Current Search: Florida Atlantic University (x) » Busing for school integration--Florida--Palm Beach County (x)
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Title
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WITH MORE THAN DELIBERATE SPEED: A HISTORICAL STUDY OF SIX MAJOR ISSUES IN SECONDARY EDUCATION IN PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA 1954 - 1972 FROM A BLACK PERSPECTIVE.
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Creator
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BRYANT, BRADFORD CARLETON, Florida Atlantic University, Smith, Lawrence E.
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Abstract/Description
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In the decision-making process, the exclusion of participants who are to be guided by the resulting decision is unconstitutional and undemocratic. Black voices in Palm Beach County, Florida were totally excluded from the six major issues--The Phase-Out of all Black Secondary Schools; Re-assignment of Black Administrators and Teachers; Busing; Curriculum: Secondary Migrant Education--that affected their socio-economic welfare. The study of these six major issues in Palm Beach County was...
Show moreIn the decision-making process, the exclusion of participants who are to be guided by the resulting decision is unconstitutional and undemocratic. Black voices in Palm Beach County, Florida were totally excluded from the six major issues--The Phase-Out of all Black Secondary Schools; Re-assignment of Black Administrators and Teachers; Busing; Curriculum: Secondary Migrant Education--that affected their socio-economic welfare. The study of these six major issues in Palm Beach County was compiled using historical methodology based on investigations conducted through interviews, school board minutes and agendas, court cases, and news media records. More than three-hundred Blacks were interviewed but only twenty-seven gave their permission to be quoted directly or to be taped while being interviewed. Several Whites were interviewed and, among these, was Dr. A. D. Thorpe, a former school board member and its chairman at one time. Interviews were open-ended, taped when possible, and in other cases, notes were made immediately after the conclusion of the interview. This study illustrates the hard-line resistance to federal laws and guidelines demonstrated by Palm Beach County's power structure in its effort to retain a separate but- equal system of education. Even though the elected officials were White, many KNIGHTS (Known Negroes In Good Harmonious Taste) were supportive of any action taken so long as they received their dole from whatever gross accumulated. The year 1970 brought a change of color to the county school board with the election of Daniel W. Hendrix, a former all Black Roosevelt Junior College (now phased out) teacher, who currently teaches at the desegregated Palm Beach Junior College. The observable changes in Palm Beach County's Secondary Education System are very few. Positions in the decision-making ranks are so minute that Black voices remain a whisper when shouting for equality under the laws of state and nation. This general attitude and adamant position must change if racial harmony and humanism are to become the ways and means for progress to touch Palm Beach County. The dissident voices of Black protestation must be heard and the relevance of their protest incorporated into the educational fabric of Palm Beach County. Until this is done, continued unrest, racism and distrust will remain the device by which progress must be measured now and in the future.
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Date Issued
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1975
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PURL
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http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/11650
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Format
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Document (PDF)
