| Introduction
This interview was with Harold Baker. Mr. Baker was chairman of the Equal
Education Opportunity Committee that created the desegregation plan in 1968.
He is a former attorney and a US district judge. His son, Peter, attended
Washington School after it was made into a magnet school.
Vernonica Martin, a 9th grader at Central High School, conducted the
interview. She is one of three students who participated in this project
last year. She helped teach skills to 12 new students from Franklin Middle
School. All 15 students worked 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.
Veronica conducted the interview on February 3, 2005 at the WILL-AM 580
studio, 300 N. Goodwin Ave. in Urbana, IL.
VERONICA: Can you please tell me your full name and where you were born?
MR. BAKER: Harold A. Baker and I was born in Mt. Kisco, New York.
VERONICA: What elementary schools did you go to?
MR. BAKER: I went to something called the Edgar Allen Poe school in New York
City.
VERONICA: Was it segregated or was it mixed?
MR. BAKER: It was segregated. There were no black people in my school. The
whole neighborhood was segregated. You’re asking me about something that
would have been about 1935 or 6….1935 or 6.
VERONICA: Do you think that if you had African Americans in your school,
would it have changed your career in any way?
MR. BAKER: Oh gee, I don’t know. You know, I doubt it. I have no basis for
judgment on that at that time…talking about me – no I probably would have
eventually gone on to be a lawyer I suppose.
VERONICA: Ok. Do you remember anything about your teachers?
MR. BAKER: Very little back then. I can remember an 8th grade teacher who
was a very good teacher and a 6th grade teacher who was a very good teacher.
The teaching staff was not integrated either. The whole school was really(?)
white. Black people lived in Harlem in those days.
VERONICA: How did you get to school?
MR. BAKER: I walked.
VERONICA: How far was your school from your house?
MR. BAKER: This is the elementary school I went to?
VERONICA: Yes.
MR. BAKER: Um, it was under 10 blocks. It wasn’t too far. It was – yeah…it –
I’m trying to remember. I’m 75 years old as I sit here talking to you.
You’re asking me about something when I was 6 and 7.
VERONICA: When did you move to Champaign?
MR. BAKER: In 1947 I came to college.
VERONICA: Was it African Americans there then?
MR. BAKER: In college? No not very much. There were black students at the
University of Illinois but there was – this would be back in 1947 and it was
fairly well segregated. In fact, as I was telling Ms. Kranich the other day
when she talked to me on the phone, one of the things that I noticed when I
was here as a freshman – I went to a local restaurant and there was a sign
that said we reserve the right to seat our customers. And I didn’t know what
that meant. It meant that they were not going to let black people come in as
customers – that’s what it meant. But it – you know, to me I was naïve and I
came from a family and a background where nothing was ever said that would
cause me to be prejudice. Totally naïve. I didn’t know what that sign meant;
I only found out later.
VERONICA: Did you encounter any other signs that didn’t allow African
Americans to come in?
MR. BAKER: In Champaign?
VERONICA: Yes.
MR. BAKER: No. I knew – I later learned when I was in law school for
instance, that one of the campus restaurants would not serve black people.
The fact is some of the law students when I was in law school in 1954, 55,
56…went down there to sit in to bring about an incident where they would
file a civil rights action against the restaurant.
VERONICA: Did you ever become friends with any of the African Americans?
MR. BAKER: There was one African American – one black person in my law
school class. He’s a very famous lawyer in Chicago now – Montgomery. But
that was all we had – one black student.
VERONICA: You say you were in the Navy, correct?
MR. BAKER: I was.
VERONICA: What years?
MR. BAKER: I was in the Navy from 1951-1953. I served on a destroyer. I was
the first lieutenant they called it in the Navy – that’s the head janitor.
<laughs>
VERONICA: Oh they gave you a good name for a janitor!
MR. BAKER: Well that’s what they called them in the Navy. In the British
Navy the first lieutenant is the executive officer but in the Navy it’s the
chief deck officer.
VERONICA: Did you see any African Americans then?
