| Introduction
This interview was with Dave Downey. Mr. Downey was a member of the equal
educational opportunity committee that created the desegregation plan in
1968. He is a former UIUC basketball player. His children were bused to
Washington Elementary School after desegregation. He is owner of The Downey
Group Inc.
Danielle Rusell, an 8th grader at Franklin Middle School, conducted the
interview. Danielle is one of 12 Franklin Middle School students and two
Central High School students (graduates of last year’s radio program)
working with WILL-AM 580 on an oral history project documenting the actual
desegregation of Champaign’s public elementary schools in 1968. The students
used parts of this interview for their 60-minute radio documentary, More
Than a Bus Ride: Desegregating Champaign Public Schools.
Danielle conducted the interview on February 22, 2005, at the WILL-AM 580
studio, 300 N. Goodwin Ave. in Urbana, IL.
DANIELLE: Ok Mr. Downey…we’re going to start off with the – some - get some
background information on you. So um, can you tell me what’s your full name?
MR. DOWNEY: My name is Dave Downey.
DANIELLE: Ok. When were you born?
MR. DOWNEY I was born in 1941.
DANIELLE: And uh, how old are you now?
MR. DOWNEY You do the math! <laughs> I’m 63.
DANIELLE: I see. That ain’t too old. Where’d you grow up?
MR. DOWNEY I grew up in a little town of Canton, Illinois.
DANIELLE: Where’s that at? Where’s it around?
MR. DOWNEY: It’s near Peoria.
DANIELLE: Oh, ok. And uh, so was your neighborhood predominantly black or
white?
MR. DOWNEY: It was predominantly white. We had almost no black families in
the entire community.
DANIELLE: How did whites respond towards blacks?
MR. DOWNEY: Well it was probably pretty much of a redneck community at that
time. It was blue collar – my dad was a coal miner from the south – from
Alabama and was – didn’t know how to read or write. So I was the first
generation to think about college in my family.
DANIELLE: Ok. Um, let’s see…where have you – ok – where did you go to school
in your town? Like what was the names of your schools and stuff?
MR. DOWNEY: I had – I started in a one room school in the country where all
eight grades were in one room, which was a wonderful experience actually
when you’re a first grader because you can observe everything else that’s
going on. And then I went to a – went into town on the bus and went to
McCall School and then I went to junior high school and went to high school
– all in Canton…and then I came to the University of Illinois and was here
for four years as an undergrad and then three years in law school. And never
left the town.
DANIELLE: What kind of classes did you take in undergrad?
MR. DOWNEY: I was a business major and took all the good business courses
and then in law I was primarily interested in business and took a lot of
business law.
DANIELLE: Ok so where have you worked?
MR. DOWNEY: I’ve worked for myself since I was 20 years old. I’ve never
worked for anybody else. Never received a paycheck – I got to this ripe old
age without anybody ever paying me.
DANIELLE: Ok and um so uh did you ever have any problems making friends with
any African Americans?
MR. DOWNEY: Actually I never had any problems making friends with the
African American community. I was fortunate enough to have one of my best
friends on – I played basketball for the University of Illinois and one of
my-
DANIELLE: You did?!
MR. DOWNEY: What do you mean, “You did?” Yes, I played basketball for the
University of Illinois. In fact, I was very fortunate to just have been
chosen to the All Century team for Illinois – the 100th anniversary
celebration which was a very nice thing. But back to what your question was,
one of my best friends was a black man by the name of Bill Burwell. Bill was
from Brooklyn, New York, he was six foot nine, two hundred and fifty pounds,
was a wonderful – is a wonderful human being but at that point in my life
was a very good friend and ended up being in my wedding which was a – we had
the biggest wedding in the history of Canton. We averaged about 6’7”.
DANIELLE: Oh, ok. And uh why did you first like, want to get involved with
the committee on equal education (up there?)?
MR. DOWNEY: I was young and naïve I guess. It was one of those things that –
I had been identified with being involved in the black community. I came of
age during the time of Martin Luther King’s assassination and Bobby
Kennedy’s assassination and was interested in civil rights. And uh, one of
the good things about athletics is it cuts across color lines and I had
competed in this community for a couple of AAU basketball teams during the
time I was in law school and then when I was first out of law school and I
was usually the only white member of that team made up of local(?) black
guys who were very good players and who hadn’t had the same opportunities
that I had to get an education from it. And so I had a chance to observe and
have my consciousness level raised from athletics primarily to begin with
and then [I] spent a lot of time after that being interested in the subject
until this day.
DANIELLE: Can you kind of like tell me some of the background information on
this committee like who started it and stuff?
MR. DOWNEY: Well as I said this was during a time of a lot of volatility in
the community and they uh – we had a couple reports that had been issued
nationally that indicated that segregated education was not as good an
education as integrated education. And we had in this community as we still
do to a very large degree a – the neighborhoods being highly segregated and
the neighborhood schools were therefore segregated. And the committee was
brought together to try to figure out a way to improve the education quality
in the community for both blacks and whites. It was chaired by a fellow who
became a federal district judge – Harold Baker - and Harold shared an office
building where I did and I was asked to be on the committee. That was during
a time when I had relatively high visibility in the community and some
credibility in both communities so they thought that I would be a good
member even though I was relatively young and as I said naïve about a lot of
things.
DANIELLE: Ok um, what were some of the differences in the quality of
education between blacks and whites in Champaign schools before
desegregation?
