Unequal education

Alvene, Bubba, Cookie, and I wanted to study aeromechanics rather than auto mechanics. However, that course of study was not offered to black Americans in the school system of St. Louis in 1949.

It was the law of Missouri that the schools must be "separate but equal" meaning, segregated by race, but they must be equal in educational opportunity.

Booker T. Washington Technical High on Franklin Avenue was the school for blacks and Hadley Technical was the school for whites. At Washington, we had, among other things, a course in auto mechanics. At Hadley Tech, not only did they have auto mechanics, but they had a course in aeromechanics.

Daddy was well known in the city of St. Louis and was active in anything for the advancement of black youth. He contacted people of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a vanguard civil rights organization, and they suggested that we should file suit against the board of education in that we were deprived of equal educational opportunities in violation of the 14th amendment of the United States Constitution.

Bubba tried to enroll in Hadley Technical and was denied admission because he was black. I don't remember Cookie actually trying to enroll in Hadley because he was still in grade school, but I remember what happened when I applied as if it were yesterday.

I walked the few blocks from our house to Hadley in the summer of 1949 just prior to the beginning of the fall semester.

I entered Hadley through a large building which just happened to be one of the buildings used by the aeromechanics department. I stood there in complete awe while looking at the equipment these white kids used in their study. I counted nine complete airplanes which filled a building the size of a mini-mall. I could not believe my eyes. There were three Piper Cubs, A T-6 Texan Trainer, and a few more. Around the perimeter of the building were classrooms filled with propellers, hydraulics, landing gear, instruments, control surfaces, a sheet metal shop, a fabric shop, and a room used to test (actually operate) engines after overhaul. Out front of one classroom, there were many aircraft engines mounted on stands which rolled. I stood there and just looked.

Sounds like something from a fairy tale huh? There in fovea vision were nine flyable aircraft. I froze as I focused on this magnificent school with its unlimited wealth of equipment.

Before sunset that day, I would forever know there was a chasm between black and white. Separated by law, but it was devastatingly clear that these schools were not equal by the law, not by definition given in the Oxford English Dictionary.

I lost all sense of race and "place" and made my way to the admissions office. This was the school where I wanted to study.

At Washington Technical, in our auto class, we had a room used for welding, a small classroom with a blackboard, a hydraulic lift for cars, a few hand tools, valve grinder, and a few other tools, all of which was housed in a building about the size of daddy's garage, and he had more tools. If we wanted "hands-on" autowork, we would repair cars for the public for free if they bought the parts. Otherwise, we sat in the classroom and learned by lecture.

I made my way to the administration office and asked the receptionist if I could fill out an application for admittance in the fall semester starting in September, 1949. She looked at me as if she didn't understand, so I repeated my request.

She said, while looking rather bewildered, "I don't think we allow colored people to attend this school, but I'll check." She went to the principles office, stuck her head in the office, looked back at me and said, "I'm sure we don't allow colored people to enroll."

I went out the way I came in, through the large building. I walked past the Piper Cubs, past the T-6 Texan, past five more airplanes, past the classrooms filled with equipment, past the engine test room, and past the engines mounted on stands. As I slowly walked towards the door, the reality of the situation shook me. Something was morally wrong in America. An unearned advantage of one race over another. Why? Going against all that my father had taught me, I let my soul give birth to a deep hatred towards white people as tears dropped from my eyes.

I was 16 at the time and the reality of "equal" education for blacks in the late 40s gave me a rude awakening. I walked aimlessly, thinking about Scott, a white friend of ours when we lived on Kennerly. I had seen daddy give fruit and produce to poor white people from our farm in Blackjack. Then I thought of Fritz, another white fishing friend our ours who lived a couple doors from us, and I thought of Midge, the owner of the airport, and I thought of the young white couple who gave us Pudgie, our dog, as we played marbles in front of their house. I thought about Grandma Wesley, sending me to have her shoes repaired at a white-owned shop with a note stating, "I am white," which would always give her a low price. Then I thought about that crowd of white people chasing me when I was a child, and I fucking hated them all.