MR. BAKER: They were only stewards and the Navy was segregated at that
point. And remember this is before Brown vs. the Board of Education and the
only black sailors on the ship were the officers’ <inaudible> stewards who
waited tables and took care of cooking and so forth. This was way back
before they were there when – the other things I ran into for the first time
– Jim Crowism on the Charleston naval yard. There were segregated water
fountains, bathrooms, in the railroad station the waiting rooms were
segregated, if you rode on a train the cars were segregated – they had
coaches in which only black people were allowed to sit. I had an experience
when I was a senior in college where I was at Charleston in the navy yard –
I was in the NROTC here in college and my friend and I went to the beach…and
we came home back to the ship where we were assigned for the summer at
night. And we got on the bus and he was from New Jersey, I was from New York
and Illinois and there were no seats up front so we went in the back and sat
down – we didn’t think – we were just talking to each other and pretty soon
the bus was stopped. The bus driver was yelling and we sat there and
thought, “What is he yelling about?” He was yelling at us - said, “You boys
come up here in the front where you belong.” “Ok.”
VERONICA: You got kind of scared…
MR. BAKER: Well yeah you know, so we went and stood up! There were no seats
up front and you know, that’s just a little experience. My first exposure to
things like that – one of my first exposures.
VERONICA: When did you become a lawyer?
MR. BAKER: 1956 I graduated from law school.
VERONICA: What made you want to become a lawyer?
MR. BAKER: <laughs> People ask me that…when I was an undergraduate, I
majored in history and political science and gee, I though the decisions of
the Supreme Court that I read were just the greatest thing. It just
captivated me.
VERONICA: How did you end up on the Equal Education Opportunity Committee?
MR. BAKER: I got called by the president of the Board of Education and asked
would I be chairman of the Equal Education Opportunity Commission and that –
what year was that? You know and I don’t because I’ve forgotten. It must
have been in the 60s. It probably was then…
VERONICA: Was it 1967?
MR. BAKER: It could have been. If you tell me it was I accept.
VERONICA: The Equal Educational Opportunities Committee in March 1967 to
study the situation and make appropriate recommendations.
MR. BAKER: Yeah, that refreshes my memory.
VERONICA: How did they ask you? They just called you?
MR. BAKER: Dick Foley was the president of the Board of Education and he
called up and asked me if I’d serve as chairman.
VERONICA: Had he ever known you or talked to you before this?
MR. BAKER: We had passing acquaintance. He belonged to the rotary club…I
guess I did too at that time, though I don’t remember exactly. He was in
college when I was – I remember seeing him when he played basketball. He was
a very good basketball player. Well, that’s – you asked me how and that’s
how. I was practicing law in Champaign at the time.
VERONICA: What do you remember about the committee?
MR. BAKER: I remember that the – all the members – I cant remember all of
their names but it was a cross section of the community. We had - some of
the people I remember – a woman named Blackwell who was from what we called
then the north neighborhood. There was another woman who’s name I can’t say
after 30 something odd years. Dave Downy who was locally a Massachusetts
mutual life insurance salesman and was on. Vernon Barkstall who was the head
of – what’s the organization that had the little equal sign? N-
VERONICA: NAACP?
MR. BAKER: No it wasn’t the NAACP, no it was another one…anyway Vern was on
– was a pediatrician, was a wife of another physician, Jane Eids(?) from
Savoy was on – she’s an Asian woman. And there was this great cross section
of the community.
VERONICA: You said there was a north area – what is the north area?
MR. BAKER: Well in - Champaign was a segregated community up until 1970 or
something. Black people lived north of University Avenue and east of
Illinois central tracks. Which wasn’t different from Springfield or Decatur
or places like that. The black people lived in segregated neighborhoods.
VERONICA: Who do you think was the strongest black member of the committee?
MR. BAKER: Oh Vern Barkstall.
VERONICA: Why do you say that?
MR. BAKER: He was college educated, he had been a great athlete, he was
articulate, he held a position of importance in the community. I don’t want
to down play Mrs. Blackwell – she was influential too but Vern was very
outspoken and aggressive in meeting the problems we discussed.
VERONICA: What views did he hold?
