How would you like to have the hopes and dreams of your race hanging on your shoulders?
That’s what it must have felt like for B. Oswald Robinson, charged with ensuring successful integration at a formerly all-black suburban Northern Virginia elementary school where he was the principal. His was the only one of seven all-black schools chosen to remain in operation. All others were moth-balled in one way or the other.
That was his challenge. Or should we say opportunity. In any case, it was heavy stuff back then. Come to think about it, it’s heavy still.
Fairfax County public schools didn’t desegregate until 1965 despite the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court decision. It took that long for all the proverbial ducks to line up in a row. But that’s another story.
This is about one man -- part-white, part-black, legally free but socially limited -- and his personal responsibility for a local portion of the national civil rights issue.
Historical perspective always helps. Mr. Robinson’s ancestors were slaves of the famous Virginia land baron, “King” Carter, who many years before U.S. independence, ordered freedom for all his slaves upon his death -- over 1,000 of them! Miscegenation was a factor in his descendancy, as it was for many folks in that era. A glance at Mr. Robinson, who’s alive, well and still residing in Virginia at age 88, would immediately make one conclude that he is probably white. But discussion of what is or is not someone’s race is not the point of this narrative either. [Note: Mr Robinson has since passed.]
Here was a man who showed courage, compassion and wisdom in an incendiary time when the early civil rights movement of the 1960's was beginning to flower. It’s a story about a man tasked with a pivotal role in one of this country’s most difficult issues -- race relations.
During the summer before his school would be integrated, Mr. Robinson had an idea to deal with the tension that was remarkably direct and effective. He went to the Post Office and bought post cards for every student who would be entering his school, Louise Archer, that September. He had all the teachers write welcoming notes to each of their students identifying the class to which they had been assigned and where their rooms were located.
On opening day, "things went smoothly," Mr. Robinson said. The sound of the children's shoes clicking furiously as they excitedly searched for their homerooms was music to his ears. He had almost forgotten the three security guards who were quietly dispatched to Archer for his protection in the event of any untoward negative community reaction. There was none and the guards left before day's end noting to Mr. Robinson that everything was peaceful and that he didn't need them anymore. So, one potentially volatile problem was defused and full integration was well on its way.
Peaceful and satisfactory (racial) co-educational schooling of whites and “minorities” in that one school was placed squarely on his shoulders to birth and nurture at a time when emotions ran high and hot. “Minorities” was Mr. Robinson’s term of art; he didn’t use the words colored, black, or Negro.
++++
Fred W. Apelquist, III, M.Ed.
Approximately 525 words.
© 1997