Members of the Bel Alton High School Alumni Association reminisced on their experiences at a segregated school during a panel discussion on Tuesday evening.
Matthew Wills, current president of the alumni association and a 1962 graduate of the school, delivered quick facts before the Feb. 20 panel began.
Bel Alton High School was the only segregated school in Charles County built pre-World War II that remains standing today, and the association is actively trying to have the school placed on the National Register of Historic Places, according to Wills.
“We care a lot about that building because it’s our history,” he said.
Wills said the school opened in 1938 during the Jim Crow era and serviced students until 1966, when the integration of public schools began in the county. In the late 1980s, a group of former students saved the building when the Charles County government planned to have it demolished, becoming the founding members of the alumni association.
Founding members raised $6 million to restore the structure and operated it as a community center at the building from 2008 to 2015.
The panel consisted of Jean Stewart, who attended Bel Alton High School from 7th to 10th grades, Robert Martin, a graduate of the school in 1961, Cora Marshall, a teacher at the high school, and Isaiah DeLeonard, president of the Charles County NAACP youth council.
“We cared about our students,” Marshall, 96, said. “Those students knew you don’t talk back. That’s not your purpose for going to school. We didn’t have any problem with our students.”
Marshall remarked that the best years in her long teaching career were at Bel Alton High School and that her students still look out for her.
“We were farm children. I came from a family of 13 siblings,” Stewart said. “We never wanted for anything.”
Stewart said that Marshall and her teachers from the high school changed her, lighting a fire in her to strive for excellence.
“She made an impact on me,” Stewart said. “They were hard and didn’t give you any slack, but you had to love and respect them. … Family was extended when I went to Bel Alton.”
“Parents sent their students to be taught, and knew that was happening,” Marshall said. “We could get back to some of that these days. The teachers these days are up against it. I’m so glad I’m retired.”
The former teacher expressed her disbelief at some of the modern issues in schools, like shootings, and said, “It’s a new day people, we need to get back.”
Stewart told the story of the process she had to go through when schools began integrating, which included writing to the board of education on why she should be allowed to go to an all-white school and testifying before the board.
“When I went to La Plata High School my first day, I was shocked,” Stewart said.
She said that she was the only Black student at the school, and there was “a lot of resentment outside of my immediate class.”
Martin told a story of being declined service at a La Plata restaurant because of his race, but saw a waiter was nearly crying when doing so.
This segued into a new question from DeLeonard, who said, “Would you say that people were scared of segregation?”
Responding, Martin said in Charles County people had the impression that leaders were trying to make things “equal.” He remembered how the government saw Bel Alton High School was lacking in facilities, so a new gym was built, albeit half the size of the regulation.
Leaders would use examples like the gym to say that they were upholding separate but equal ideals, according to Martin. He believed that the government thought if they kept doing acts like that, they would not have to integrate schools.
DeLeonard, who served as moderator of Tuesday’s discussion, responded, asking if Martin still believed the separate but equal decision from Plessy v. Ferguson holds true in the United States.
“I don’t see separate but equal as part of the equation anymore,” Martin replied.
Stewart shared how ridiculous she believed the notion of separate but equal is, saying you would not want a garden of flowers of just one color.
“God made us in his image and likeness, so why don’t we act like that,” Stewart asked.
She shared more from her experience following desegregation at La Plata High School, saying that she had water balloons thrown at her, people would step on her hands if she went to watch a baseball game and chairs were pulled away at the cafeteria so she would not have a place to sit.
“Black History Month is a farce to me,” Stewart said. She explained that she is Black all the time, and asked why would they be limited to the shortest month of the year.
In her closing remarks, Marshall commented on the stark difference in respect in schools today.
On PTA nights, families would make sure that teachers had a full-course dinner.
“They cared. We didn’t have to go to a restaurant to be denied,” Marshall said. “The parents looked out for us.”
“We can’t go back and relive history,” Stewart said. “But we can do better stepping into tomorrow.”
Most Popular
Comments / 0