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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 29, 2004)
ilu | J o r t l a n ò ( O b s e r v e r M E D S e p te m b e r 2 9 , 2 0 0 4 W eek Page A 3 A N o t-so -G r a n d All-white reunion saddens black leaders (AP) - The Princess Anne, Mil. ballroom was decorated with floor- to-ceiling paintings o f shiny soda fountains, classic cars and the old store windows downtown. A stoop jutted out from a rendering of the high school facade, so graduates could sit and talk — just like in the old days. And just like in the old days, not everyone in town was invited. The reunion Saturday was only for those w ho graduated from W ashington High School before it opened its doors to black students in the fall of 1969. Some black leaders say the all- white reunion is sad and painful evidence that 50 years after the I ) .S. Supreme Court outlawed school segregation, some things have not changed all that much in this com munity on the Eastern Shore o f the Chesapeake Bay. “It’s just as divided as it's ever been,” said Leon Johnson, a black political activist who worked be hind the scenes in Somerset County in 1960s. "The old folks did a good job o f teaching the young ones, of teaching them the old system." Organizers called the reunion a Ask Ö ft: 9 S R e a l P e o p le , R e a l A d v ic e An advice column known fo r its fearless approach to reality based subjects! Kirkland Hall, a 1969 graduate o f Somerset High School in Princess Anne, Md., looks through yearbooks from 1964, 1966 and 1968. Of the old racial divide in his town, Hall said: It 's one of those things I've been fighting so long, I'm ju s t tired.' “Grand Homecoming” for gradu exclude blacks. ates from the 1940s, ’50s and '60s. Instead, he said, it is a gathering It was independently organized and of students from three decades who was not affiliated with the public share music and culture from the era of sock hops and jukeboxes. school system. Mickey W igglesworth. a retired “This would have no appeal to banker and 1957 graduate who has them,” he said of the post-1969 spent the past year organizing the grads. event at the Somerset County Civic The integrated post-1969classes Center, said there was no intent to at Washington High hold their own reunions periodically, but they are smaller and are not promoted as com m unity events. The G rand Homecoming, by contrast, gets a weekly mention on the front o f the county new spaper’s style section, under old photos o f the boys’ bas ketball teams and girls’ softball teams. A colorful flier posted down town asks Washington High gradu- Dear Deanna! child support, be a father figure and My husband of 12 years and 3 maintain his marriage and family. children dropped the bomb on me You can’t punish the child and need that he had an affair and a preg to prepare yourself andchildren for nancy occurred. The woman didn't their new sibling. Although you tell him about the baby until it was aren’t feeling it, you need to be on 4 years old. I d id n 't want him to civil terms with the baby’s scandal have anything to do with the child. ous m o th er becau se it’s your The child now calls asking for her husband's child. Seek forgiveness, daddy but I think the mother is embrace counseling and lead and behind this. Our kids talk about live by aGodly motherexample and meeting their new sibling but (don't you'll gel through this. want to consider it. W hat do I do? D ear Deanna! - K e e p it Real; Jacksonville, Fla. I’m a well-endowed woman and all D ear Real: my life I’ve had problems with Your husband had a party without people talking with their eyes on the balloons and now h e’s caught. njy chest. It's so rude and annoy The child is here and he has to pay ing that I have retreated from soci ety, hate going to work and don't have any friends. I' m not an airhead and want to be taken seriously and not viewed and treated like a play thing because o f my shape. — Talisha Jones; Montgomery, Ala. ates up to 1969 to "Travel back in tim e to those good, old years." "W e’re still a divided county," said Kirkland Hall, a former presi dent of the county's N A ACP chap ter and a 1969 graduate of Princess A nne's black high school, Somerset High. O f the county’s 25,000 resi dents, 41 percent are black. The Supreme C ourt’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education came down in 1954, but it was an other 15 years before any schools in Somerset County integrated. P rin c ess A n n e, the site o f M aryland’s last lynching in 1933, did not integrate any public build ings until 1964. Not until 1968 did any white schools on the Eastern Shore open to black students. "It would be nice if the class of 1969 of both schools would have a reunion. We might have something in com mon,” Hall said, adding after a pause: "I don’t think too many people would be up to the idea.” H all’s friends from Somerset High have urged him to organize an all-black reunion that could rival the Grand Homecoming in size. But Hall said: "I don’t think that’s the way to go.” H. DeWayne Whittington, a 1948 graduate o f what was then called CrisfieldColored High Schoo I, even tually became the first black super in ten d en t o f Som erset County schools, in 1988. He won a lawsuit against the county four years later when it did not renew his contract, and the system was forced to name a school for him. W hittington said he is less ir ritated by the G rand H om ecom ings than he is by the distribution o f scholarship money raised at the event. A total o f $9,500 has been aw arded in 19 scholarships, but only to children o f alum ni who graduated before integra tion. Whittington has helped orga nize relatively small, multiyear re unions that raise $3.(XX)annually in scholarships for the children of black alumni. "It came to that point,” he said, "because blacks found that out and said, 'L et’s try to do som e thing for our kids.'” The separate reunions are a symptom o fa lack of black political le a d e rsh ip in the c o u n ty , Whittington said. No black politi cians have pressed for a stop to the practice. Blacks held few public offices on the Eastern Shore before Hall sued the state in 1993 to keep out-of- town property owners from voting in municipal elections. It was not untill 999 that a black politician was elected to the state Legislature from the Eastern Shore. O f the racial divide. Hall said: "It's one of those things I've been fighting so long, I'm just tired.” c o n s c io u s o r u n c o m fo rta b le , contact your physician and seek breast reduction advice. the rest of your life behind bars due to crim e. I t’s going to be hard landing a jo b because o f the prison mark on your record. Fill D ear D eanna! out as many jo b applications as I’m on the last leg of my prison term you can and go on every inter and I’ll be released soon. Do you view available until you get ajob. D ear Talisha: have any suggestions on what I The key is persistence. You may It's up to you to stop this treat can do to get a job'.’ Prison has have to take a grunt jo b until you ment quick, fast and in a hurry taken my manhood away so bad can do better, but at least y o u 'll before it gets started. Next tim e a that I don't ever want to see this be doing som ething honest. Just perso n is co m m u n ic atin g but place again. I've decided I want to d o n ’t give up in your search. zoom ing down below , stop talk start on the right foot and get a job ing and stare at them. W hen they and stay out of trouble the minute Ask Deanna is written by Deanna realize th e y ’re busted looking at I get my freedom. -P a u l; Soledad M. Write Ask Deanna! Email: your chest, tell them point blank Prison, Cal if. a sk d e a n n a l @yahoo.com or you d o n ’t appreciate th eir ac write: Deanna M, P.O. Box 88847, D ear Paul: tions and you need to have eye Los Angeles, CA W00V. Website: I t's good you learned from your contact. 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