support they had come to expect from their separate educations.
``There were some advantages to segregated schools at the time,'' Harris said. ``Our black matriarch teachers really instilled in you that you could be as good as anybody. You were on a mission to be the best you could be.''
White teachers could often, but not always, be relied on for that support under integration. Reaction to the new students varied from teacher to teacher.
``Charles and I joined the band. That helped me a lot,'' Warren said. ``Mr. (Scott) Calloway was the director, and he didn't tolerate nonsense. I remember somebody throwing a tomato at me during a pep rally parade from the school to the courthouse. Mr. Calloway stopped the band and turned around. It never happened again.''
But Warren also had a math teacher who said the first day of class that he didn't want to teach black children but he had to.
Patricia Finch was among those who welcomed black students in the early days of integration. Finch, a fledgling 11th-grade teacher at Elizabeth City High School who once had Warren in her class, said she was eager to include everyone.
``I was very excited about integration,'' recalled Finch, now an English instructor at COA. ``I was a young teacher and had done some things in the civil rights movement. I felt like I was doing something I believed in. It was an exciting and gratifying time to be a teacher.''
Being accepted was a constant struggle for the black students, Warren said. Whether it was academics or extracurricular activities, she felt the students were held to a higher, or different, standard. Warren saw this as she persisted in trying to become a majorette.
``Every year I tried out, and every year it was something,'' she said. ``The other majorettes got to vote. Finally in my senior year, at Northeastern High School, I made it.''
Warren also felt like she had to be the best in the class.
``I felt like I had to always do so much better,'' Warren said. ``I studied so hard. I had a 100 average in biology because I felt I had to do so much better.''
For Harris, having to be the best ``was much to do about nothing. I felt like I was as smart or equal to anybody in the school,'' Harris said.
``My parents had already had encounters with elements in our society. They had gotten threatening phone calls,'' he said. ``Members of the `junior klan' would show us their cards at school. Other than being harassed occasionally, I didn't feel a significant threat from them. The majority of the students looked out for us in a way.
``You were called certain things sometimes, but that was commonplace because of what was going on in the community.''
Harris and Warren, both 1971 graduates of Northeastern High School, have gone on to successful careers.
Harris went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He graduated from the UNC School of Medicine in 1979 and received specialty training in obstetrics and gynecology from Duke University.
Harris remembers getting inspiration for his career from a white doctor. ``I happened to like my pediatrician,'' he said. ``He was a white pediatrician who had been there forever. I always knew I wanted to help people.''
Warren began her higher education at Shaw University in Raleigh. She later dropped out and married, then separated from her husband and went on to become the first psychology graduate from Elizabeth City State University in 1981.
Warren, who also holds a master's degree from East Carolina University, now works alongside Finch, her former teacher, at COA.
Her pioneer days over, Warren sat back in her cramped office and wondered aloud if today's students realize what she and other blacks endured to get an education.
``They just don't seem to appreciate the opportunities for education. They can go any place they want to go. Prejudice and racism still exist, but they are protected better,'' she said.
``Do they realize what people like me went through? If they only knew how they got to be where they are now.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Cover, Color photo]
FIRST IN HER CLASS
Ruth Warren
Photo courtesy of RUTH WARREN
Ruth Warren, fifth from left, tried out for majorette for several
years before becoming one her senior year at Northeastern High
School.
Photo courtesy of RUTH WARREN
Ruth Warren's ninth grade school photo from Northeastern High.
Photo courtesy of RUTH WARREN
Ruth Warren, third from the left on the second row, is practically
lost in a sea of white faces in her Elizabeth City Middle School
band photo.
by CNB