Divided we Fail (32 page)

Preface

1
. Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 548 U.S. 938 (2006); Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, 551 U.S. 701 (2007).

2
. Sandra Hampton v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 102 F. Supp. 2d (W.D. Ky. 2000), decision of Judge John Heyburn.

3
.
Hampton
, transcripts, US District Court-Western District of Kentucky, volume 7, 103.

Chapter 1

1
. Hopson story from author interviews with Dionne Hopson, November 2, 2009, and January 15, 2010, and with Gwendolyn Hopson, November 1, 2009, January 15, 2010, and February 15, 2010.

2
. Harold Fenderson (Central principal) to Dionne Hopson, May 17, 1996, Hopson private collection.

3
. Ibid.

4
. Jefferson County Public Schools to Gwendolyn Hopson, August 14, 1996, Hopson private collection.

5
. Coral Ridge: Author interview with Beverly Goodwin, January 12, 2010.

6
. “Fairdale,” in
The Encyclopedia of Louisville
, John E. Kleber, ed. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000), 279.

7
. School Report Card Archive, Kentucky Department of Education,
http://applications.education.ky.gov/
.

8
. Fifth-grade report card for Dionne Hopson, signed by Beverly Goodwin, 1993, Hopson private collection.

9
. School Report Card Archive.

10
. Mark McKinney, “Parkland: A Ghost Town?”
Louisville Courier-Journal
, September 28, 1969; Clarence Matthews, “Parkland's Leaders Endorse Development Plan,”
Louisville Courier-Journal
, September 15, 1993.

11
. John C. Pillow, “Parkland: Homestead Saw Rise of Little Africa,”
Louisville Courier-Journal
, 1989.

12
. “Maupin, Milburn Taylor,” in Kleber,
Encyclopedia of Louisville
, 594.

13
. Author interview with Harold Fenderson, January 14, 2010; Chris Kenning, “The Firing of a Popular High School Principal,”
Louisville Courier-Journal
, November 27, 2002.

14
. “Racial Imbalance Forces 10 Blacks to Leave Central,”
Louisville Courier-Journal
, September 23, 1994.

15
. Gwendolyn Hopson to Joan Chambers, January 11, 1996, Hopson private collection.

16
. Pleasure Ridge Park High School to Gwendolyn Hopson, undated, Hopson private collection.

17
. Veda Morgan, “Group Steps Up School-Integration Fight,”
Louisville Courier-Journal
, August 16, 1996.

Chapter 2

1
. Stoner story from author interviews with Ja'Mekia Stoner, April 13, 2010, and with Jacquelyn Stoner, January 19, and April 13, 2010.

2
. Robert W. Peebles,
Evaluation of the Jefferson County Public Schools Desegregation Plan
, report commissioned by the Jefferson County School Board, October 24, 1994, appendix 2.

3
. Ibid., 9.

4
. “Neighborhood Identity,” in
Portland Long-Range Plan
, Louisville Metro Planning and Design Services Division,
http://www.louisvilleky.gov/
.

5
. Linda Stahl, “Absenteeism High as Jefferson Schools Open,”
Louisville Courier-Journal
, September 5, 1975.

6
. Author interview with Jacquelyn Stoner; “Protesters Delay Buses at Fairdale,”
Louisville Times
, September 5, 1975.

7
. Chris Kenning, “The Firing of a Popular High School Principal,”
Louisville Courier-Journal
, November 27, 2002.

8
. No Advance Program: Hampton v. Jefferson County, 72 F. Supp. 2d 753 (1999), transcripts, volume 7, 130, US District Court-Western District of Kentucky.

9
. Veda Morgan, “Group Steps Up School-Integration Fight,”
Louisville Courier-Journal
, August 16, 1996.

Chapter 3

1
. “Time Blurs His Words, but King's Influence on Region Endures,”
Louisville Courier-Journal
, May 4, 1993.

2
. Kentucky State Legislature website, “State Song,”
http://www.lrc.ky.gov/
.

3
. “African Americans,” in
The Encyclopedia of Louisville
, John E. Kleber, ed. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000); see also, J. Blaine Hudson and Bonetta M. Hines-Hudson, “A Study of the Contemporary Racial Attitudes of Whites and African Americans,”
Western Journal of Black Studies
23 (1999).