MR. BAKER: Well that’s such a broad question – what views did he hold. He –
let me tell you how we started out. We started out from scratch and we knew
that what we wanted to do – if we could – was to racially balance the
schools from elementary from k-12. And we knew that there was this social
problem since – and the Supreme Court dictates in Brown vs. the Board of
Education had not been carried out fully and so we started out talking about
how possibly this could be settled and worked towards. Eventually what we
did was racially balance all the schools. That is, every school had the same
percentage of black people in the student population that the whole
community had of black people. And back in 1967 and so forth it was
somewhere about 10% I believe.
VERONICA: Of African Americans?
MR. BAKER: Yeah.
VERONICA: When you guys were dividing-
MR. BAKER: Would you prefer me to say African Americans? I have-
VERONICA: Oh no you-
MR. BAKER: I have a woman who works for me as one of my staff attorneys and
we say black all the time to each other.
VERONICA: Oh yeah its fine. When you say that you guys split them up or
divided them making sure that there was a certain percentage at least of
African Americans-
MR. BAKER: We wanted the population of each school building to reflect the
demographic make up of the community if we could do it.
VERONICA: So if there was a student that was mixed with white and black,
what would you guys rate them? What would you put them under, blacks or
whites?
MR. BAKER: I don’t know what you mean mixed.
VERONICA: Like if a child had a mother that was white and a father that was
black what would you guys put them under the blacks or the whites?
MR. BAKER: We never discussed that. <laughter> That was never a problem.
What we did was – here – Washington School was totally black. Oh boy, you’re
gonna ask me the names of the schools…they’ll come to me…the one that’s at
Neil and Bradley…
VERONICA: Stratton?
MR. BAKER: Well it wasn’t Stratton then – and it wasn’t Gregory. But it was
90% black and well – what we had to do is to try – and Bottonfield, Carrie
Busey – they were all white. By then – you know when I say they were all
white – maybe there were one or two black families living in the
neighborhood. I know my law partner and I handled a real estate transaction
for a guy we knew that was black into the white neighborhood. And I cant
remembeR when that was but – it may have been before or after the commission
– I don’t remember. But generally speaking, the schools outside of
Washington and – no Stratton is new now, they built a big addition on that
building – Kenny Stratton was one of the assistant superintendents of
school. But anyway that’s the problem we had and they were all neighborhood
schools - supposedly quote “neighborhood schools” so that if - your kids
would go to the school closest to your home. And if we were going to
racially balance them – we avoided using the word integration because it had
too many different connotations. At any rate, that was our goal.
VERONICA: Ok. At any time did you think that one of the committee staffs had
overstepped their boundaries?
MR. BAKER: No – what do you mean overstepped their boundaries? Like done
something they shouldn’t have done or?
VERONICA: Yeah or like said something-
MR. BAKER: No we got along really well. I’ll tell you another guy who was –
was he on the commission or – he was on the Board of Education later…I don’t
think he was on the commission. No, as I look back we got along fairly well
with each other and we all had different backgrounds and attitudes – trying
to solve what was this very real social problem. Or what we viewed as a very
real social problem.
VERONICA: What was the committee’s tasks? Earlier you said something…
MR. BAKER: That’s why I asked you if you had a report - <laughs> - I wanted
to look at it after thirty years. No that’s alright – you’re interviewing me
cold. Our task was to address <inaudible> complying with the dictates of
Brown vs. the Board of Education. I think that’s the broadest terms I can
put it to. That separate was not equal.
VERONICA: What was your findings and recommendations?
MR. BAKER: The findings and recommendations were that we should racially
balance the school, that separate was not equal – and the way we tried to do
it – we knew we had to bring the white community along. So we put forward
the plan of turning Washington School into a magnet school. We were going to
have all sorts of attractive things there. We were going to have small class
size, we were going to have teaching assistants, we were going to have
computer assisted math teaching and a racially balanced school. And white
people were to volunteer to have their kids go and we held out this
educational magnet to them. And then the kids who went to Washington were
going to come out to Bottonfield, to Carrie Busey to – help me with the name
of that school that’s out west of Russell on – near Springfield, just south
of Springfield. What’s that-
VERONICA: Marquette? Is that it?
