What is the first thought that pops into your head when you think of the year 1954?  A simpler time?  Rumblings of racial unrest? Or do you just say to yourself, “That’s ancient history?”

“Many people can’t imagine 1954. A postage stamp was three cents. The population of the United States was 163 million people, and the world series of baseball was broadcast in color for the very first time.”  

These were the opening remarks of Joe Madison, talk show personality for XM satellite radio and the moderator of “The Voices of Experience,” a community forum and panel discussion that is part of a larger program entitled, “In Pursuit of Freedom and Equality — Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas: The Legacy,” which came to Montgomery College, Rockville Campus, on Tuesday, Feb. 24.

Brown v. Board of Education is arguably one of the most important legal decisions handed down in the past 50 years in this country. In essence, it hailed the beginning of the end of segregation because the Supreme Court judges ruled 9-0 that separate is not, in fact, equal.

On Tuesday evening at the Montgomery College Theater Arts Arena, distinguished educational luminaries and authors who once attended Montgomery County Public Schools gathered and educated members of the local community about what it was like to teach, learn, and live in Montgomery County in the days leading up to and after the ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Drawing on his own experiences in the post-Brown multi-cultural education (or lack thereof), Mr. Madison cut to the chase with his first question, “Where did all the white people go?”  

The first panelist to answer was Mrs. Doris Hackey, a native of Germantown and a lifetime educator in the area:

“I remember I didn’t see any white people going to Carver (one of the first ‘colored’ schools in the area).  We all went to their schools.  I’m not sure what happened,” she said.

“White people went to the suburbs as far as they could go after Brown. The opposition to integration was really scary. White people were angry, I mean really angry,” said Mrs. Nina Clark, a lifelong resident, educator, and the author of History of the Black Public Schools of Montgomery County, Maryland.

“The white people actually went and built their own school, and it is still standing to this day in Calvert County,” said Mr. Warrick Hill, author of Before Us Lies the Timber: The Segregated High Schools of Montgomery County, Maryland, 1927-1960.

It was enlightening when the panelists were asked whether “colored” schools were equal. The answer was a resounding no.  

The panelists weren’t all heavy-hearted and somber when talking about these things, however. Mrs. Hackey smiled and joked about how there was no playground equipment at the “colored” school, and how they were lucky if they got a ball.  

“I remember playing a lot of dodge ball. And if the ball went in the street and you lost it, no more ball game,” she said.

Some of the panelists recalled the drudgery of walking miles upon miles to school. However, Mr. James Offord, another distinguished panelist, saw it with a little irony. The white children got to ride the bus, but Offord had to walk to his “colored” school.  

“It was two-and-a-half miles to my school, one way. I guess one thing we had over the white kids was that it was excellent exercise. At colored schools you didn’t have many twisted or sprained ankles,” he said as he chuckled.

So how did this group of people manage to succeed  when the odds were so clearly stacked against them in terms of schoolbooks, buildings and other resources?  

“There was a lot of motivation on the part of the parents because they were denied an education,” said Mrs. Clarke. There wasn’t a “colored” high school in Montgomery County until 1927.

A large motivation for African American students after Brown was to show “I’m just as smart as you are,” said, Mr. Offord.  It also probably helped that all students, regardless of race, were entitled to the same quality books, teachers and facilities.  

“We learned more because of shared resources. We were doing things after Brown that we had never done before. Now we can. Brown instigated these things,” said Mrs. Clarke.

“We used adversity as a stepping stone to success,” said Mr. Hill.

In The Fray Contributor