Strife at High School Leaves Scars: Many Blacks Don't Like Busing Either

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pjP   Greensboro Daily News, Sunday, Aprir T1, l?74
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Strife At High School
HSyTrRHrDKI Leaves Scars
Like Busing Either
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When court-ordered busing to
achieve racial balance in the
public schools began on a massive scale a few years ago, most
public attention was focused on
the white reaction: protests by
white parents, such as the one
in Lamar, S. C., in which;SchooI
buses were smashed with clubs
and chains; the rise of the white
private school in the South; arid
the sudden political "respectability" of Alabama Gov. George
Wallace north of theJVlason-Dix-
on line.
Overlooked was the black
reaction, Perhaps it was assumed that most blacks favored
busing; after all, hadn't the
Greensboro NAACP taken the
local school board to court in a
case that ended in the busing
order?
But if a recent series of interviews at Grimsley High School
is any indication, many black
students resent busing as much
as the most unrepentant redneck. Their frustration and anger recently erupted in a school
disruption at Grimsley, and although busing was not one of
the issues raised by the protesters, it simmers beneath those
that were.
Simply put, black students at
Grimsley are bitter over their
Dudley High School—Blacks Yearn To Go Back To   'Heritage'
minority position. Many said"
they would rather return to an
•all-black or predominantly-black
school where they would be in
the majority and not be concerned about having enough
black representation in student
council, clubs, activities and
social events.
Listen to what some of them
say:
• A junior boy—"We don't
even feel like we're here except:
to go to school. We're shipped
over here in the morning and
back again in the evening. In between, we just come in here and
sit and listen to the whites make
their announcements and jazz
about their clubs and things
when we don't even know
what's going on."
• A sophomore girl—"Why
can't we have something of our
own. I don't care nothing about
the clubs they have here now.
We ought to have clubs of our
own, black clubs. They were
talking about forming a black
modern dance, group here, but
nothing even came of it. Nothing ever does if it's for us."
• A senior boy—"They never
should have started this busing.
I live five blocks from Dudley,
and I could walk to school, but I
gotta get on that bus everyday
and come all the way ovdRhere.
They don't want me over here,
and I don't want to be over
here."
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