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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. If y o u ’re extrem ely self-
k w . askdeanna. com
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