MR. DOWNEY: Well the difference was to a large degree presumably just the
black oriented schools - or the non-integrated schools - did not have the
same kind of test scores and didn’t do as well academically when they moved
to the junior high school and to the high school and that was a problem. But
there also was something that was in my mind a bigger problem was the
socialization issues that - young white kids grew up seeing only young white
kids, young black kids grew up seeing only young black kids and but then
when they got to junior high school they were already culturally separated
from one another and it seemed to me the sooner you got kids to get together
the better of you were gonna be. And so starting at kindergarten was a lot
better than starting in the seventh grade.
DANIELLE: Mhm. In what ways did Champaign-Urbana schools change when they
were first brought up with the topic of desegregation?
MR. DOWNEY: Well as often happens the biggest burden fell on the black
community because the white community was larger and if you were going to
integrate the schools more black kids as a percentage were going to have to
be moved and one of the ways that we thought that we would encourage white
parents to want to have their kids bussed was to form a magnet school –
which we did. Washington school became a magnet school and it just happened
that my son was the first – was among the first students to go there. He was
starting kindergarten and so he started at Washington school and spent his
entire grade school career there. We lived right next to West View School
but he got on a bus at West View and went to Washington, as did my two
daughters when they became of age to go to school. But it was - as usual and
not surprisingly there was an outcry in the community and from the black
leadership that it was an unfair burden on the black kids to have to be the
ones primarily moved and yet the decision was made that the education
quality would be better and it was worth the effort to get it done. And as a
matter of fact I think that it did happen. One of the committee members now
has a school named after him - Vern Barkstall was on the committee with us
as well and served very well and represented the black point of view
extremely well.
DANIELLE: Ok um, what did the committee mean by racial isolation in the
elementary and middle school level.
MR. DOWNEY: Well that was what I referred to earlier is that the young kids
were growing up with only kids of the same skin color basically as their own
and so they were isolated from any kind of interaction. As we know most of
the socialization that occurs at a young age involves school and if you’re
only around kids that look like you and think like you you’re isolated from
the rest of the community. And we were convinced – at least most of us were
convinced that the future of society was going to be much more important to
have people who were not isolated from one another but who had a chance to
understand how others thought and acted and reacted to issues. And so that
was the reason that we wanted to start with a school. Even now after this
many years away from it I’m convinced that the only ultimate answer to what
goes on in our society is the education process and we didn’t get it done
perfectly but it was better than it was before we started.
DANIELLE: Ok, um did the school board like – ok. You brought this proposal
to the school board ok…after they desegregated the schools did they ever
feel any regret as to how they had the schools run before?
MR. DOWNEY: Well you never know what goes on in somebody’s heart. You don’t
know how they felt about it, but I think that there was a recognition. Even
though it wasn’t an overwhelming majority of the community that thought it
was a good idea, I thought it was a recognition on the part of the school
board itself that it was the best thing to do for this school system – was
to integrate our schools and to do it as thoroughly and completely and as
quickly as possible once the decision was made.
DANIELLE: Ok uh, did any African American parents ever complain to the
school board about integrating the schools before you brought up the topic
of desegregation?
MR. DOWNEY: Oh I would say that a lot of the leadership of making the
decision to form the committee and to try to figure out a way to better
educate primarily the black kids in the community was brought up by the
black parents. Sure, they were very concerned about the quality of
education. Many of those folks were very much like my folks – is that they
were not educated themselves but they certainly knew the value of education
and they wanted to have the opportunity for their kids that they hadn’t had
themselves.
DANIELLE: So you said they had complained before the topic of desegregation
was introduced so did they complain again afterwards?
MR. DOWNEY: Well people are always going to complain. Some people like, it
some people didn’t like the way that it was done – as I say they felt that
the burden was disproportionately on the black community to do the
integration and people complained about that. And as I say there was – that
argument was a valid argument, it was just one that had to be dealt with and
move forward.
DANIELLE: Ok. So I understand that in order for black kids tog et to all
these different elementary and middle schools that they had to be bussed.
Maybe most black families at that time didn’t have the means of
transportation to go and see about their children at these different schools
that were way across town so to say. So did that ever come to mind as to you
all as to what you-
MR. DOWNEY: Oh that was definitely an issue – the ability to participate in
after school activities, the ability for the parents to get there were all
considerations and had to be balanced against the desire to do what we
believed to be a better program. I don’t know that that’s ever been
absolutely proven to this day that simply the act of integration enhances
the educational quality. I think it enhances the socialization quality but
I’m not so sure that the same amount of money and energy spent in the
neighborhood school might have accomplished the same thing.
DANIELLE: Ok after you desegregated the schools did you see a rise in
academic achievements of black students?
MR. DOWNEY: I think the answer is yes. They were – the testing scores were
better. There were more kids moving on to higher education, going to the
colleges and universities but not immediately and not in an overwhelming
number. But I think that it did create an opportunity for black kids that
they had not had before but as I say it also created a tremendous
opportunity for the white kids to learn about what their society was going
to be like when they were adults and get into the socialization side of it.
DANIELLE: Why did the committee say that the percent of whites in each
classroom should not be more than 93% nor less than 74[%]?
MR. DOWNEY: It was a number that was based on the population size and in the
schools the proportion of blacks to whites at the time. And we were trying
to get away from being overwhelming either all white or essentially all
white or all black and so that was – those are just arbitrary numbers that
were chosen. It could have been some other number very similar but those – I
guess in order to measure you have to have numbers and so those were the
numbers that we created. I’m not sure exactly why.
DANIELLE: Did you or they realize that this would further like uh – ok the
school board obviously sent somebody out to see the different elementary and
middle schools, right? To see how the black schools were ran and the white
schools were ran, right?
