I learned something disturbing about the history of racism in my city

[BlueStreak]

Last edited Sun Jan 5, 2014, 12:44 PM - Edit history (2)

In Indianapolis, we have a high school named Crispus Attucks. Its history was that it was used to segregate all the black students in the city. I always knew that. It also ended up having an excellent faculty -- with a MUCH higher ratio of teachers with Masters and Doctorates than any of the white schools. It was the school where Oscar Robertson emerged. Many of the jazz greats came through Attucks (JJ Johnson, Slide Hampton, Freddie Hubbard, David Baker and more.) I knew all that. There is a nice article at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crispus_Attucks_High_School

I was talking with some old musician friends the other night and the subject of Attucks came up. They filled in several details I am embarrassed to say I had no idea about.

First, the school was opened in in 1927. I guess it never occurred to me to ask what was going on BEFORE 1927. I always assumed that the racism was left over from the Civil War and that there was a slow but steady path from the 19th century to where we are today. I was completely wrong about this. One gentleman told me about his father who was in high school in 1925. He attended Arsenal Technical High School, which is a very nice campus-style complex on the east side of Indianapolis that is still one of the main high schools in the public district. In other words, the schools were INTEGRATED in 1925. Other black students attended Manual on the south side. All the schools were integrated at that time. At about the same time Attucks opened, they also opened George Washington HS under three miles away.

It was the KKK that led a big push to segregate the schools. They went from integrated to segregated when they opened Attucks.

In the case of my friend's father, he lived on the east side. When they opened Attucks, all black high school students, no matter where they lived, had to go to Attucks. And the city provided NO TRANSPORTATION. Basically, you could get a "separate but equal" education, but you had to get yourself to the school. My friend's father had no option except to walk. I just charted the route on Google. When he attended Tech, his walk was 3.7 miles each way. When they herded up all the black kids and sent them to Attucks, his walk became 5.3 miles each way!

They had lots of other stories that were eye-openers, but I feel really dumb for never asking what the situation was before Attucks.

This is like all the "God" stuff that has been shoved into our society. Our money says "in God we trust". Our pledge says "under God". When we swear in at court, we say "so help me God". It wasn't always like that. The "KKK equivalent" of the Christian evangelist world made all that happen, and a lot more recently than you might think. Prior to 1956, there wasn't any "In God we trust" on the money. As late as the 1960s, most court oaths said nothing about God. It simply asked you to swear to tell the truth. The first account of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance was 1948.

We were an imperfect integrated society before the KKK pushed us into segregation. We were a secular society that welcomed all religions before our Taliban got to work on that. I think it is important to understand these important sequences of history.

[salin]

1. Interesting.

Am familiar with the general history of Attucks (the only school for black students - and its many storied graduates), but didn't know how it came to be segregated.

Thanks for the thought provoking post.

[Baitball Blogger]

2. kick

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. Actually, this country was racist as hell from the founding.

What you are describing is one cycle of a long history of racism, from the beginning of our country.

"Indians are mere animals of prey"
George Washington

"i will say then, I am not nor ever have been in favor of....the social and political equality of the white and black races...
there must be a position of superior and infreior,...I am infavor of having the position of superior assigned to the white race".
Abraham Lincoln, in a speech in Illinois during his 1858 Senate campaign.

"now, as the Negroe..I agree that as a race they are entirely inferior to the whites"
Pres. Theodore Roosevelt 1902.

All these and more quotes can be found in a handly little book called
They Said What?
by Jim Hunt.

[kiva]

4. Whiggish history posits that we

are constantly progressing in a positive path. We don't, sometimes we go backwards.

[BlueStreak]

6. Exactly. Progress takes constant diligence.

Just when we think we are making some progress on our racial history, electing our first African-American president, we make uuge setbacks on the progress of labor, the progress of civil liberties, and the progress of economic fairness.

There are powerful forces that want to reverse progress. They take many forms. Sometimes it is as obvious as the KKK, but usually they are a lot more subtle.

[panader0]

5. Kick for Freddie Hubbard.

[BlueStreak]

7. Often imitated but never duplicated

I'd put Freddie Hubbard on a very short list -- that list probably includes John Coltrane and nobody else. These are musicians that could play at blinding speed. Lots of musicians can do that, but is you listen carefully, they are m=playing musical nonsense. If you slow down Coltrane and Hubbard, you hear carefully crafted lines that make musical sense and have something to say.

I might include trombonist John Fedchock on this list although sometimes he strays into the same wilderness where most modern trombonists go to die.

Here's a good one to listen to. Check out about the 4:00 mark. The only fast-playing trombonist I know that can actually keep time.

