First Grade

After the foreshadowing in my kindergarten account, you're probably expecting grade one to be a disaster. Well, it wasn't, actually. The year was 1968 and Rochester had begun a voluntary integration program at some city schools. It was a bit like METCO in reverse, except all of us lived in the city. They rounded up some white kids with liberal parents from the "outer city" and bussed us to an inner city school that was mostly black. They created integrated classrooms, not an integrated school. My mother, a teacher, was hired to teach sixth grade at this school, so I think the reasons we participated were two-fold. First, my parents were very liberal and believed in the value of integration. But I'm sure my mom also wanted us closer to her, as she was re-entering the workforce after eight years. Unlike the forced integration, which I experienced in fourth grade, first grade was actually quite lovely. Miss Mingo was black--I think she was from the Islands. She dressed in mini-skirts and wore huge hoop earrings. I loved having my mother at my school. My best friend Louise also entered the program and a group from my neighborhood participated. I don't recall experiencing any racial tension--and I probably would have noticed something because I've always been overly sensitive.

This weekend I poked around the web a bit looking for information about the Rochester schools and their attempts at integration. I did find a few leads through Eric. I've become very interested in this. I experienced this as a child, but I'd really like to know what it was like for the adults involved, and how they made the decisions to integrate the way they did. The fourth grade attempt, called reorganization, seemed like a total disaster from where I stood--and was ditched after just one year. I wish I had the time to really research this.

I've created an Xtra normal video to tell my story in a bit more detail. I'm going to try to post it here.