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| "This is a photo of the first Black girl to attend an all white school in the United States—Dorothy Counts—being jeered and taunted by her white, male peers" (source). |
I found a YouTube video that includes a lot of photography documenting Dorothy Counts first day of school. She was fifteen-years-old. According to the Newsletter of the Society for the History of Children and Youth:
Fifteen-year-old Dorothy Counts had a trying experience at Harding High School. As she made her way to the school grounds, a white woman implored a group of boys, “It’s up to you to keep her out,” and directed a group of girls, “Spit on her, girls, spit on her.” She was not kept out that day, but she was spat on. Her teachers ignored her. When she went to the cafeteria for lunch that first day, boys threw trash on her plate. She went outdoors, where a miracle seemed to happen, as she was befriended by two white girls; but they drew back the next day when they were harassed by their white classmates. Meantime, threatening phone calls reached the family at home. At school she was jostled, things were thrown at her, together with slurs and threats, and her locker was ransacked. After four days of this and other harassment—for example, on the fourth day, when her brother drove to the school to pick her up, the rear windshield in the car was smashed as he waited for her—her father, a professor at nearby Johnson C. Smith University, called a press conference, where he explained:I wonder what differences would occur if additional African-American students were admitted to the school with Counts. Maybe the stigmatization over a group would make for a longer period of attendance - though attending and dealing with such racist prejudice for a single day alone must have taken a lot of strength.It is with compassion for our native land and love for our daughter Dorothy that we withdraw her as a student at Harding High School. As long as we felt she could be protected from bodily injury and insults within the school’s walls and upon the school premises, we were willing to grant her desire to study at Harding.But “a continuous stream of abuses” had, he observed, left the family no choice. She left Charlotte for Pennsylvania, where she attended an integrated school in Philadelphia. Harding High School reverted to all-white. She had chosen to transfer, but her classmates forced her withdrawal—the boys did, in the end, as the woman had implored them, “keep her out.”
I think this video is very inspiring. The fact that in those days a fifteen year old would stand up for herself in such a way gives us so much hope for the future. I can only imagine what it would feel like to be so hated by everyone that they would yell, spit and throw thing to get you to leave. She must have had so much courage to face these people.
ReplyDeleteAs for the question of what would happen if other African-American students were admitted and went with her on her first day, I think there would have been even more of an uproar. If one student can cause riots and protests, imagine four or five students that the school did not want. I imagine they would feel threatened by how strong these people were and were afraid of change.
I think one strong point that people were afraid of letting African-Americans into the white school system was because it has been done one way for a long time and they don't want to change it. They probably had the mindset of, separating blacks and whites has worked so far, why would we risk the uncertain by changing things up.