that you have to work and live in a number of “different skins” and in a number of different
communities. I like that advice. In school I learned things I needed to become an educated
and successful person. In our neighborhood, at meetings, and in church, I learned about
building community, respect, and getting along with people, things I did not learn about in
school.
In high school, I hung out with a mixed group of Black and White students. They were
from a range of backgrounds, including upper middle-class and working-class families. The
year I entered high school was the first year that it was racially integrated. I describe my
high school as racially integrated because that is what the board of education called it; how-
ever, it remained segregated inside the school. The Black students and some White working-
class youth were in one set of classes. The top classes were reserved for students from afflu-
ent families, and they were all White. School officials claimed that tracking was done based
on ability. Every year they put me in the lowest math class, but each time my mother went to
school and she had them transfer me into the honors or advanced placement class. Of
course, I was the only African American student in these classes. The other Black parents
trusted the school system and figured their children were being placed in the classes where
they belonged. It was not until I aced the SAT exams that the guidance counselors stopped
trying to track me back into the lowest group.
In high school I started to follow in my mother’s footsteps and I became an activist. The
social studies textbook in 10th grade was called something likeOur European Heritage. I got
up in class and said, “Excuse me, but my heritage is not European and I find this book offen-
sive. Why are we using a book that does not discuss the accomplishments of my people?” I
refused to read the book and the argument continued until a compromise was reached. The
school said I would not have to take the class, and if I passed the standardized state exami-
nation at the end of the year, I would get credit. Of course, I passed the test.
During my senior year in high school, while everyone was applying to college, the guid-
ance department invited the Army into school and I was one of the students they tested to
discover my aptitudes. They decided I would make a great truck driver! They took a bunch
of us over to Fort Dix where they tried to convince us how great the army would be. I was
suspicious because I thought the high school was trying to find a way to keep the Black stu-
dents from graduating from their school. As it turned out, from my neighborhood, I was the
only one of more than a dozen Black students that graduated.
I remember that my parents received a letter from school that said, “Congratulations,
your child has been selected to go into the satellite program.” It explained in glowing terms
that I would have an opportunity to finish high school early by earning a GED. Most of my
Black friends’ parents were honored that their children were selected. When I told my
mother that I wanted to enter the program, she said, “Go to school tomorrow; talk to some
of your White friends; ask them how many were sent that letter.” When I canvassed around, I
discovered that none of them had received the letter. When I told her, she asked me, “If it is
such a good thing, wouldn’t more White students be involved?”
I lived on a block in St. Albans where there were approximately 70 houses. Out of all of
these families, I was the only teenage girl who did not end up pregnant while in high school.
When I was a high school student, I did not have many dates and I thought something was
wrong with me. Later I learned that the older guys on the block, guys in their 20s, would run
off anybody who was interested in me. I was their “sister,” and they were trying to help me
make it. They believed that I was special, and I know that I would not be where I am today
without them and the other people in the neighborhood who cared about me and gave me
support. A lot of them have had tragic lives. But they made it possible for me to be here and
I cannot ever forget that.
RELATIONSHIPS 117