In September of 1967, my senior year, Corsicana High School integrated for the first time. Well, I guess you could call it that. About 8 students who went to Jackson High School, the school across on the east side of town that was totally attended by people we referred to as Negroes, transferred to CHS. I had no idea what they called us, nor had most of us given it any thought, as our paths just didn't cross that much with those our own age. They had their school and church events; we had ours.
I don't know that anyone on either side had that much curiosity about it. We just lived parallel lives on the east and west side of town, marking graduation, football games, summer vacation in our own ways, but with the shared joy and angst of teenagers. Certainly, there were those who spoke in pejoratives and who made fun of those of whom they had no real knowledge. They had been taught that by their parents, some of them, on both sides of town.
One of the kids, a very nice boy my age, rode our bus. He sat quietly, bothered no one, and when it was time for him to get off the bus, stood up, made his way to the front and exited as quietly as he entered. After a month or so of this, and after we learned his name, we waved and yelled goodbye to him out the bus windows.
"Bye Walter," seven or eight of us would yell, hands waving wildly out the bus windows. He'd make a small wave gesture with his hand and smile that weak smile as he walked slowly down the gravel road toward the shack he lived in. The green roof was barely visible among the junked cars. We thought the cars were his dad's business, but he never talked about it. We didn't ask either. He was a good student and a genuinely nice kid.
The only other student I knew of the transferees was a young girl named Faith, who had an ebullient spirit, huge smile, and mega talent. She was my sister's age, two years younger than I and had started to school with them either 8th or 9th grade year, transferring to the high school in the 10th. She played the piano like a pro and was immediately recognized for her ability and personality. Everyone I knew liked and respected her.
That was the extent of our exposure to integration. The real test came several years later when a new high school was built, and both groups were merged into one new building. Coming from a world where black and white had only seen one another from afar or in certain prescribed social roles into the new world of forced equality made for interesting dynamics in our little town on both sides of the aisle.
Our high school principal, Mr. Don Bowen, was very popular with the students. After a couple years as principal, he was made superintendent at age 28. Then he had to deal with the contentious issue of integrating the schools. It must have been very hard for him, with people of both races taking up hard stands with entrenched views on the changes.
I graduated in 1968, and that summer would be the first summer that Camp Wanica, the Camp Fire Girls' Camp ouside of Corsicana, integrated. I knew I wanted to be one of the counselors for the girls who would come from the east side of Corsicana. Pat Gnoza wanted to, too, so we both volunteered, and our requests were granted. The kids loved Pat because she was so funloving and humorous. They seemed to like me, too, but for different reasons that I wasn't sure I could name. Maybe because I laughed a lot and didn't yell too loudly at them when they needed correction.
The camp probably should have served as the model for the United Nations because we had no problem integrating. The 15 little girls, aged 8-10, filled two cabins of the eight or so at the camp. They were funny, intelligent, and inquiring.
They were very interested in my boyfriend, and on the one night I was allowed to go on a date with him, they waited up for me and met me with all sorts of questions about what we did, where we went, and what he looked like.
"Can we go up to the gate with you to meet him when he comes to get you?" Valerie had asked before I left.
"No, I don't think Ms. Fish would allow that," I said.
"Well, can you just bring him to the cabin for a minute?" she continued.
"No can do," I said. "I'd get kicked out of the camp for sure."
"Hmmph," she said, folding her arms across her chest.
"How we gonna ever get to meet him then?"
"Well, maybe later this summer you can meet him when we're not at camp," I suggested. That seemed to pacify her for the moment.
"Y'all go to the carnival?" she asked.
"Yes, as a matter of fact, we usually do. He's really good at winning teddy bears and stuffed animals on the games."
"Then we'll see you there," she said with authority.
As it turned out, she was right. Later that summer, I met five of the girls at the carnival, and introduced them, giggling, squirming, slapping their legs, and acting silly, to my boyfriend, Coy. They told me later they thought he was handsome and he sure was good at the games, so I assumed he met their approval.
In years past, they could have seen him daily as he delivered ice to the camp with his dad, who worked for Southern Ice. Each day they brought 50 pound blocks of ice and filled up the wooden holder outside the lodge dining hall. Ice was chipped for drinks, used to ice down everything that needed to stay cold that wouldn't fit into the refrigerator and for miscellaneous things.
This year, he had taken a job working at the Hat Factory, where his mother worked, because it paid more. He also hauled hay on the weekends, hefting it from the field onto a trailer, then taking it to some rancher's barn where they unloaded it. Both jobs were hot and dirty, but he seemed to thrive on hard work, and his 130 pound body had no fat on it at all.
Camp sessions, lasting ten days, were filled with constant activity, except for the enforced rest period immediately after lunch each day. Each girl had to stay on her metal bunkbed. Some slept, others read or wrote letters, but quiet time was enforced, and the soft buzzing of the fans in that tiny cabin lulled us as though they echoed the soft whir of eternity. Life stretched out before us, clear as a summer's morning and vibrant as the nighttime sound of cicadas. I lay on my bed smiling, staring up at the raw ceiling boards. The girls were thinking of returning to their families while I contemplated leaving mine, moving to a college dorm. And that bronze wiry young guy pulling levers at Adam Hat Factory was increasingly a part of my thoughts, including those for the future.
