REAL ESTATE

secured a historical marker for the school that is now Hamilton Park Pacesetter Magnet, Hicks says the transition affected students’ identities and self-worth.

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A lot of the parents did not find out until the last minute that their children were going to be bussed out, particularly when the junior high school was closed. That was ’70. I went to Forest Meadow in 1971. They didn’t know that they were going that first year to Forest Meadow. When they went to Hamilton Park school, they found out. They put them on busses. One girl told me there was an announcement made as they got off the bus, and they were walking into the school. They said, ‘They are here.’

The white students were already sitting in classrooms in their seats when the black students were bussed over to Forest Meadow. Here’s a culture shock for us. We’d been exposed in shopping centers and stores and libraries, but we’d never been in a classroom setting with white students.

What they did is send Clayton Bell, who was at Hamilton Park, as an assistant principal to Forest Meadow. They sent Frances Money. Ms. Money had worked at Hamilton Park for a short time in the home economics department. That was it.

They did not send any math teachers, any English teachers. That’s what I was needing. I needed a role model. I didn’t have them at Forest Meadow. I didn’t have them at Lake Highlands. We were having to maneuver on our own and then go home and complain to our parents. We depended on our parents to do whatever they could to help us.

Some chose not to go. Their parents chose to transfer them out, in other words, to other Dallas ISD schools instead of Richardson. They did not want them going to white schools.

The teachers at Hamilton Park, they protected us. They were very nurturing, very loving. They were strict, and they would call our parents. At Forest Meadow, the people didn’t know our parents, didn’t care if they knew our parents or not.

It tore down selfesteem. It tore down self-worth because people were insensitive to our customs and our culture. We were like guinea pigs. You understand? It’s like you’re in a test tube, and somebody’s experimenting. That’s how I saw us. The teachers did not know how to teach us. They knew nothing about African American history. And so when they taught it, they taught it in a very negative manner. When I say that, I can distinctly remember one of my teachers. She is deceased now. She said African Americans had big lips. They had big ears, they had babies, they had Cadillacs, and they did not have garages to put the Cadillacs in. Sitting in a classroom and having to listen to this nonsense, I didn’t know people who she was referring to. Who do you turn to? In Hamilton Park, that was not the case. I’ll never forget it.

In the ’60s and ’70s, the teachers did a lot of lecturing. But they really needed to be sympathetic and try to guide us. There was not a lot of guidance from counselors. They didn’t tell you what subjects you really needed to take. After you finished a year, they tried to tell you what you should’ve taken. When it came time for me to graduate, I didn’t take any foreign language, and I should have. Had I known, I would’ve taken extra math, extra science. We were thrust into this new way of schooling. There was fear and frustration.

I learned you grow from all these hurdles. You learn to maneuver your way. I’ve had to applaud myself for my successes.

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