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Entries : Timuel Black on Attending School in the 1920s (Oral History)
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Timuel Black on Attending School in the 1920s (Oral History)

Timuel Black on Attending School in the 1920s (Oral History)

My mother took me to school. The neighborhood had not begun to buzz yet. It was predominantly white, Jewish, Irish Catholic, pretty upper-middle class. And she took us, I transferred from overcrowded Willard, triple shifts, to Burke.... So I went to this [second grade] room and the teacher was flabbergasted. And the kids went on about their business. And a girl who I never will forget, Barbara Wilkes, moved over to share her book. And the teacher went berserk. The kids, Barbara started crying. And the kids and I'm mad at my Momma for putting me in this situation. You know, I was just very uncomfortable. Barbara didn't know what to do. And the teacher shouted, “Barbara what are you doing?” And the kids were startled. I was angry. And I was lonely. Now when I came home ...My mother says, “Don't worry, baby. It'll be alright.” My mother was that way. My Dad says, “What the hell, you put that child in a room with those crackers?” They were always doing that. They were always saying things with the Marcus Garvey movement. So, now, once the principal, you know, lets us know, lets everyone know that whoever comes to live in that neighborhood is going to go to school if they want to go to that school, things begin to settle down.

Black, Timuel. Interview with James Grossman and Jamie Kalven, February 2, 1996.