MR. DOWNEY: There were – after that there were not black schools or white
schools. They were as I say predominantly – the largest black school – black
oriented school was Washington School, which was clearly created under the
old separate but equal doctrine of law because as people know it sat right
on the boarder line with Urbana. I mean it wasn’t like centrally located
anywhere in the community, it was right on the borderline with Urbana. And
so in order to make sure that that school – which was a large school – was
filled up. That’s why we created a magnet school with special programs that
would attract people to want to go there. And actually we had some
complaints because there were a number of black parents who would have liked
for their kids to have gone to Washington School but because of the
percentage issues could not get them admitted.
DANIELLE: So it says, “Nor less than 74%.” So that means that the blacks
would only have a small percent in each classroom. Did that ever interfere
with their social goals like as to what you wanted them to have like cause
you wanted them to be in a class with whites to interact socially and stuff,
right?
MR. DOWNEY: Well the population at that time – the school population – was
approximately 20% black.
DANIELLE: The whole school district?
MR. DOWNEY: Right, in the whole district. And so those are – that’s why the
numbers were arrived at the way they were is that it was like a factor of
maybe one and a half times – no more than 50% of the population of the
percentage or more than one and a half times that. But yes – and that was an
issue. Clearly it was an issue because the kids – particularly kids who had
grown up primarily with kids of their same skin color now were a minority in
the class as well. So their comfort level obviously went down and it was –
again – it wasn’t ignored but it simply had to be dealt with because if we
were going to get to an integrated society eventually we certainly had to
integrate at the education level.
DANIELLE: So the committee brought this to the school board after or before
the US – like the government said that all school had to
MR. DOWNEY: We were not mandated to – if that’s what you mean. There were no
– you know not like the current situation that the Champaign schools are in.
The EEOC or the Equal Education Opportunity Commission probably had not even
been informed yet. We were I think in the forefront of trying to integrate
our schools and that may be the reason that we weren’t perhaps as good as we
wanted to be. We were a little awkward from time to time. We had good
intentions but sometimes not as feeling as we perhaps should have been.
DANIELLE: Ok. Were your family and friends for desegregation or against it?
MR. DOWNEY: Well I would say that at that time my family was – you know in
terms of my kids they were very young. They didn’t have a vote so they – my
son – they were 5, 3, and 1 at the time so they were told they were going to
go to Washington school and they did, so they didn’t have a vote. Certainly
my wife was very much in favor of better socialization and desegregation. We
were both from the same little town, hadn’t grown up in an integrated
society but certainly at the University of Illinois and then because of our
friendships and my basketball involvement we had made a number of friends
who were black and so it was a natural thing. And we were convinced for our
children, who were going to live in a more mixed society, that it was the
best thing for them to learn as early as possible that other folks were just
like they were, just perhaps a slightly different color.
DANIELLE: Ok. Why were some people wary to consider desegregation for the
greater good of the community? Like I know you talked about how the black
parents responded to it. How did some of the white parents respond?
MR. DOWNEY: Well again you have to understand its not as bad today perhaps
as it was then but at that time Champaign-Urbana was not kind of a model
community - it was somewhat more southern oriented and people were worried
about averaging down, they thought that the white community – the members of
the white community thought that they were better than the members of the
black community and therefore you would average down the quality of
education, they were worried about the social issues – they worried about
you know if kids got together they would probably want to date one another
and all those things – all of which of course are true – I mean in terms of
the socialization side of it. Education quality did not go down. Champaign
continued to be a very good school system and from that perspective – but
people who are prejudiced are prejudiced – either whether you’re black or
white and they make up their mind and then find reasons rather than the
other way around.
DANIELLE: In some places like – aw man she made me forget what I was going
to say. But uh, anyway – when you desegregated the students, instead of
bussing the black people why didn’t you bus the white people?
MR. DOWNEY: Well we did. You had - for every black student that left the
school you had to put a white student there. So the same number of whites
were moved as blacks or actually more but the percentage was much different
because again we had about 20% black students and so essentially 100% of
them moved while only about 20% of the white students had to move and that
is simply a function of the numbers. But every time every black kid who
created a seat in what had [been] a predominantly black school before was
filled by a white kid who had to be bussed in.
DANIELLE: So you said that white parents generally had a prejudice towards
the black community side. Was there ever any time where the white parents
filtered down this information or prejudicial stereotype information to
their students who thus brought it into the classroom who thus said or
provoked any black students? Is there any instance or story related to that?
MR. DOWNEY: I don’t know of any actual stories of that happening but
certainly on both sides kids reflect to a large degree initially what their
parents believe and then they begin to make up their own minds as they get
older but there were not any clear incidents that were - that I know of. It
all happened very peacefully in that respect. There were not any racial
kinds of incidents in the schools themselves.
DANIELLE: Ok so can you compare how black and whites got along when you
first desegregated the schools to now?
MR. DOWNEY: I cant do a good job of measuring in the schools because I’ve
been out of school for a long time but it appears to me that in our society
and in our community that there continues to be less racial prejudice – at
least overtly and I can’t change what’s in peoples hearts but I think the
fact that you get to sit down with white boys and girls helps you understand
them better and they understand you better and eventually it makes for a
better society but I don’t know that its measurable as to what differences
have happened.
DANIELLE: How did people in the community respond towards you when you first
decided to desegregated the schools?
MR. DOWNEY: Again I was fortunate because there’s something about being an
athlete or at least a reasonably well-known athlete that gives people a
sense of ownership of you and they allow certain behaviors and so I was very
fortunate that during the time when there was a lot of racial tension in the
community I was involved in a number of other issues as well and I was well
accepted by the majority of the black community and I was equally well
accepted by the majority of the white community. Now I was a businessman and
I had people who would give me friendly advice that would say, “Well you
shouldn’t get too involved in that sort of stuff, it could hurt your
business.” And if it’s hurt my business I say bring it on. It’s – I’ve had a
good life. I’ve never noticed that it hurt my business. People accept you
for who you are and what you know and not what your belief system is about
those kinds of issues. And at least they knew that I was sincere. They may
have thought I was naïve or uninformed but they gave me credit for being
sincere in my belief system and that’s really ultimately what you need to be
able to do.