MR. BAKER: No not Marquette. Marquette’s up here just south of Springfield –
of University. Anyway I’ll think of it after a while. I tried to think of it
when I was talking to Kimberlie Kranich and I couldn’t remember it either.
So that’s the plan we put forward and that was what was adopted by the Board
of Education. And we had community hearings – we went – the commission
members went around to the different elementary schools explaining it. It
ended up that Washington school was oversubscribed – we had all sorts of
people who wanted to go there because for the attraction. And there’s a
little anecdote I told Kimberlie Kranich the other day when she was
interviewing – when she called me up and asked me would I come – John Lee
Johnson was an activist at that time too – I don’t know if you know him or
who he is? <Yes.> And John Lee went to the Douglas Center meeting where the
commission presented its plan and he got up and argued vigorously against it
and some of the ladies who I think were community leaders told him in no
uncertain terms to be quiet and sit down. Because they said there’s a better
education at the other end of the bus ride for the kids from this
neighborhood and they’re going to get on the bus. And that took care of
that.
VERONICA: So basically they were saying that if-
MR. BAKER: Who’s they?
VERONICA: The women – that-
MR. BAKER: These older women who were matriarchs, I gather, in the
community, said that they wanted those kids to get on the bus because it was
a better education at the other - at end of the bus ride. And all this
business about – children have been bussed in the United States forever,
great distances – and especially if you live in the country.
VERONICA: Well when you – I know that Ms. Kimberlie had interviewed you a
couple days ago. And she had said that you didn’t believe that white
teachers didn’t care didn’t care for the African American students as much
as the black teachers. Why do you feel so strongly about that?
MR. BAKER: Well number one I object to your characterization that I feel
strongly about that. <laughs> I expressed that. She asked me did I think
that the white teachers rejected the black children. I’m sure some of them
may have – I mean just because of statistics and human beings. But generally
speaking, I didn’t think that was so any more than the black teacher would
reject the white students. My son Peter went to Washington – he had a
marvelous black teacher – a man. In my experience - that’s the only thing I
could speak from – I didn’t see that. Now, you’re coming along so much
later. Gee, you’re two generations probably later. I don’t know what’s going
on now – I haven’t had a thing to do with the schools or the - you know,
since I was on the Board of Education. After I was on the commission I ran
for elections in the Board of Education – I served on the Board of Education
for nine years. I figured I might as well go and finish the job I started.
VERONICA: What types of things did you do on the Board of Education?
MR. BAKER: Oh the things Board members do. You vote on curriculum, you vote
on budgets...things of that sort.
VERONICA: When you guys said that you didn’t want to integrate – what’s the
other word you used for it?
MR. BAKER: Racial balance. I didn’t want to use the word – we agreed that at
that point in history or time integration had so many different meanings
that we were going to talk about racial balance.
VERONICA: Ok. You said that so many people had talked about racial balance
in the schools – and why did it wait until 1968 in Champaign?
MR. BAKER: Why so many people had talked about it? I don’t know what you
mean by that. You’ll have to be more precise with your questions.
VERONICA: Like so many people wanted it and-
MR. BAKER: Oh I’m not so sure of that. I don’t know how that’s true. I think
they were just complacent with what there was there. I’m sure there were
racists and I think the majority of them were just complacent about that’s
the way it was, that’s the way it is. Why did it take that long?
VERONICA: Mhm. For everybody to have an equal-
MR. BAKER: Because in my opinion, society was racist. Generally speaking. I
mean I tried the voter rights cases in Springfield and I know all about the
history of Springfield and the race riots following the civil war and so
forth and segregation as it existed there. So I would think that generally
speaking, there is - just like when I first came to college and there was
the sign that said “We reserve the right to seat our customers.”
VERONICA: Can you tell me the story about Mrs. Slichter?
MR. BAKER: Slichter?
VERONICA: Yes.
