| Introduction
This interview was with John Lee Johnson.
Danielle Russell, an 8th grader at Franklin Middle School, conducted the
interview. Brooke Harris, a 7th grader, engineered the interview. Danielle
and Brooke are 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 in February 2005 at the WILL-AM 580 studio,
300 N. Goodwin Ave. in Urbana, IL.
DANIELLE: Can you state your full name and – for the record?
MR. JOHNSON: My name is John L. Johnson.
DANIELLE: Ok, um now I’m going to the questions. I understand that you were
one of the citizens who acted as a watchdog over the desegregation process.
What were you doing in Champaign in the late 1960s and what role did you
play in the desegregation of Champaign public schools?
MR. JOHNSON: I lived here in the 60s, I was born here. I went to school in
both the Champaign and the Urbana school districts. And during that time I
was actively involved in a lot of different things. One of them was the
desegregation of the Champaign and the Urbana public schools.
DANIELLE: Ok. Can you tell me a little bit about what kind of motivated you
to get involved?
MR. JOHNSON: As I indicated this is my home. I’ve always been deeply
interested in the quality of life for everybody in our home, but
particularly the quality of life of African American people. We lived in a
depressed area here in Champaign and Urbana and education is an important
element of helping people to rise above that situation. So I was deeply
concerned with the overall plans that were being discussed and being
proposed and how those plans affected the black community.
DANIELLE: Ok. Um, what were some of the other people – black or white – who
were watchdogs over the process?
MR. JOHNSON: Oh, I don’t know. I don’t really – it’s been a long time ago.
There was David Sessions, there was a Emma Bridgewater – these are African
American people – uh, there was a committee that was called the CCQE – the
Coordinating Committee for Quality Education. I believe that’s what the
acronym stood for. This was a group – a biracial group of both black and
white citizens who had come together to foster a moderate school deseg plan
and what they were attempting to do was react to the whole issues of what
was done in Brown vs. Topeka, Kansas where the Supreme Court had ruled
separate was not equal and what they claimed they were doing was creating a
plan that would not result in a federal mandated desegregation plan on the
Champaign public schools. I was a part of what we called the People’s
Poverty Board, but initially that was a small group of people that was
headed by Roy Williams and myself and ultimately we allowed another young
man to participate with us, who happened – his mother and father happened to
have been the founders of the new math system here at the University of
Illinois. He was deeply concerned and shared some of that concern with us.
But that was really – I can’t go back and remember all of the people’s names
that were involved in it – it was a large group of people that made up the
CCQE and there were quite a number of African American people that had came
and joined that process – talking about how
Champaign schools should desegregate themselves.
DANIELLE: Um, did you see more whites or blacks trying to reach out to the
community and help the education?
MR. JOHNSON: Well it – the way the process was structured was that there
were a group of white citizens who had begun a discussion of desegregation
in lieu of the federal government coming in and mandating that process.
Remember, this was a time in which the Champaign schools were segregated -
blacks attended elementary segregation. Blacks attended their own elementary
schools, whites attended theirs, there were a middle school in which both
blacks and whites attended and then there was a high school. What whites
allegedly said they were doing was trying to get a fair start in this
process that would prevent the US Department of Education and the federal
government from coming in and mandating a solution on the Champaign
community. There were blacks who were involved in it, there were blacks
whose spouses were members of the Champaign school system – that they were
teachers, there were blacks who – white collar workers – who worked at
Chanute Air base and held administrative positions. There were some blue
collar workers who were mail persons, who worked for the U of I mail
department as well as the US mail department and there were school teachers
who were part of the community who were all a part of this whole group of
people that were discussing desegregation of the Champaign schools.
KIMBERLIE (Project co-director) : That committee – the coordinating
committee that you were saying – how was that different – was that a grass
roots – was that affiliated with the school board – you know the EEOC that
had Barkstall and Evans on it – those folks – it was a committee the school
board had formed to make the plan…how did this-
DANIELLE -that was a grassroots committee. As I recall I believe that
committee was formulated by Harry Teaboal(?) who was a professor here at the
University of Illinois and served for many many years as the county chair
person of the Democratic party. As I recall it was a grassroots initiative
made up of quote-unquote “liberal-minded” people who felt that by taking
their own initiative they would prevent the federal government from coming
down and mandating a solution on the whole community.