DANIELLE: Ok. Were you ever called a communist because of what you did?
MR. DOWNEY: Well I wasn’t called a communist because of what I did. When I
grew a beard I was suspect by a lot of people. No I was called by some
people a real liberal and I take it as a compliment in that respect that I
was liberal in terms of social issues, that I believed in equality of people
and so again I never felt any real feedback that was negative about my
involvement. People accepted my sincerity and we got along very well.
DANIELLE: Ok. There was a push to recruit black teachers to teach in the
schools. Can you explain a little bit to me about that?
MR. DOWNEY: Well teachers as we know are role models and there was an effort
and there continues to be an effort to recruit qualified minorities as
teachers. One of the drawbacks and one of the unexpected or unintended
results often that happened in terms of trying to integrate the faculty of
the schools is some of the black teachers who had been in predominantly
black schools were then moved to predominantly white schools. And that
turned out to be not a positive situation necessarily because the attempt to
move them around – this was actually probably before the classrooms
themselves were integrated. They tried to integrate the faculty and they
would take some of the best black teachers and move them away from the black
schools and therefore the black kids would not have the best teachers. And
uh so there was a concerted effort to recruit more minority teachers and of
course you’ve got all the issues relative to replacing workers and all that
so you can’t – it couldn’t happen rapidly but with more educated people
you’re going to get more educators.
DANIELLE: Ok, was there any reports of – to like uh, come to your knowledge
that when the blacks were integrated into the predominantly white classrooms
with the white teachers that there were any reports of white teachers being
prejudiced against the black students?
MR. DOWNEY: Again I don’t know of specific reports but having observed human
kind for a long time I’m sure that the prejudices that you bring to the
classroom get reflected in the classroom so there were I’m sure some
inappropriate treatment both by blacks and whites in the classroom but I
don’t know again of any reported incidents and I think that most of the
teachers conducted themselves very professionally and did not exacerbate the
problem by being overly prejudice themselves.
DANIELLE: Ok um does – are there any examples you can give about how upper
and lower classes caused problems?
MR. DOWNEY: Well I think again Martin Luther King said that there was more
true similarity between poor whites and poor blacks then there were between
blacks and whites period. It’s more of a poverty issue than it is a racial
issue and I think that that has turned out to continue to be true that
there’s - the socioeconomic issue is a much bigger issue than the color of
the skin.
DANIELLE: Ok um were you discriminated against ever in your lifetime?
MR. DOWNEY: Well I was from time to time discriminated against a little
because there were some educators who didn’t like athletes and thought that
we were given a special deal and therefore they were going to make it clear
that we didn’t get a special deal. But not much and it usually didn’t last
very long because I was a pretty serious student. But I often reported when
I talked about my friends because I learned to play basketball from a couple
African American players who were the first letterman here – a fellow named
Manny Jackson and Governor Vaughn – they were seniors when I was a freshman
and then I got to play every day and practice against them and learned to
play the game the way that it should be played. And then I passed that
culture on to a friend Donnie Freeman(?) and that’s when I began to notice
that we were very similar in a lot of ways except from time to time when we
traveled we had a situation in Lexington, Kentucky where they wouldn’t serve
the black members of our team. And we didn’t realize that was happening
until we - the food was brought out and they didn’t bring any and we said,
“You didn’t feed Bill, you didn’t feed Edgar,” and they said, “We can’t
serve them here,” and we said, “You can’t serve any of us.” And we got up
and left all the food. And it turned out to be a good experience for us
because it helped make us as a team understanding what it felt like to be
discriminated against when we saw somebody that we cared about a great deal
being discriminated against directly.
DANIELLE: Was that the only incidence that that happened?
MR. DOWNEY: Well we would hear comments from the crowd of course when we
would play in the south - and sometimes in the north but mainly in the
south. But you know, again that was at a time - and it’s hard – eh maybe
it’s not hard – it’s harder to realize today…but there were relatively few
black players playing for any teams in major college and of course we look
at the pros in the teams today and we realize that it’s a city game and it’s
a game that blacks have excelled in. But in those days you had one or two
black players on your entire squad and the year that I was a senior we ended
up getting beaten and the team that won the NCAA was a team that had four
black starters from Chicago – the players were not from Chicago but the team
was from Chicago and it began to introduce a big change in the way that
people saw the game.
DANIELLE: Ok. Can you tell me a little bit about your business?
MR. DOWNEY: Well I’m in a – we may not have enough time for me to tell you
about my business. I’m in a very sophisticated financial business. I do
sophisticated tax planning for people all over the country – to some degree
all over the world and so I – it involves helping people transfer businesses
and wealth to succeeding generations. So it’s very tax oriented, very
technical and – but very people oriented, so it’s a – I got a good education
in both people and finances from the University of Illinois and from the
experience in this community.
DANIELLE: Did you ever feel that serving on this committee ever helped you
in your business?
MR. DOWNEY: I don’t think it helped me directly in my business. I was warned
it might hurt my business but-
DANIELLE: Serving the black community involved in your business like-
MR. DOWNEY: Well regretfully certainly at that time and to a large degree
today the black community is not where the wealth is located and a lot of
very wealthy people are not particularly concerned about other folks – but a
lot of them are and so I’ve been involved a lot in philanthropy and trying
to help people make charitable contributions to help society and that’s one
of the sophisticated planning techniques that I’m involved with. It’s a lot
of fun because it helps people feel good about the fact that they made a lot
of money and they can now share it and help the rest of the community.