MR. BAKER: I did. I told you about how she went to the – she was the
secretary of the commission and I had to be in Chicago on business
somehow…and Ninny went to that meeting. And I called up – we arranged that I
would call her afterwards to find out what happened. And she is the one to
related to me – she’s the eyewitness to the putdown of John Lee Johnson
where the matriarchal members of the audience told him to be quiet and sit
down. Only they were more direct about it than that.
VERONICA: What did they do?
MR. BAKER: Oh they just said, “Shut up and sit down,” period close quote.
That’s what was reported to me; now see that’s hearsay - that’s what we call
in court hearsay but I had it from a very reliable source, from somebody who
was there, that I knew I could trust.
VERONICA: Were you afraid of the people that were against the desegregation
of the schools?
MR. BAKER: No. You know, in the whole time that I was on the Equal Education
Opportunity Commission and the whole 9 years I was on the Board of Education
I never got a single nasty phone call. Now I don’t know – maybe they were
afraid of me. <laughs> No, but I never got a nasty phone call about
integration. Now we had some great set-tos with the teachers’ union but that
was about wages and conditions and things of that sort but never with the
integration question.
VERONICA: What do you think about it yourself?
MR. BAKER: I don’t know what you mean.
VERONICA: About the integration.
MR. BAKER: Did I think it was desirable? Absolutely. I’m a firm believer in
that separate is not equal, that if you don’t have the same opportunity it’s
far from equality. No, I felt that way from day one and I come– I’ve been
telling from this background where I was naïve. I never thought about it
really until I got older, until I began to see some of the things, until I
rode on my first train and walked through a Jim Crow coach.
VERONICA: What did the – how was that happen?
MR. BAKER: How did that happen? I went from one end of the train to the
other. I went from where I was to the dining car or something and I had to
pass through the car that was reserved for black people. And it looked like
it was something they got out of World War I.
VERONICA: How? Can you describe it?
MR. BAKER: Well it was old and grubby and not taken care of and you know…
VERONICA: How was the Washington school case special?
MR. BAKER: Which Washington school case?
VERONICA: Um, it said in one of the papers, “Washington school, formally all
black, will be used as a model elementary school to be operated in
cooperation with the University of Illinois College of Education.”
MR. BAKER: That’s the magnet school. That’s what I was telling you about
before. We were going to have all these educational advantages to attract
the upward mobile pushy white parents to send their kids there.
VERONICA: Do you have any children?
MR. BAKER: Three.
VERONICA: How many like, boys or girls?
MR. BAKER: I have – there are two girls and a boy. You want to know about
them?
VERONICA: Yeah I wanna know were they affected by racially balancing the
schools?
MR. BAKER: No. Peter went to Washington school and he got along fine. He had
some – he had black friends – Emily was in school, no Nancy…same way.
VERONICA: So they never received any like, bad incidents because of this.
MR. BAKER: No they – when I was the president of the Board of Education the
teachers went out on strike. They were a little bit concerned about going
back to school and I said, “Hold your head up and march forward, you didn’t
do anything.” And my children are very successful. Emily’s a physician,
Nancy’s a lawyer, and Peter’s the vice president of a company. And they’re
products of the Champaign school system. Peter isn’t – I have to take that
back before somebody listening(?)…Peter went through the 8th grade and Peter
was – he flunked the 8th grade so we sent him to prep school.
VERONICA: Awww did he want to?
MR. BAKER: No, he didn’t want to go to prep school but he went and it – he
obviously turned out ok. But Emily and Nancy went all through the Champaign
schools. Emily went to Stanford University and Nancy went to Colby College
in Main, which is a very good liberal arts school. So they got good
educations in an integrated climate.
VERONICA: How did you guys make up the term racially balanced and how is it
different from desegregation or segregation?
MR. BAKER: You know, I don’t remember anymore but it – integration would
mean that – in those times for instance – the lunch counter arrangement –
that you and I could sit next to the lunch counter and eat at the same
place. Well today it seems, “So what?” but in 1950 something that wasn’t
true. We were interested in balancing the ratio of people in a particular
class situation and the members of the committee agreed that racial balance
better described what we were trying to do. We didn’t want tokenism, we
didn’t want two or three to come. We wanted to balance it in accordance with
the – or in conformity with the makeup of the community.
