Thirty-six years ago, on a typical first day of classes, seniors Lawrence Jefferson and Mary McMullen entered Grady's doors to a world previously closed to them. Change pushed against their backs. They were two of the nine black Atlanta high school students breaking existing color lines and integrating Georgia schools.
Although desegregation was not a welcome occurrance, Atlanta became known for its peaceful integration. On August 30, President John Kennedy praised Atlanta and Georgia citizens for their "courage, tolerance and above all, respect for the law." In Little Rock, New Orleans and Montgomery, riots erupted when schools were integrated.
However, there is another side to the optimistic glow of newspaper articles and press releases. The "desegregation pioneers" faced intensive application procedures, threats, and social alienation.
During the months of March and April, 1961, Atlanta's Board of Education purposely selected high schools in each quadrant of the city to avoid accusations of discrimination: Grady, Murphy, Brown, and Northside.
Applicants had to take a series of tests including standardized achievement tests, standardized scholastic aptitude tests, and a personality adjustment test. (In the 1962 Orator, Jefferson and McMullen were listed as members of the Senior National Honor Society.) The Superintendant made the final decision as to who would enter.
The Board of Education drew up procedures "to reduce opportunities for confusion and disorder," ranging from rules against loitering to a definite schedule of events for each day. For the first four days of school, the new students had to report to homeroom 15 minutes late and leave school 10 minutes early. By Friday of the first week, Atlanta seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.
While picketing took place at City Hall and the Atlanta journal and the Atlanta Constitution, Bill Cody of the American Nazi Party was arrested at Grady when he refused to leave the campus. Five young men were arrested at Murphy High and released after a few days. Although no violence occurred, a knife, a pistol, and racist literature were found in theirpossession.
Out of the nine black students who transferred in 1961, the whereabouts of Grady's transfers, Lawrence and McMullen, are unknown. There are others, however, who can share their own experiences of that year. Mrs. Martha Anne Holmes-Jackson, who currently teaches at C.D. Hubert Elemetary in Atlanta, remembers when she first came to Murphy High. "I will think back on what we did and the progress we made to our race ... I will smile, maybe just a little brighter," she said.
Madelyn Nix-Beamen, who entered Brown High, remembers the trials she had to go through, even before she even went to school. After two sessions of testing and interviews, people began to coach them on how to become different people, model black citizens.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation watched her physical safety while a Harvard psychology professor watched her emotional health. "We took a rehearsal on before school ever began, because Atlanta didn't want the same reputation that Little Rock had," Nix-Beamen said.
"It was a very moderate, very controlled effort to integrate schools ... I think it was'relatively peaceful' because it was so gradual and token-like. It wasn't threatening to the way whites lived, and when things really began to change, whites fled," Mr. Randy Farmer, American history teacher and head of Grady's social science department, said.
By 1965, all grade levels in the Atlanta Public Schools (APS) were desegregated. In the late 1960's, APS began integrating faculty and staff in selected schools. Ms. Lareatha Mitchell, algebra and applied math teacher, came to Grady in 1970 as one of the first group of black teachers to come to a predominantly white school.
"Professionally I was well-received. The people I worked with were raised under the laws of 'separate but equal.' We were equal as coworkers, but for some separate as friends... Most of the students were very warm. At the end of the first year, I felt very comfortable," she said.
Coach Randy Reed, who attended Grady from 1969 to 1974, said the school was actually more diverse then, than it is now. "The majority werejewish kids; we had Hispanics, we had Greeks. We had some tension when we were here, but in athletics it was more mixed. I played three sports for five years. You can imagine how many kids I met... My first year I felt kind of funny. I had never gone to school with white kids before. It helped a lot to see black teachers there."
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