DANIELLE: Ok uh, we’ll stop here.
KIMBERLIE (Project Co-Director): Are you done with your questions?
DANIELLE: Yep.
KIMBERLIE: Ok. I’ve got some here that I want you to follow-up with.
DANIELLE: What?
KIMBERLIE: On these notes – we gotta get a few more stories. We got the one
about the restaurant in Lexington but we need a lot more stories so here’s a
few nudges. See if you can get some stories on some of that.
DANIELLE: . Not everyone black or white has been willing to talk to us about
some stories that happened to them involving discrimination. Why do you
think that they were maybe uncomfortable.
MR. DOWNEY: Well some people don’t like to relive unhappy times in their
life and I think that particularly again – not having grown up in a black
skin I can’t fully identify with what it’s like but I have enough stories
and enough friends who suffered – that they like to put it behind them. And
I think to a large degree that happens – and it happened more I think when I
was a younger man. I would see – it was called “getting over” that when
someone in the black community either got educated or moved out of the
community they took on many of the trappings of the white community because
they - and were thought of as someone who abandoned it and I think that
happens less today than it did then but it’s – when you’ve had a lot of
unpleasantness in your life you don’t want to relive it. Mine is more
anecdotal from observing and I haven’t been treated badly generally in my
lifetime and so I don’t have that but I could see it certainly in – as I say
in seeing the discrimination and the fact that again what happened – there
were very few black students at the University of Illinois – almost none who
were not athletes. And so there were as an example not very many young women
and so the athletes were isolated in that respect in terms of being able to
date black girls. And dating white girls was not viewed very nicely in those
days. And that was a serious problem and continues to be something of a
problem in this particular community. You know, we still have a
disproportionate number of black athletes and there held to a higher
standard in a lot of ways and observed more than a similar white kid would
be.
DANIELLE: Ok um, <whispers: stories, stories, stories>
MR. DOWNEY: Well you were asking about – I was talking about my friend Bill
Burwell(?) and uh Bill came to Canton – I told you Canton was kind of a
redneck town – and one of the bridesmaid’s fathers was concerned about his
daughter walking down the isle with a black man. Now here’s-
DANIELLE: He was your-
MR. DOWNEY: He was one of my groomsman.
DANIELLE: Ok…ok yeah.
MR. DOWNEY: And so-
DANIELLE: I’m trying to picture the whole wedding. So…
MR. DOWNEY: Yeah – yeah. And uh, so we – and I wasn’t aware of this for a
little while and my wife-to-be was relating the problem and I said, “It’s
ok, I don’t mind if she’s not in the wedding.” And she said, “What?” And I
said, “If she doesn’t want to walk down the isle with Bill I just assume she
not be in the wedding.” And we got it worked out where that particular girl
didn’t but another girl was more than proud to walk down the isle with Bill.
But that was an example – Bill was a wonderful example of what happened in
my life. I told you my dad was uneducated from Alabama and was a very
prejudice man – he thought. But he thought Bill Burwell was the nicest human
being in the world. He took him out to the coal mine and showed him this big
machine that he operated cause that was like the biggest thing my dad could
do – was to show someone this machine that he could operate even though he
wasn’t educated –he had the mechanical skills to operate this enormous
stripping(?) machine. And he – and I said – later I said to him – when he
was making prejudice remarks I said, “Well what about Bill?” He said, “Well
he’s different.” And I said, “Yeah, you know him. That’s the difference.”
When you know somebody it’s a lot different. He didn’t know any other
blacks.
DANIELLE: Ok um, how about like your kids’ experience at Washington school
like – yeah what about their experience?
MR. DOWNEY: Well my kids did very well at Washington school, they liked
Washington School. Mrs. Suggs – Hester Suggs who is still around the
community was a very good disciplinarian. She kept them in line and they to
this day will go try to find her when they’re in the community to say hello
to her so it was a wonderful experience for them.
DANIELLE: Ok um, how old are your kids now?
MR. DOWNEY: Oh my kids are old! I’ve got grandkids as old as you almost. My
kids are 41, 39, and 37.
DANIELLE: How did their experience at Washington School help them or prepare
them for like their later school experiences and their college experience…?
MR. DOWNEY: I think they grew up - first of all, respecting education.
Realizing that there was some sacrifice involved on their part. I mean they
could have walked a block and a half and gone to school but they walked a
block and a half, got on a bus, and had to ride a bus to go to school. But
they recognized that there is some sacrifice associated with getting a good
education and so that was good for them. They realized that they were part
of a vanguard of people who were trying to change the way society looked at
each other and I think that to this day has helped them. I don’t think
there’s a prejudice bone in their body today and I think that’s again from
growing up knowing people are people. There are good folks of every skin
color.
DANIELLE: Ok um, ok so your kids had a good school life. What kind of
businesses or after they got out of college things did they do and um…
MR. DOWNEY: Well I have – my son works with me, which is a wonderful
experience. He was – he had very difficult teenage years and barely
graduated from high school and then went into the military and did very well
in the military…came out and put himself through – got married, married a
Korean woman so I have some beautiful half Korean grandchildren and uh – so
they got married and he came back. He had been a medic in the army – he
worked at the hospital as a orderly, went to Parkland, eventually got into
the University of Illinois and got out and worked in baking for a while and
then came to work with me. We have a great relationship – it’s one of the
good things about being in a family owned business is that you can have
family there. My second daughter graduated from the University of Illinois.
She works for Hyatt in California, she has-
DANIELLE: What’s that?