VERONICA: One of your interview subjects said in order to get more black
teachers teaching in the schools they had to recruit them from outside of
the community. Were there enough black teachers from the area at the time of
the schools when they were desegregated? Or you just wanted a better
variety?
MR. BAKER: I’m trying to – I’m hesitating…I’m trying to remember exactly
what we did. When I was on the Board of Education Marshall Burner was the
superintendent and Cleveland Hammons was the assistant superintendent for
personnel. Dr. Hammons is black. He’s a distinguished guy. He went from
here, he was superintendent in Indianapolis and big cities. We – yes we made
a concerted effort if we could to recruit black teachers because we didn’t
feel like we had enough…and Cleve was instrumental in that. We thought that
the faculty should have a better representation of black teachers and its
been so long ago that I cant remember with any specificity about that.
VERONICA: Ok. In 1968 the black parents, the NAACP, and the Council for
Community integrators made charges against Marquette, Gregory, <Gregory.
Gregory School, yeah.> Yeah – and Washington Schools. They claimed that it
was inexperienced teachers. They were at the school and that was the biggest
problems. What kind of problems did Washington School have for
desegregation?
MR. BAKER: From desegregation?
VERONICA: Before.
MR. BAKER: It was a segregated school…you know I don’t remember about the
caliber of the teaching staff. And I don’t want to say anything about it
because I just don’t remember. And I guess I can be excused because its that
far long ago. Now, when we ran Washington as the magnet school Hester Suggs
was the principal – Hester and my wife Dorothy went to school together in
Champaign.
VERONICA: Yeah we interviewed Hester Suggs.
MR. BAKER: : You int – yes. Yeah she’s a super capable person. There were
black teachers – I said Peter went there and had this man for a black
teacher as a great teacher. Oh gosh, I’ll think of his name after a bit but
I don’t know what it was before we made Washington into a magnet school. I
don’t doubt that there was some merit in the charges that were made.
VERONICA: Ok. The NAACP claimed that “Children were suffering from emotional
problems, from overcrowded classrooms and poor discipline.”
MR. BAKER: In these segregated schools?
VERONICA: Mhm. Do you think that that was true?
MR. BAKER: I - as I sit here now and try to remember back over 30 something
years I have no doubt that there was merit in that complaint.
VERONICA: Had you ever experienced any of it? Like have you ever came over
there and seen it?
MR. BAKER: No, I had not. I only went into the schools and would sit in
classrooms after I was on the Board of Education. And on the way to work I’d
make it a point to stop at a school and just – and I’d go to the principal’s
office and say, “I’m in the building,” and then I’d go sit in the classroom
or walk the halls. But that was only after I was on the board of education.
VERONICA: Ok. How did the process of desegregation of the schools change
your way of thinking about equality?
MR. BAKER: Me?
VERONICA: Mhm. Or had it not changed?
MR. BAKER: Well I began to think about it more because I was so involved in
it. As you know, I tried to explain to you that from my life experiences and
background I started out in this naïve condition looking at the sign
wondering “What does that mean?”
VERONICA: And so now you were like, when you looked at the sign you knew-
MR. BAKER: I was enlightened.
VERONICA: You knew about it.
MR. BAKER: I became more and more enlightened.
VERONICA: Ok. Do you believe your efforts were in vain given where we are
today?
MR. BAKER: No. Things are very slow and difficult and the fact that I am
sitting here being interviewed by you three young women and you’re telling
me about the program that you have in school indicates that there is
progress. That sure would not have happened in 1965.
VERONICA: Were you ever called a communist?
MR. BAKER: Somebody might have called me that. I don’t know, I’ve been
called a lot of names.
VERONICA: So if you were called it to your face what would you do about it?
MR. BAKER: What do you mean? If somebody said you’re – I’d say “Get away
from me. You’re crazy.”
VERONICA: Ok well thank you for doing this interview with us today.
MR. BAKER: Ok. Glad to. I don’t know how much it meant to you but I’m happy
to help out.
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