I Could Have Had the Best Mentor. . .

Now that I'm retired I have time to reflect on those with whom I've been in contact who could have changed my life had my decision at the time been opposite. I seem to have floated through life making a few bad ones. Here's one example.

Fresh out of college I took a summer job with a suburban newspaper. My goal was to teach a few years and then to enroll in journalism school. My new position was to work with the owner and his wife. Marlene covered the business side and dipped into the social scene with her reporting. When I was hired I reported just about every angle until Sam decided I could write features. I interviewed the kid who won a monkey, the award-winning rose grower, the prim antique collector, the college trekker. Then I began to cover the evening parties with a photographer, getting names of the posed. That was par for the course, I suspected. I had spent four years writing for a community college newspaper, covering every aspect of putting out a papers except printing.

One day an imposing lady wearing a hat whose brim was as wide as an umbrella and as springlike as daffodils entered the doorway. She wanted to see Sam. Later Sam exclaimed she was the owner of two small newspapers. Her name was Mrs. Smith. Uh, yea, Mrs. Smith in disguise I said to myself.

However, she came in often, always sporting a different wide-brimmed hat. I thought by then that she was interested in buying Sam's newspaper. In early August I received a letter from her asking me to join her staff in Lexington, just north of Jackson. That request sent me into the struggle of "Should I or Should I Not?" Already I was preparing to teach in a Delta school. I had learned in college -- YOU DON'T BREAK CONTRACTS. Here was my opportunity to work full time at what I truly loved. I leaned towards staying with my contract, regretfully. By the following year I was ready togive my body a hundred lashes for the mistake.

Little did I know Hazel Brannon Smith and her zeal for values. As a staff member of the Lexington Advertiser, I would have become embroiled in civil rights with Hazel. Her complete bio is found online at www.journal of Mississippi History written by Newman, Mark, “Hazel Brannon Smith and Holmes County, Mississippi, 1936-1964: The Making of a Pulitzer Prize Winner,” Journal of Mississippi History 54 (February 1992), pp. 59-87.

The summer I received the invitation was 1954 and during the following year as I struggled with 150 students Hazel Brannon Smith struggled with the Supreme Court's decision to desegregate public schools. She stood alone while white merchants and citizens boycotted her newspaper.

By 1964, ten years after my invitation to join her staff, Hazel Brannon Smith became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for her editorials expressing her strong opinions. The last edition of the Lexington Advertiser was printed in 1983. She won the Fannie Lou Hamer award in 1993 and died May 1994.

I often think of the exciting and dangerous ride I would have had with Hazel Brannon Smith. Would I have stayed and fought alongside her? Could I have coped with the burning cross in her yard? The anger and meanness of the citizens? I had no strong political opinions but I agreed with many of her beliefs. I would have witnessed zeal and heartbreak and courage in one woman. I would have had the best mentor anyone could have wished for.

Now the Mississippi Legislature has honored Hazel Brannon Smith with Resolution 83 for her courage in the heat of adversity. Look online at the Clarion-Ledger, Jackson, MS, March 31, 2009 for an article by Emily Wagster Pettus reporting the honor and giving some background. I can see Hazel now, standing on a cloud wearing one of her wide-brimmed hats, smiling down on all of us.

Mandates Lifted from Madison County

Recently the Federal Court of Appeals in New Orleans lifted the guidelines for full integration of the Madison County, MS, public schools. Almost forty years have passed since the federal government forced integration of a district school system divided mostly by demographics and culture. The southern portion of Madison county steadily grows upward, having added one additional new high school and several new grade school buildings in recent years. Physical improvements have been made in schools of the northern portion where there’s little to no growth.

The federal mandate was lifted by the Court after the superintendent through intervention of their lawyers ask for a review of the integration attempts made to provide every school with the necessary learning tools and transferring teachers and students to balance the white/black ratio. The mandate created havoc when new buildings were needed to accomodate a surging student population, bonds for construction couldn't advance, or changes to curriculum were put on a back burner. Lacking these advancements caused excessive crowding of schools in southern Madison county.

The struggle to integrate this county has had its successes and its failures these years. During much of that time I was a member of the high school faculty in the city of Madison and watched compliance with changes that were instituted. Transportation was a major struggle. Parents, but not the federal government, understood that under no circumstances would they have their children bussed all over the county, regardless of the benefits, to satisfy just the government. The distance meant no parental support for night meetings and student activities.

Two magnet schools were organized many years apart in different sections of the county. Besides new buildings, up-to-date equipment, sound curriculum, time and resources were spent establishing a bi-racial advisory committee, implementing procedures to recruit minority teachers-- creative ways to fulfill federal guidelines. Students used to the local shopping, movie theaters, and variety of school activities in the southern area couldn’t fathom leaving their happy high school life for a place considered “country” and isolated from two cities’ attractions(Madison and nearby Ridgeland). Demographics and culture were the culprits. Fortunately, now the facilities of one magnet school are being utilized for summer training of teachers.

Now, with mandates lifted, within five years the district will begin to move forward. The Court recognizes that this district has done its best, because the county is naturally divided in black/white population and culture. Expansion northward will occur as families look for new places to build homes and small towns get a second life.

The biggest lesson the government learned is the old adage: "You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear."

(Note: information was gathered from an article in the local newspaper,The Clarion-Ledger and the author’s memory of her small involvement in the process.)