MR. DOWNEY: Hyatt hotels. She’s in the hotel business. She works at a resort
in the Palm Springs area, California. Married and has a little boy and
another one on the way – actually a little girl on the way and then I have a
daughter who’s in the Chicago area who got out of school and went into the
greeting card business for a while, she went to school at a private school
in Wisconsin and then she got married and is raising two children and a
couple dogs in the Chicago area.
DANIELLE: Ok you mentioned that your daughter went to a private school in
Wisconsin. Was that school predominantly white and how was it different from
the schools that she had attended to here?
MR. DOWNEY: Yeah it was very different – she actually went – she was the
youngest child and by the time that she was in high school we were somewhat
more affluent than what we had been earlier. And she was having some
difficulty socially and behavior-wise and that sort of thing – but not
because of racial issues because all the friends that she was having
problems with were white and she realized that she needed to get away so she
went to a prep school in Wisconsin, then from there she went to a small
liberal arts school. She was interested in anthology and she went to
Lawrence University, which is a nice private school. But again – certainly
not as cosmopolitan as a city school or even the University of Illinois
would have been. But she is – her background was such that she has gotten
along well in life since then.
DANIELLE: Um, you have talked a lot about your friend from the University of
Illinois – the uh, basketball player. Did any of your friends ever have any
good friends that were African American?
MR. DOWNEY: Actually my son – who also was a basketball player had a number
of black friends. He had one actually mixed race half white half black
friend who he came through junior high and high school with and um, again
athletics is a great equalizer. It doesn’t matter who your father and mother
are, how rich you are…you know, when you show up and play you gotta be able
to deliver and I think you learn a lot from that and certainly he did and he
had a number of black friends. The girls did not have as many – again that’s
been quite a while since they were in school and there was a big difference
in socioeconomic issues and those kinds of things. And I think to a large
degree even today in this community you still have a tendency to socialize
with your neighborhood than you do with just the people you meet in school
and that was certainly the case with them. They had friends from the
neighborhood that – and we did not have any black families in the
neighborhood at that time.
DANIELLE: Ok as you look back now as to what you and the committee did back
then do you ever wish you could change anything about it?
MR. DOWNEY: Well, I think anybody who thinks they wouldn’t change things
that they’ve been involved with in the past is either a fool or a liar so,
yeah there were some things that we probably could have done better but at
the time you can only be as smart as you are at any given point in time. We
did the best we could with what we knew at the time and there were not
unlimited resources. We’re continuing to find that today and we inherited a
system that we wanted to improve and we – sometimes perfect is the enemy of
the possible so rather than get a perfect system we got a possible system
and got started and made a statement and I think that was the biggest issue
in my mind at the time was I wanted to make a statement to the entire
community that segregation is not a part of our future. We have to figure
out a way – this may not be the best way, it may not be the only way, but
it’s by god a way we’re going to try.
DANIELLE: Ok. Is there anything else?
KIMBERLIE: Yes. Would you tell us a little bit more about why did the
committee think that black kids that came from black schools weren’t as
prepared when they went into an integrated school? What was the thinking
behind – what did you all think that reason was?
MR. DOWNEY: Well there had been a number of national reports that had tested
students from predominantly black schools, from integrated schools, and they
had - this testing had shown that when they got past 50% in terms of being -
the black school being more than 50% in the classroom two things happened.
First of all, it very rapidly became almost 100% black. That when the – in
the system the way that it worked – and the same thing was true in
neighborhoods at that time – that if there were an integrated neighborhood
and it got more than 50% that then it became 100% because there was a white
flight and the same thing was true in the educational system. And testing
showed – now again we know that there are – even today there are flaws in
testing. But the tests that were used in those days as standardized tests
showed that kids that were from predominantly black schools did less well
than the black kids that were in predominantly white schools.
KIMBERLIE: So did the committee really – was the emphasis more on just
socialization or was it actually to get the quality of education and the
performance of black children higher?
MR. DOWNEY: Well, the emphasis was on the educational aspect of it. There
was no question about that and that had to stay in the forefront of
everyone’s minds and certainly in the reasons to do it. I happened to have
been a little bit of an outsider in terms of being perhaps more concerned
about socialization than just education because I was more concerned about
how people live than I was just in getting them where they could read and
write better.
KIMBERLIE: And what um, can you tell us some – you said at this time – at
the time segregation was implemented that the community was volatile. What
are some stories that you remember that illustrate this volatility?
MR. DOWNEY: Well this was during as I said the time of Martin Luther King’s
assassination – there were actually riots and Bobby Kennedy’s assassination
and the Vietnam war and so the community – you know, the campus town was
semi sacked – windows were broken…there were a lot of really unhappy folks
around and I was involved at the time with what was called a model community
coordinating council, which was an attempt to involve the leaders from the
black and the white community and figuring out how to get along better with
one another and – you may not be able to use this but this is an anecdotal
but true story. That we were – different groups – I was involved – I was on
the board of the Urban League at that time in addition to being chair of
this model community coordinating council and we had this very nice but very
naïve white lady that was chairman of the board of the Urban League. And she
convened a meeting and this was at a time when tensions were very very
high…I mean and there was a lot of ugliness going on on both sides. Some of
the most volatile of the black leaders, young angry black men but people
that I knew because I had played basketball with them were at this meeting.
And this woman convened the meeting and people were kind of grousing about
employment issues and getting some blacks on the fire – as fireman and
things – it seemed certainly appropriate to me. And she was – she finally
said, “Well what we need to do is get down to business and call a spade a
spade.” And a guy – Betes(?) – said, “And by God a honkey a honkey!” And I’m
looking and I’m thinking, “What’s going to happen?” Well I started laughing
– I mean the only reaction I could have is – this is how naïve this person
is and so I burst out laughing and then we actually had a better
conversation than we might have had otherwise.
