JoAnn Wright

Joann Wright, fall 1975.

Like Jerry Hollingsworth, Marilyn Pajot (now Robinson) came to Macon County after working with me in another capacity. She was director of research and publications with the Georgia Teachers and Education Association while I was associate executive secretary. We had worked together on several projects during the two years preceding the merger with the white Georgia Education Association. Marilyn was not averse to using her status as a white person and newcomer to Georgia to help the GTEA track down instances of discrimination against black educators. She also helped to document the loss of jobs when school desegregation led to jobs being offered to white band directors, principals, etc. and blacks being dismissed.

In Macon County, Marilyn worked with federal programs, starting as the parent counselor aid supervisor with the Drop-Out Prevention Project, then later as director of the piano-reading project and Title I parent coordinator. She also assisted with the research that led to my dissertation and was my first choice to cowrite this retrospective of my superintendency.

Finally, I hired an assistant superintendent, Mr. Lucious Jefferson, who helped to supervise many of the projects we initiated.

Civic supporters

Among the civic supporters, I have to place Mayor Johnny Ford as number 1. He and the city council of Tuskegee, Alabama, worked with the school board on many projects. Through the Model Cities of Tuskegee organization, we were able to fund the construction of the Parenting Education center at Tuskegee Institute High School, for example.

naBss

When the black teachers associations merged with their white counterparts across the South, black educators gained access to the mainstream organizations, but they lost the unique voice that the black associations had provided. In the vacuum left by the mergers, I conceived of the need for a new organization to speak for black educators.

Almost simultaneous to my tenure at Macon County Schools, Chuck Moody, then a student at Northwestern University who was working on a doctoral degree, asked Dr. Kenneth Clark, a nationally known black psychologist, to assist in getting funding to hold a meeting of several black school superintendents so he could do a survey for his dissertation. With Dr. Clark’s support, a meeting was held at a motel near Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, and it drew about fifteen of us, followed by a series of meetings four to five months apart. I was the only person in the group who came from the Deep South and, as such, was the only one who had had experience working with voluntary professional organizations, such as the Georgia Teachers and Education Association. I said to the others that while I was segregated in, they had been integrated out of leadership. Coming as they did from the Northeast, Midwest, and California, they had, at best, been on a committee. Almost none had even been chair of a committee, while I had been president and later assistant executive secretary of the GTEA. In fact, some of the members were afraid of speaking up and they advocated our group becoming an adjunct to the American Association of School Administrators rather than creating an independent organization. I made a speech which seems to have carried the

day. It was titled “Me Speak for Me,” and my goal was to convince them of the need for our own organization where we could set our own priorities and hold our own press conferences rather than holding a caucus and then going to a larger organization crying to hear our voice acknowledged. So the idea carried and the National Association of Black School Superintendents (NABSS) was formed. When we elected officers under the first charter, I was elected president, because I was the only one with prior experience.

It’s ironic that at a time when Stokely Carmichael was preaching black power that the black teacher organizations were giving up power by merging with the larger white organizations. I had begun to think we made a mistake doing that. Now we had a new organization to fill that void.

Once we were organized, we wrote to the US commissioner of education within the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) that we wanted to meet with him. (The US Department of Education was formed later.) By the time we met in New Orleans, we were still only thirty in number, but we got the commissioner to attend our meeting. I told the group, “Surely, he didn’t come because of the number in the organization but because of the potential we had to grow. If we want to keep this potential going and keep the AASA from co-opting us, we need to increase our membership base.” So for the whole of my tenure as president, I argued for the change in our name from NABSS to the NABSE (National Association of Black School Educators), which led to the change in our charter to include all classes of black educators, except teachers, as eligible for membership.

There was an additional clause that opened the membership to black teachers two years later. With these changes, the organization now has eight or nine thousand members. In my opinion, it should be more like 30,000 members, but some people were afraid that the organization would be run by the superintendents. I fought to have the organization democratized. I wanted to make sure the presidency did not fall only to superintendents, so our third president was not a superintendent and was a woman: Dr. Deborah C. Wolfe, formerly of Tuskegee.

Over the years, the organization has had its ups and downs, and I have been in and out and back in. Today, Chuck Moody is the recognized founder of the organization, but I believe I should be recognized as the cofounder and all of my

efforts and documentation prove that. Nevertheless, I have decided to stay inactive rather than keep things stirred up.

All this organizing and meeting with colleagues around the country put me in touch with some people who have remained friends and supporters to this day, both members and others in national positions on the Education Commission: Hugh Scott, Sid Marlin, Dr. Townsel, and others. In fact, when I was struggling with my decision about testifying for the plaintiffs in the educational television case, it was a fellow superintendent and member of NABSS that I turned to for advice. And it was this organization that enabled me to build relationships that helped Macon County Schools to get some of the national grant money we so desperately needed.

I hope it’s clear from this brief list that I had many supporters and helpers in tackling the problems of the Macon County School System, without whom my job would have been infinitely harder and much less successful. Those I’ve mentioned here are but examples of the many workers in the vineyard to whom I owe my thanks.