4
. Author interview with Robert Douglas, June 15, 2009.

5
. Based in part on author interviews with Darryl Owens, November 3, 2009; John Whiting, January 13, 2010; Mattie Jones, January 16, 2010; Georgia Powers, January 18, 2010; Raoul Cunningham, April 3, 2009.

6
. “Powers, Ingwerson Cover No New Ground at Meeting on Plan to End Busing,”
Louisville Courier-Journal
, November 2, 1991.

7
. Details of Carman Weathers's life from author interviews with Carman Weathers, June 17 and August 19, 2009.

8
. Details of Robert Douglas's life from author interviews with Robert Douglas, June 15, June 16, and August 19, 2009.

9
. Details of Fran Thomas's life from author interview with Fran Thomas and Loueva Moss,
October 31, 2009, and author interview with Fran Thomas, January 2012.

10
. “Proposal for Police Review Board Stirs Debate,”
Louisville Courier-Journal
, July 30, 1993.

11
. “Racism Alleged in Hiring of Schools Chief,”
Louisville Courier-Journal
, August 21, 1993.

12
. “Call in Enrollment,” Jefferson County Public Schools, September 9, 1994, Robert Douglas private collection.

13
. Details of Riccardo X's life from author interviews with Riccardo X, November 2, 2009, April 15, 2010, and January 2012.

14
. “Racial Imbalance Forces 10 Blacks to Leave Central,”
Louisville Courier-Journal
, September 23, 1994.

15
. “Central Racial Limits Spur Emotional Debate,”
Louisville Courier-Journal
, October 25, 1994.

16
. Wade Hall,
The Rest of the Dream: The Black Odyssey of Lyman Johnson
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1988), 83.

17
. Ibid., 162.

18
. Richard Wilson, “Year-long Battle in 1949 Paved Way for Integration of Kentucky's Universities,”
Louisville Courier-Journal
, February 2, 1977.

19
. Hall,
Rest of the Dream
, 72.

20
. “Central Racial Limits.”

21
. Ibid.

22
. Don Terry, “The March on Washington: The Organizer; In the End, Farrakhan Has His Day in the Sun,”
New York Times
, October 17, 1995.

23
. Ibid.

24
. Don Terry, “Family Values; Marching to the Beat of a Million Drummers,”
New York Times
, October 15, 1995.

25
. Lee Sigelman and Susan Welch,
Black Americans' Views of Racial Inequality: The Dream Deferred
(NY: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 24–26, 35.

26
. Katherine Magnuson and Jane Waldfogel, eds.,
Steady Gains and Stalled Progress
(New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2008), 1–11.

27
. US Census Bureau,
Black Americans: A Profile
(Washington, DC: US Department of Commerce, 1993),
http://www.census.gov/
.

28
. Melanye T. Price,
Dreaming Blackness: Black Nationalism and African American Public Opinion
(New York: New York University Press, 2009), 105.

29.
Ibid., 185.

30
. Rosemary L. Bray, “The Way We Live: An African-American Life; Claiming a Culture,”
New York Times
, April 23, 1989.

31
. Barbara Kantrowitz, “A Is for Ashanti, B Is for Black,”
Newsweek
, September 23, 1991, 45; Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb, “Black Private Schools: Academics with a Twist; Christian, African Curriculums Taught in Small Classes,”
Washington Post
, August 29, 1991.

32
. Shaun Hill, “Schools Urged to Adopt Afro-centric Curriculum,”
Washington Post
, February 2, 1989.

33
. Kantrowitz, “A Is for Ashanti.”

34
. Author interviews with Robert Douglas, Carman Weathers, Fran Thomas, and Riccardo X; meeting agendas and memos from the private collection of Robert Douglas.

35
. Veda Morgan, “Group Steps Up School-Integration Fight,”
Louisville Courier-Journal
, August 16, 1996.

36
. Author interviews with Douglas, Weathers, Thomas, and X; Douglas meeting agendas and memos.

37
. “Petition for an Equitable Utilization of Central and Shawnee High Schools,” undated, Robert Douglas private collection.