KIMBERLIE: Do you remember those kinds of differences of – different
knowledge and experience coming out in the committee that – Equal Education
Committee – that you – are there stories like that do you remember?
MR. DOWNEY: No there are not any – it wasn’t much fun actually. As I say,
Vern Barkstall primarily who was head of the Urban League and had gone to
Ohio state and was a very good guy, John Lee Johnson who’s still around the
community was involved to some degree. And we had a couple of really
straight-laced white women who thought that this whole things was some sort
of farce almost. And so the leadership – Harold Baker in particular – did a
wonderful job and there were a few others but the fact that we got anything
done was almost a miracle.
KIMBERLIE: You don’t have to name names – I know that some of these people
are deceased anyway but what were some of the things that these ladies said
that made you think that? What were some of the things they commented on or
said that <inaudible>.
MR. DOWNEY: Well it was just the whole idea of “Oh it’s just a waste of
money,” “Why would we want to spend a lot of money moving people around?”
and “By God people bought houses in nice neighborhoods so they could send
their kids to school in the neighborhood,” and then they felt entitled to it
and we would try to point out the issues of you know, as I mentioned earlier
that the schools in the black community were not even centrally located in
the black community. You know they put it as far away as possible from the
white community and they didn’t want to hear that. You know they wanted to
say, “By God I got – I made mine, I want to send my kid across the street to
school, I don’t want anybody telling me where they go to school,” and you
know, as I say to some degree you still hear that today.
KIMBERLIE: So why do you think these ladies were on the committee if that
was their attitude?
MR. DOWNEY: Well it’s what happens a lot of times in political situations.
You know they – everyone wants all factions of the community represented and
sometimes you get surprised as I think I turned out to be a surprise to a
lot of folks. They had an idea of what they thought I thought and they were
surprised to find that it was very different from what they thought. But
these are people who had been active in the community and they’re not all
bad people. I mean they had given their time, they were you know like PTA
representatives and you know they were concerned about their kids’ education
but had blinders on as to the education of a lot of other folks.
KIMBERLIE: And what do you think their concern was about – why would their
kids have a concern – with their kids’ education through desegregation?
MR. DOWNEY: Well I think that they thought to a large degree there would be
an averaging down. Instead of an averaging up and – but who knows it could
have been their own life experiences, it could have been their own issues
that they had about just not wanting their kids to be with blacks. They may
have actually – this idea of getting over themselves of you know, “That’s
just something that I don’t have to put up with.” There are any number of
possibilities and I can’t guess for sure, all I could do was try to quietly
move them in a direction that I thought was the right direction.
KIMBERLIE: And did you all have a unanimous – you know how did you work
under consensus or – when you came out with that report – so <inaudible>.
Ok so also uh, ok so I was asking about consensus or do you know if you had
to – tell me a little bit about how the committee worked when you have this
differences of opinion because you were a cross section.
MR. DOWNEY: Well the uh – it certainly wasn’t unanimous and it’s been a long
time now but my memory tells me that there was actually a minority report
filed - I think written primarily by Vernon Barkstall – but I don’t - you
know again I don’t have the document, it’s been a long time since I’ve been
there but it was really a consensus kind of thing rather than – not a lot of
votes but it would just be the leadership would move it in the direction
that it clearly wanted to go and try to bring people along as best they
could.
KIMBERLIE: The students have read some articles – they looked back in the
Courier from that time and there were some - there was one school board
meeting where there was a lot of jeers and booing and black folks were
talking about why they wanted this and – do you have any reaction – what
kind of reaction did the public have to your report?
MR. DOWNEY: Well I think that the public generally accepted – again I think
the leadership of the committee was such that most folks thought “They’ve
looked at it very hard,” and it was gone into in exacting detail. I mean
there was a lot of studies, there were a lot of meetings – God there were a
lot of meetings and it wasn’t like somebody coming in and imposing a point
of view immediately. There was a real attempt to build consensus and I think
it pretty much did. There really was no strong argument. At that time there
had been some sense that the educational quality would be improved. I mean
you know from every national report and every kind of study that had been
done it was clear that the quality of education – certainly for the black
community – would go up. And the black parents as I had said earlier were
very concerned about the education of their kids. It may not even be fair to
say – almost more so than today because there were still more of the two
parent families and you know they really believed in the American system, as
my parents had – that if I could get an education I could make it. And so
they were willing to sacrifice some of the issues that Danielle asked about
earlier in terms of convenience and being able to be a bigger part of the
school and that sort of thing, in order to give their kids a chance. Because
they were convinced that being a part of an integrated school would be
better for their kids.
DANIELLE: Were there any black people on this committee?
MR. DOWNEY: Yeah there were – well as I mentioned a number of times Vernon
Barkstall was the primary spokesperson but there were at least two other, as
I recall…black folks on the committee and one Asian and then some middle age
White guys…and one young White guy, at the time.
KIMBERLIE: That was you!
MR. DOWNEY: Yes.
KIMBERLIE: Anything else, Danielle?
03:43 DANIELLE: Uh, do you think that this – at this time like I know you
noticed a problem back then with the way the schools were going. Do you
notice a problem now?
MR. DOWNEY: I continue to think that our society has problems and many of
them are racial prejudice kinds of problems. We’re a long way from being in
an ideal society. I continue to think that education is the best hope. It’s
not the only hope but it is the best hope and we need to be channeling
resources to getting the poor kids – and you know, again there’s a
disproportionate number of poor black kids but getting poor kids involved
educationally as young as possible and starting with preschools and feeding
kids – if we’re going to – and I’m very much involved in higher education
but if I were suddenly put in charge I would be focusing our resources on
the youngest of our population. And that’s the best chance we’ve got because
if you’ve got a good education you got a chance to make it socioeconomically
and if you don’t have your chances are really bad. And it’s going to get
more so in the future.
