School Integration
Edward Gray on School Integration
"You knew you wasn't parta the group"
Well back to that first day [of integrating high school] ... I went in there that day and, man, they looked at me like I was a guy that walked in from Mars ... When the teacher had us stand up and introduce our name and all that stuff, when I stood up man they'd "Huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh—they got a nigger standin up here." Guy who's chair was next to mine, he moved his chair all the way almost out middle ways of the floor to get away from me, you know. It was a hell of a thing. Not only did you develop a sense of—you know you wan't parta the group, see. There wasn't no doubt about that. You knew you wasn't parta the group. But you develop a sense of hate. Well, not necessarily for them, but you'd hate you was in the situation. But yet still—I tried to keep this point in mind—I knew that I was doin' something was gonna help somebody else, see. Because I knowed that this wasn't something that was gonna last but one year and be all over with. OK.
Sources: Quote from Hamburger, R. Our Portion of Hell (Links Books 1973): 111–116.
Video, 2002 documentary project on Fayette County, TN: Special Collections University
of Memphis Libraries
James Jameson on School Integration
"I was the second group to integrate the school"
My friends in the all-black school were tryin' to say that we went down there because we wanted to be white, [that] we wanted to say that we were more than they were ... I went down there because I wanted a better education. I knew that the facilities they had down there were better than the ones at the black school. We never did have to go outside in the rain to change classes like we did at the all-black school. I didn't mind being cut off from my black friends because my uncle had been in the Movement eight years by that time, and I thought it was time for me to do something to show I was with him.
Sources: Quote from Hamburger, R. Our Portion of Hell (Links Books 1973): 111–116.
Video, 2002 documentary project on Fayette County, TN: Special Collections University
of Memphis Libraries
Fayette County School Integration Still a Problem in the 21st Century
Video used with permission from WREG Channel 3 News, Memphis.
Fayette County schools may have been ordered to desegregate in 1965; however, in 2007, a routine federal investigation found that the county—47 years later—had yet to comply and was still operating in a de facto segregated system. The Department of Education report revived interest in the case.The recent investigators found that the school system had not fulfilled its obligations underneath the original order and demanded it take steps to increase its compliance.
Fayette County officials and board members have been ordered to take steps to better integrate schools by 2012. New buildings have been constructed, and attendance zones have been redistricted. However, it remains to be seen whether Fayette County will do enough this time to integrate its schools. The new order comes under the umbrella of the original Fayette County desegregation case, John McFerren, Jr. v. Fayette County Board of Education.