38
. “Request for Enrollment,” undated, Douglas private collection.

Chapter 4

1
. Hall,
Rest of the Dream
, 7–10, 22-25, 29, 28.

2
. Trip to the white school: ibid., 30–31.

3
. Ibid., 30.

4
. Ibid., 32, 42, 54.

5
. C. Vann Woodward,
Origins of the New South
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1951); John W. Cell,
The Highest Stage of White Supremacy: The Origins of Segregation in South Africa and the American South
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982); Nicholas Lemann,
The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America
(New York: Knopf, 1991).

6.
C. Vann Woodward,
Reunion and Reaction: The Compromise of 1977 and the End of Reconstruction
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1966).

7.
James D. Anderson,
The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860–1935
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 25–26.

8
. Ibid., 5, 31; Vanessa Siddle Walker,
Their Highest Potential: An African American School Community in the Segregated South
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 37–38.

9
. Anderson,
Education of Blacks
, 30; Thelma Cayne Tilford-Weathers,
A History of Louisville Central High School, 1882–1982
(Louisville, KY: Central High School Alumni Association, 1982), 12; Vanessa Siddle Walker, “Valued Segregated Schools for African American Children in the South, 1935–1969: A Review of Common Themes and Characteristics,”
Review of Educational Research
70, no. 3 (2000): 253–85.

10
. Walker,
Highest Potential
, 3.

11
. Adam Fairclough,
A Class of Their Own: Black Teachers in the Segregated South
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 4.

12
. Walker,
Highest Potential
, 205; Fairclough,
Class of Their Own
, 100.

13
. Teacher qualifications: Fairclough,
Class of Their Own
, 224.

14
. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 US 537 (1896).

15
. Booker T. Washington,
Up from Slavery
(New York: Dover, 1995), 102–12.

16
. Fairclough,
Class of Their Own
, 92–95.

17
. Hall,
Rest of the Dream
, 44, 150.

18
. Ibid., 37, 47, 35.

19
. Ibid., 42, 54.

20
. For more about the Great Migration, see Lemann,
The Promised Land
.

21
. George C. Wright,
A History of Blacks in Kentucky
, vol. 2,
In Pursuit of Equality, 1890–1980
(Frankfort, KY: Kentucky Historical Society, 1992), 1–3.

Chapter 5

1
. Louisville history: George H. Yater, “Louisville: A Historical Overview,” in
Encyclopedia of Louisville
, John E. Kleber, ed. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000).

2
. Aaron D. Purcell, “Flood of 1937,” in Kleber,
Encyclopedia of Louisville
, 297.

3
. Richard Kluger,
Simple Justice: The History of
Brown v. Board of Education
and Black America's Struggle for Equality
(New York: Vintage Books, 2004), 108–9; “
Buchanan v. Warley,”
in Kleber,
Encyclopedia of Louisville
, 139.

4
. Ben F. Rogers, “William E. B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, and Pan-Africa,”
Journal of Negro History
40, no. 2 (1955): 158.

5
. Lee Sigelman and Susan Welch,
Black Americans' Views of Racial Inequality: The Dream Deferred
(NY: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 19; Campbell Gibson and Kay Jung,
Historical Census Statistics on Population Totals by Race, 1790 to 1990, and by Hispanic Origin, 1970 to 1990, for the United States, Regions, Divisions, and States
(Washington, DC: US Census Bureau, September 2002), table 1,
http://www.census.gov/
. There were an estimated 10 million blacks in the United States in 1920.

6
. Rogers, “William E. B. Du Bois,” 158–59.

7
. “African Americans,” in Kleber,
Encyclopedia of Louisville
, 16.

8
. “Great Depression,” in Kleber,
Encyclopedia of Louisville
, 354.

9
. Thomas remembers Roosevelt coming to her school. Also see Eleanor Roosevelt, “My Day: First Lady Visits Projects in Louisville,”
Atlanta Constitution
, October 6, 1938.

10
. Central's early years: Thelma Cayne Tilford-Weathers,
A History of Louisville Central High School, 1882–1982
(Louisville, KY: Central High School Alumni Association, 1982), 5–10.