I don't know that anyone on either side had that much curiosity about it. We just lived parallel lives on the east and west side of town, marking graduation, football games, summer vacation in our own ways, but with the shared joy and angst of teenagers. Certainly, there were those who spoke in pejoratives and who made fun of those of whom they had no real knowledge. They had been taught that by their parents, some of them, on both sides of town.
One of the kids, a very nice boy my age, rode our bus. He sat quietly, bothered no one, and when it was time for him to get off the bus, stood up, made his way to the front and exited as quietly as he entered. After a month or so of this, and after we learned his name, we waved and yelled goodbye to him out the bus windows.
"Bye Walter," seven or eight of us would yell, hands waving wildly out the bus windows. He'd make a small wave gesture with his hand and smile that weak smile as he walked slowly down the gravel road toward the shack he lived in. The green roof was barely visible among the junked cars. We thought the cars were his dad's business, but he never talked about it. We didn't ask either. He was a good student and a genuinely nice kid.
The only other student I knew of the transferees was a young girl named Faith, who had an ebullient spirit, huge smile, and mega talent. She was my sister's age, two years younger than I and had started to school with them either 8th or 9th grade year, transferring to the high school in the 10th. She played the piano like a pro and was immediately recognized for her ability and personality. Everyone I knew liked and respected her.
That was the extent of our exposure to integration. The real test came several years later when a new high school was built, and both groups were merged into one new building. Coming from a world where black and white had only seen one another from afar or in certain prescribed social roles into the new world of forced equality made for interesting dynamics in our little town on both sides of the aisle.
Our high school principal, Mr. Don Bowen, was very popular with the students. After a couple years as principal, he was made superintendent at age 28. Then he had to deal with the contentious issue of integrating the schools. It must have been very hard for him, with people of both races taking up hard stands with entrenched views on the changes.
I graduated in 1968, and that summer would be the first summer that Camp Wanica, the Camp Fire Girls' Camp ouside of Corsicana, integrated. I knew I wanted to be one of the counselors for the girls who would come from the east side of Corsicana. Pat Gnoza wanted to, too, so we both volunteered, and our requests were granted. The kids loved Pat because she was so funloving and humorous. They seemed to like me, too, but for different reasons that I wasn't sure I could name. Maybe because I laughed a lot and didn't yell too loudly at them when they needed correction.
The camp probably should have served as the model for the United Nations because we had no problem integrating. The 15 little girls, aged 8-10, filled two cabins of the eight or so at the camp. They were funny, intelligent, and inquiring.
They were very interested in my boyfriend, and on the one night I was allowed to go on a date with him, they waited up for me and met me with all sorts of questions about what we did, where we went, and what he looked like.
"Can we go up to the gate with you to meet him when he comes to get you?" Valerie had asked before I left.
"No, I don't think Ms. Fish would allow that," I said.
"Well, can you just bring him to the cabin for a minute?" she continued.
"No can do," I said. "I'd get kicked out of the camp for sure."
"Hmmph," she said, folding her arms across her chest.
"How we gonna ever get to meet him then?"
"Well, maybe later this summer you can meet him when we're not at camp," I suggested. That seemed to pacify her for the moment.
"Y'all go to the carnival?" she asked.
"Yes, as a matter of fact, we usually do. He's really good at winning teddy bears and stuffed animals on the games."
"Then we'll see you there," she said with authority.
As it turned out, she was right. Later that summer, I met five of the girls at the carnival, and introduced them, giggling, squirming, slapping their legs, and acting silly, to my boyfriend, Coy. They told me later they thought he was handsome and he sure was good at the games, so I assumed he met their approval.
In years past, they could have seen him daily as he delivered ice to the camp with his dad, who worked for Southern Ice. Each day they brought 50 pound blocks of ice and filled up the wooden holder outside the lodge dining hall. Ice was chipped for drinks, used to ice down everything that needed to stay cold that wouldn't fit into the refrigerator and for miscellaneous things.
This year, he had taken a job working at the Hat Factory, where his mother worked, because it paid more. He also hauled hay on the weekends, hefting it from the field onto a trailer, then taking it to some rancher's barn where they unloaded it. Both jobs were hot and dirty, but he seemed to thrive on hard work, and his 130 pound body had no fat on it at all.
Camp sessions, lasting ten days, were filled with constant activity, except for the enforced rest period immediately after lunch each day. Each girl had to stay on her metal bunkbed. Some slept, others read or wrote letters, but quiet time was enforced, and the soft buzzing of the fans in that tiny cabin lulled us as though they echoed the soft whir of eternity. Life stretched out before us, clear as a summer's morning and vibrant as the nighttime sound of cicadas. I lay on my bed smiling, staring up at the raw ceiling boards. The girls were thinking of returning to their families while I contemplated leaving mine, moving to a college dorm. And that bronze wiry young guy pulling levers at Adam Hat Factory was increasingly a part of my thoughts, including those for the future.