DANIELLE: Well, I’ve noticed that a lot of times when like, when you start
out with kindergarten and elementary, the better you have educationally then
I think it helps build a more steady basis or foundation for your studies as
you go on through life. So the elementary schools at that time were all
black and all white. Did you ever see the big difference in the like – did
you test the elementary black students or white students? Do you see a big
difference there?
MR. DOWNEY: Well I didn’t test them and I don’t have any empirical evidence
about the differences. There were clearly differences in the achievement
levels by the time they got to junior high school and there were differences
in attitudes. And as I said earlier that I agree with you the sooner you
start the process the better. And again, if I were suddenly totally in
charge I would spend most of my time and energy and resources in teaching
people to read and learning to like to read – maybe even love to read
because that is the ultimate secret to being able to educate oneself. That
if you can read and understand what you’re reading you’ve got a chance to
make your own decisions about life. And if you can’t, you get frustrated,
you act out, you get unhappy, and you drop out. And that’s the <inaudible>
that we have particularly with many young black males. When I was on the
state board of higher education they would talk about the number of people
entering the system at the higher education level and I would say, “Let’s
not talk about how many people enter, let’s talk about how many people come
out,” and it turned out that disproportionately the number of people who
actually succeeded in getting through the higher education – you know
minorities – were women. The young black guys just weren’t making it and
that’s why we have a lot of angry young black men today.
KIMBERLIE: If we’re done I – there’s two things we – just a little
housekeeping – you can keep your headphones on. Could you – normally we have
other students but it didn’t work out tonight. So I’m going to be doing a
couple of other roles. One is um – we’re – they’re making a website –
actually Danielle’s in the website group too and so we want to just take a
picture that we could put on the website.
MR. DOWNEY: Ok.
KIMBERLIE: And the way to get a nice candid shot is just for you two to
continue in conversation. Also, this is just a release form-
DANIELLE: I thought there’d be one of those.
KIMBERLIE: Yeah. So I’m gonna just take a picture of you all while you’re
talking or while you’re writing and just ignore me if you can and continue
on.
DANIELLE: Um, um can you tell me a little bit about your – more about your
basketball experience?
MR. DOWNEY: Well yeah, I’m almost embarrassed that I have to explain to you.
DANIELLE: Why?
MR. DOWNEY: No, I have uh – as I say I was a basketball player. I happened
to continue to be the leading scorer of all time in a single game. After
<inaudible> these many years – after forty two years.
DANIELLE: And what was that score?
MR. DOWNEY: Fifty three points in a single game.
DANIELLE: Ok. I don’t think I can ever achieve that.
MR. DOWNEY: Well as I say, it’s been 42 years and nobody has but – and it
was a wonderful thing for me because I used athletics in the kind of sense
that they were intended because I used it to get a good education, I used it
to make myself known and didn’t need to keep playing. I didn’t – it was just
before there was a lot of money in professional sports and that was a
blessing for me because I got on with my life, I didn’t defer it.
DANIELLE: Why didn’t you want to play professional ball?
MR. DOWNEY: Well you know it was interesting. There was no money in it in
those days – it’s hard to imagine with the amount of money that guys make
today. If I were gonna play I would have been the fourth person chosen my
senior year. And I was offered a very small amount of money – no bonus,
nothing. There were only eight teams in the National Basketball Association.
I think there are 29 now. And a very caring man who advised me and told me
that I’d be better off going ahead and getting my education – because then I
went to law school and getting started with my life and I - to this day I
can walk and – you know because a lot of people who were playing
professional sports in those days were – are not able to walk even. You know
they’ve had hip replacements and knee replacements and…and so – and having
this experience – this one time, playing the game as well as it can be
played allowed me to quit. Because most things in life you think, “If I
could do it once more I’d do it better,” and I know I couldn’t do it any
better. I did it as well as it could be done.
DANIELLE: How do you compare the teams then to the starting five now?
MR. DOWNEY: Well, we were good. We were not as good as these guys but these
guys are one of the best teams Illinois has ever had and maybe the best –
certainly one of the two or three best. Um, style’s a little different. And
as I say there’s more blacks playing the game and it’s a game that seems –
without wanting to sound prejudice at all because I think it is - one of the
stories that is actually in the orange and blue book is – I mentioned this
guy Donnie Freeman(?) who may be the best player we’ve ever had. When Donnie
was a freshman – and he played against me for six weeks in the preseason –
he walked over to me and said, “Dave, you ain’t all white,” and I said,
“Thanks,” because he really meant it as a compliment. He didn’t think a
white kid from a small town could play like that. You know and as I said,
I’d been taught by another black guy – Governor Vaughn - so I had learned it
from one of the best. So it’s a game that is a city game primarily but it’s
also – athletics has always been a way out. You know it used to be - in the
early days the original boxers were Jewish, Italian and the same thing was
true of other athletes. You know and then entertainers were the same way and
now then the black community – almost regretfully - certainly young black
boys grow up dreaming of being a professional athlete instead of being a
student. And Arthur Ash used to tell people that your chances of becoming a
brain surgeon are better than your chances of becoming a professional
athlete.
DANIELLE: Why’d he say that?
MR. DOWNEY: Because to young black kids the odds are so bad…if you interview
your peers – you know the kids in the middle school – black boys, lots of
them will say you know “I want to be a professional football player, “I want
to be a professional basketball player,” “I want to be a baseball player,”
their chances of making it are practically nil.
DANIELLE: Oh yeah.
MR. DOWNEY: They’d be better off spending time trying to be a good student,
getting a good education…and as I say I was fortunate that somebody advised
me of that.
END
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