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. "We were a secular society that welcomed all religions before our Taliban got to work on that."

Sadly, not at all true. Indeed, just the opposite:

Anti-Judaism — based on religious beliefs and practices — is often distinguished from antisemitism, which is based upon racial or ethnic prejudice.
Long long history of both, carried over to our countries' founding from Europe.

the Puritans who first settled this country carried deep anti-catholic beliefs:

Monsignor John Tracy Ellis wrote that a "universal anti-Catholic bias was brought to Jamestown in 1607 and vigorously cultivated in all the thirteen colonies from Massachusetts to Georgia".
Colonial charters and laws often contained specific proscriptions against Catholics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Catholicism#United_States
That bias was so strong that in 1960, it was a major issue in Jack Kennedy's campaign.

Mormonism had been criticized strongly by dozens of publications since its inception, most notably by Eber D. Howe's 1834 book Mormonism Unvailed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Mormonism

An enlightening bit of this religious intolerance history can be found in
The First Prejudice
Religious Tolerance and Intolerance in Early America
http://www.amazon.com/The-First-Prejudice-Religious-Intolerance/dp/081224270X

along with , perhaps,
The Myth of American Religious Freedom

[BlueStreak]

10. That is a list of religious crazies fighting with one another, like Sunni and Shia

Our SOCIETY at large, was open to all of this. We honored the separation of church and state -- even treasured that principle -- for our first 150 years.

[JustAnotherGen]

9. Thank you

For the education on this - I had no idea.

[frazzled]

11. Here's a study from 1965

http://bit.ly/1i7EMrZ

The segregation occurred from 1927 until 1949, when the state passed a desegregation act and school assignments were redrawn based on proximity. There remained, of course, de facto segregation because of racial patterns in housing.

I went to school in Indianapolis in the 1960s, and both my high school (1965-68) and junior high (1962-65) were integrated (though high school less so, because of the larger geographic area from which it drew). This is explained by the fact that I lived in a middle-class neighborhood that was integrated. You can read about the black experience there in Darryl Pinckney's semi-autobiographical High Cotton (my brother, a few years younger than me, went to school with him). It describes the exodus of professional-class blacks from Capitol Avenue to northwest Indianapolis.

[iandhr]

12. I am sorry.

This is just not true

"We were a secular society that welcomed all religions before our Taliban got to work on that. I think it is important to understand these important sequences of history."

My grandfather had to go to medical school in Scotland because med schools here had a quota on the number of Jews they would take.

[Journeyman]

13. "Innocent Bystander High," is how Vonnegut described it in "Breakfast of Champions". . .

. . . and that's all I'll say about that.

[BlueStreak]

14. If he meant to refer obliquely to Attucks

then wouldn't that have been "Peanut University" rather than "Innocent Bystander High"?

P.S. You are probably aware that Vonnegut grew up in Indianapolis, so I don't doubt that he was making such a connection.

[Journeyman]

19. There is a "Peanut University" in "Breakfast of Champions". . .

It is the second high school in the fictional Indiana town of Midland City. This too was intended for blacks in the city and was named for George Washington Carver, the scientist who distinguished himself for his research in the uses of peanuts.

And the reference to Crispus Attucks was not oblique, but quite definite. Students at Vonnegut's "Crispus Attucks High School" wear jackets with "Innocent Bystander High" on the back and a picture of Attucks being shot through the head.

[Brigid]

15. Indiana was a big-time hotbed for KKK activity back then.

Check out Google and wikipedia on David Curtiss Stephenson. Horrific story. And this guy was the governor!

[BlueStreak]

16. I have heard that Greenfield (20 mi east of Indy) was some kind of HQ of the KKK

I have never seen that confirmed in an authoritative way. But even today, I have frequent occasions to be in Greenfield, and I don't believe I have EVER seen an African-American there.

This presentation might have revealed some of that KKK history:
http://www.greenfieldreporter.com/view/local_story/KKK_1329958627#.Uso_lrRdAUg

Here is the wiki link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Klan
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.C._Stephenson

Those articles associate Stephenson with Evansville, Valparaiso, and Seymor, but no mention of Greenfield, so I suspect Greenfield was an active local chapter. There were some really horrific lynchings in Kokomo, Indiana.

Stephenson was never governor of Indiana, but he was closely associated with Gov. Edward Jackson who was in fact a KKK member.

[BlueStreak]

18. And I note that KKK-member Jackson was governor at exactly the time Attucks was built.

So I guess my black friends were not engaging in any hyperbole when they said the KKK was behind the building of Attucks.

[Ron Green]

17. The TRUE religion of this country, Capitalism,

still craves slaves deep in its heart.