Russell Williams
Well-Known Member
Dear Editors:
It is interesting how times and educational fads change. On the editorial page of a recent Herald Mail, a columnist mentions a supposedly relatively obscure famous black person - George Washington Carver. In the 50s I grew up in segregated Cecil County, Maryland and read the textbooks that were used by the segregated Cecil County, Maryland and State of Maryland public school systems. These were textbooks that (even in the course called Problems of Democracy) , as best I remember, did not mention segregation, lynchings, or the inability of many southern blacks to vote. About the only black person we ever heard of was George Washington Carver. Dr. King had not yet achieved greatness and we never heard of people such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, W. E. B. Du Bois, or the NAACP. I do not remember mention of the underground railroad and certainly not any of the black or white heroes of the underground railroad. To best of my knowledge the same textbooks were used in both white and black segregated Maryland schools. The problem of segregation was never discussed in Problems of Democracy.
I remember looking out a second story window of Perryville High School and watching the black students, standing on the corner, waiting for the bus that would take them to the segregated high school in Elkton, Maryland. In the 60s when many white people started objecting to busing for racial balance I would remember those black students standing on the corner and wonder why the white people had not been objecting to busing for racial imbalance.
People need to remember the past in order to appreciate the present. Twice, in the last couple of years, I have sat at an NAACP booth passing out treats to those who came by. I would ask the children what the NAACP was an almost none of them had ever heard of it. Now, George Washington Carver, who in the past was the most famous black person in the Maryland public school system, has become an unknown.
Russell Williams
It is interesting how times and educational fads change. On the editorial page of a recent Herald Mail, a columnist mentions a supposedly relatively obscure famous black person - George Washington Carver. In the 50s I grew up in segregated Cecil County, Maryland and read the textbooks that were used by the segregated Cecil County, Maryland and State of Maryland public school systems. These were textbooks that (even in the course called Problems of Democracy) , as best I remember, did not mention segregation, lynchings, or the inability of many southern blacks to vote. About the only black person we ever heard of was George Washington Carver. Dr. King had not yet achieved greatness and we never heard of people such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, W. E. B. Du Bois, or the NAACP. I do not remember mention of the underground railroad and certainly not any of the black or white heroes of the underground railroad. To best of my knowledge the same textbooks were used in both white and black segregated Maryland schools. The problem of segregation was never discussed in Problems of Democracy.
I remember looking out a second story window of Perryville High School and watching the black students, standing on the corner, waiting for the bus that would take them to the segregated high school in Elkton, Maryland. In the 60s when many white people started objecting to busing for racial balance I would remember those black students standing on the corner and wonder why the white people had not been objecting to busing for racial imbalance.
People need to remember the past in order to appreciate the present. Twice, in the last couple of years, I have sat at an NAACP booth passing out treats to those who came by. I would ask the children what the NAACP was an almost none of them had ever heard of it. Now, George Washington Carver, who in the past was the most famous black person in the Maryland public school system, has become an unknown.
Russell Williams
