'The Police Department...Could Not Assure My Protection'
Ms.
Dorothy
Counts-Scoggins,
Charlotte,
North Carolina
In 1957, I was one of four African American children who attempted to integrate the Charlotte, North Carolina, school system. This was three years after Brown v. Board of Education. Charlotte's board of education opted to allow black students to transfer to predominantly all-white schools. Some people did not think it was morally right to mix the races, and they thought that the schools in Charlotte were separate, but equal. This was not the case for African American students. The school board chair feared that if the board did not integrate the schools, the city would get into a court-ordered decision. This they did not want.
With encouragement from the NAACP, four families decided to test the decision. My family was one of the four; it made application for three of its four children, and I was the only one accepted to attend Horace Harding High School as a 10th grader.
This was a family decision, as all decisions that concerned the entire family were made together. As children, we were taught that education was very important and equal opportunity was a right for any American living in this country. The decision was also a moral one. I had hoped that the decision would pave the way for others to follow.
My first day at Harding was very hard. When I arrived, the street was blocked off, and I had to walk for two and a half blocks to the entrance to the school. During that long walk, I was tormented by students and adults with racial slurs: "Go back to Africa, nigger, we do not want you here." Rocks, ice, milk cartons, and other debris were thrown at me. I was pushed and shoved, and the most humiliating of all was being spat upon. I held my head up with pride and determination as I walked toward the entrance and spit dripped from the bottom of my dress. I was ignored by teachers and the principal as I entered the auditorium. I sat alone.
The torments continued, and the students were not told to leave me alone. I finally was asked to come to the front of the auditorium and sit with my class, and finally I had a conversation with two students, and I began to have a glimmer of hope that I would be accepted. I had been assigned to sit in the back of my classes, of course alone, and during the changing of classes, I continued to be pushed and shoved in the halls and stairwells while the principal observed, but never said a word. I was surrounded by a group of boys in the cafeteria, and racial slurs continued, and they spat in my food. I picked up my tray and put it away and joined one of the female students I had met outside. We talked during our lunch break, and I again had a sense of belonging, until the next day when I saw her in the hall, and she dropped her head and ignored me.
Thirty years later, she got in touch with me and explained why. She, too, was threatened. After two weeks, my parents decided to withdraw me when I decided to go home during my lunch period. As I was preparing to go home for lunch, I was hit in the back of my head with a sharp object and in my back with a blackboard eraser. When I got to the front door of the main building, I noticed that the back window of my father's car was shattered, and my brother was sitting in the car. This was my first experience of fear. My family was now being affected by what I was trying to do. My father talked with the superintendent of schools and also the police department, but they could not assure my protection.
Harding was an experience for me as a 15-year-old young girl, but if I had to do it again, I would. I believe strongly in equal rights for all human beings. I have never faulted the students and adults that participated in my injustices. I only have disappointment in the rejection because of race. I am a part of a strong spiritual family with high values, morals, and principles, a respect for others, and a belief that people should be and can be forgiven. While I was taught acceptance, they were taught to retaliate. I was taught acceptance, and they were taught intolerance. I was taught to respect, and they were taught to ridicule and stigmatize. I was taught to love, and they were taught to hate.
This experience has guided my personal and professional life to work to make sure that the injustice I endured would not happen to other human beings. I have become an advocate for children and families that endure prejudices, and I speak on tolerance and the need for diversity in this country.
I am saddened now as I think of the many people that displayed courage in this country, fighting for what they believed, being beaten and even killed to have equal opportunities for minorities in this country, "America, the land of the free." We continue to have hatred, injustice, and inequality. The Brown v. Board of Education decision helped us make strides, but I think sometimes that we are moving backwards.
