CHapteR 5: I Riled Wallace

CHapteR 5

i Riled Wallace

When I came to Macon County, I had already established a network of people who were of inestimable value to our work, and many also became personal friends. While the principal in Gainesville, Georgia, I was selected to serve on the Southeastern Education Laboratory due to my presidency of the all-black high school principals association in Georgia. In fact, some of the members were instrumental in putting my name forward for the position of superintendent of Macon County Schools, including Dr. Truman Pierce, dean of the School of Education at Auburn University, and Dean Hunter at the School of Education at Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University).

Within a short time, I realized that the people at the State Department of Education in Montgomery were also open to helping us. Working with the Tuskegee Model Cities programs and our own research and development department, we began submitting proposals for many federal grants. Many of these were funded, so I gradually built a base of support among the people who supervised these grants. In short, everyone I had contact with in the educational infrastructure seemed ready to lend a hand, whether local, state, or federal. Even Governor George Wallace had been ready to acknowledge and support the school system. I say this not to brag but to lay the groundwork for what was to come later.

I had also been a founding member of the National Association of Black School Superintendents (NABSS), which later became the National Association of Black School Employees (NABSE). Through this organization, I developed contacts across the country with other highly placed black school leaders.

In 1972, just two years after my arrival in Macon County, the Alabama Educational Television Commission (AETC), which operated eight stations, was due for a renewal of license hearing before the Federal Communications Commission. Some months before this hearing, I received a telephone call from an unknown male who stated that he was the attorney for a group of plaintiffs who were prepared to oppose this license renewal. He said that they had an airtight case, but that they wanted somebody to testify who could qualify as an expert witness. He added that since I was a county superintendent involved with carrying out a federal court order to desegregate its faculty, he was sure he could have me declared an expert witness. I replied to him that although I was hired by the board of education in Macon County, I was paid through state funds, making me an employee of the state of Alabama, and he was asking me to testify against another arm of the state of Alabama—technically against my employer. I said to him, “That’s a tall order! I have not met you, and I cannot give you an answer at this time.” He replied that he could understand my position, but he needed somebody to testify that the state programming on these public stations did not consider nor include the needs of black citizens and also somebody to testify about the AETC’s employment record. Then he asked me how much time I would need to make my decision about testifying, and I asked for a couple of weeks. He promised to get back to me then.

It was the most agonizing decision I have ever made. The issue that went rapidly through my head was that I had one child in college and three more coming along that I would need to provide for. So one factor I had to consider was personal financial responsibilities. I also wondered what would happen to all of our educational programs and plans that needed state support if I lost the good graces of state officials. I had trouble enough as it was, trying to run the school system with deficits and everything. But we depended primarily upon the state of Alabama for fiscal support, and even the federal program funds were funneled through the state. So a second factor was the financial health of the school system that I was charged with supervising.

I thought about Governor George Wallace and how vicious he could be when politically challenged, as I was being asked to do, and I knew that some of my supporters would simply fade away. Also, I didn’t know what kind of personal danger I might be exposing myself and my family to. That was a third factor I had to consider.