Del. 'colored school' offers lessons to be remembered

WILMINGTON, Del. -- The future of the 91-year-old red brick building at 4266 Millcreek Road in Wilmington that was at the center of Delaware's piece of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision is in the hands of a new board of directors.

Some say the building never should have existed and that the only thing worth remembering about that vestige of racism in Delaware, they say, is the day the Hockessin Colored School closed its doors.

Others see it as a monument, marking the spot where the seeds of an epic civil rights struggle were sown, and worthy of the respect such historic landmarks deserve.

A few years ago, a historic marker was attached to the front of the building, explaining the pivotal role Hockessin School 107C played in the struggle for equal opportunity.

Indeed, the little school bears witness to both truths.

Now, as the building's owner -- the Hockessin Community Center -- emerges from a Chancery Court battle with a new board of directors and a powerful group of allies, the story of the little school's past may also be its key to a sustainable future.

"We have to have 107," said James "Sonny" Knott, who was a student there and now lives near Belvedere, Del. "I pray that the building itself is saved and stays active. I'd like to see it be a museum of some type, with pictures of past students and teachers, where I can take my grandchildren and say, 'This is where I went to school.' "

The lessons learned there must not be forgotten, he said.

Pierre S. du Pont

Industrialist and philanthropist Pierre S. du Pont got so exasperated with Delaware's General Assembly refusing to upgrade the schools and rejecting all pleas for better facilities for black students, that he took matters into his own hands and, starting in 1920, invested more than $6 million to build new schools around the state.

Du Pont's project included almost 90 schools in African-American communities, including an all-brick replacement for the wood-frame School 107C.

The one-room school didn't have an auditorium or infirmary like the school up the hill, School 29, which the white kids attended. And the supplies were pretty lean. The books all were quite raggedy. The books used by the students at 107C were discarded by School 29.

'Way of life'

Knott has no memory of feeling deprived at the Hockessin Colored School.

"It was a way of life," he said. "It was embedded in us. You can't do what she does because she's white. We played with all the white kids and we were in and out of each other's homes. If a fight broke out, it was a routine fight. It wasn't a black-and-white fight."

Lois Mae Johnson remembers being so close to her white friends that they even shared their chewing gum, straight from each other's mouths.

The former students of School 107C say their memories all relate to what happened in the classroom or outside during recess.

"Miss Beaujon was black, so we got some black history from her," said Jean Fleming, whose mother, Reba Butler, was a persistent advocate for the community. "It wasn't in our books, but she added it. As far as I know, I got a good education there. I didn't feel I was segregated. You made the best of what it was and I never really thought about it. We were happy."

Johnson said, "We were happy in our surroundings. We had a marvelous time until the decision went down."

Bigger issues

Almost all of the children who went to School 107C got there on foot. Some got a ride, and for a while a "community man" -- Pete Peterson -- offered rides to Hockessin's black students if they needed one.

But there was no state-provided transportation for School 107C as there was for the students of School 29.

Johnson and others say they didn't really notice that distinction.

But Sarah Bulah, whose 8-year-old daughter Shirley went to 107C, noticed. Bulah and her family lived about two miles from the Hockessin Colored School and the bus to School 29 went by their house every morning. On its way to the white children's school, the bus drove past School 107C.

Bulah asked school district officials to allow Shirley to ride that bus to School 107.

Not possible. No way. Forget it.

Bulah wasn't satisfied with that answer and took her indignation to Lawyer Redding, as Louis L. Redding was known. Redding, a graduate of Brown University and Harvard Law School, was the state's first black lawyer.

When Bulah approached him about the school bus dispute, Redding rejected the case. He had no desire to get Shirley onto a "Jim Crow" school bus. But if she would fight to get her daughter into School 29, well -- that was another matter. Redding would fight that battle.

He was fresh from a similar fight. In 1950, he and Jack Greenberg of the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund fought to help several black students enroll at the University of Delaware. They argued the case in Delaware's Court of Chancery, ultimately persuading then-Vice Chancellor Collins J. Seitz that the university had violated the civil rights of those students.

Hockessin divided

The fight for equal access to School 29 caused sharp division in Hockessin. Many white parents and educators objected. Business leaders were angry. Bulah's egg-selling business dropped sharply. And many in the black community feared that they, too, would be hurt by her battle.

That tension was new in Hockessin, Knott said.

"Until Mrs. Bulah spoke up, we had no problems racially," he said.

Redding and Greenberg wound up in Seitz's courtroom again, arguing now for equal educational opportunities for students in Hockessin and Claymont. After much testimony and personal visits to compare the facilities offered to the students involved in both areas, Seitz ruled in Redding's favor. When Delaware's attorney general appealed Seitz's rulings, the two cases were shipped to the U.S. Supreme Court, bundled into the landmark case known as Brown v. the Board of Education.

And in a unanimous 1954 opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down racial segregation practices in public schools as unconstitutional.

The arguments that win court cases don't always win hearts and minds, though. And, some would argue, the struggle for equal opportunity is far from finished even 60 years later.

So it's not a great surprise that tension followed Lois Mae Johnson up the hill to School 29. Some of her white friends no longer spoke to her.

On her first day in class, the teacher used the book "Little Black Sambo." She remembers looking at her sister, Lillian, in astonishment. They had never seen a black person in a book before. Was this a good thing?

They were told that one mother did not want her child to go to school with black children. And another teacher made it known that she was not going to teach black children.

Community center

After School 107C closed in 1959, the building was used for church and community functions. The Hockessin Community Center was incorporated in 1968 and -- until the start of a construction project in late 2008 -- has offered many services and activities to low- and moderate-income families, youth and senior citizens in the region.

It is not clear how the work of the community center will be structured by the new board. But preserving the little school -- and the history it represents -- will be a key part of the plan.

"It means a lot," said Jean Fleming, whose husband, Robert, was a past president of the Hockessin Community Center board and has just been reappointed to steer the new board. "It's where we got our foundation."

Now it may serve to teach future generations the lessons learned as people of all backgrounds discover— common ground. Many fears dissolve when people get to know each other, Knott said.

"They didn't want me to sit at a counter with you," he said. "And they didn't want me in your schools. Because then there are things they can't control. You'll see that someone has been lying. Sonny Knott doesn't stink. He's not ignorant. His house is clean. Then you've got a problem.

"If you let us in, that's what happens. But for so long, they kept the door closed."