KIMBERLIE: How did this group work with the formal group that was mandated
by the school board to create the plan?
MR. JOHNSON: Well you gotta remember now, I was outside – I was inside to
get outside of this process and did not support the initiative as it was
unfolding. Both plans called for the elimination of the elementary schools
that were cited in the black community. We opposed that solution on the
basis that we were losing our schools and our children would all be uplifted
from our neighborhood and carried somewhere else. The debate that went on in
the black community centered around the value of a segregated education
versus the value of a desegregated education. There were many people who
felt that despite the fact that there would be hardships on black children,
the ultimate benefits that they would obtain from this desegregation far
outweighed those hardships. We did not support that. That was not something
that Roy Williams and myself thought was fair, thought was equable…uh, we
did not quite understand the details of the law as we understand them now –
that what ultimately became the Champaign plan was really unconstitutional
and illegal. The black people didn’t know that and this came off on the
heels of Brown vs. Topeka, Kansas and the real concern – overriding concern
– by many black residents was that they had to do something that would
provide an increased educational benefit to black kids.
DANIELLE: Ok um, so basically they were planning to do everything they could
to get the blacks in schools but they didn’t really care about what they
would sacrifice in order to get them there?
MR. JOHNSON: Well the blacks were attending the schools already but they
were attending segregated schools. They were attending elementary schools in
their own neighborhood; whites were attending elementary schools in their
own neighborhoods. What blacks felt – that the overriding best interest of
black kids were to attend schools with white kids…there was the overriding
assumption – and this was brought about nationally by research that was done
by the NAACP - that blacks inherently received an inferior education in
segregated schools. And many blacks felt from the national scene down that
the best way of improving the quality education of black kids were to put
them in classes with white kids, that way you would improve the facilities,
you would improve the curriculums and you would improve the teaching staff –
that was the overriding arguments. Contrary to all of that was, that you
would have to take these kids from their neighborhood and bus them somewhere
else and we felt that there was an overriding burden on these kids to be
bussed that didn’t justify quote-unquote the “educational benefits.” We lost
that argument. The black community concurred with the plan, signed off on
the plan, and the plan ultimately was implemented.
DANIELLE: Ok now, if you had - went back a few years and when the United
States first came up with the separate but not equal plan, if say that they
had held up their side of the bargain with that, do you think that history
would have been changed or it would have went out some other way?
MR. JOHNSON: I don’t think history would have been changed if we would have
kept the same factors that we have today. We quite simply did not understand
then and we don’t understand now the impacts of a desegregated educational
system. There appears to be such an inherent difference between black kids
and white kids that teachers simply can’t figure out this difference and
can’t teach that difference equally. We didn’t know then – as I indicated
earlier – but we know now that we were picking up a whole race of people and
moving them from their neighborhood to someone else’s neighborhood. That’s
illegal. You can’t do that now. But it was done then and it couldn’t of been
done then. But we didn’t know that and no one complained about that. The
benefits that we thought that we would receive we never received. Our kids
never improved better on the average than we thought they would be or than
they promised that they would because of the desegregation. In fact, our
kids have lost ground over the four decades since Champaign has desegged
their schools.
DANIELLE: Ok. I’m sure that you’re – well I assume that you’re familiar with
the Plain Truth newspaper?
MR. JOHNSON: A little bit.
DANIELLE: Ok, um…do you know what role the Plain Truth played in the
desegregation process?
MR. JOHNSON: Well it really played very little role. It was a newspaper in
which – was founded by the People’s Poverty Board, which Roy Williams,
myself, and Peter Rasmussen constituted that board. There were articles that
were written on a weekly basis opposing the deseg of the Champaign schools.
But you gotta remember – that paper was going up against national policies
and national trends. It was going up against a hard fought battle before the
United States Supreme Court, in which one of the major civil rights issues
was won – which was won by the NAACP regarding the integration or the
desegregation of the American school systems. There was a great deal of
discussions at a lot of different levels - sociologically, psychologically,
economically, of the benefits that would accrue to black communities across
America through the desegregation. Black people throughout Champaign – and
probably throughout our country – were in no mood to buy into the same old
dialogue that we should keep our schools the way they are. Remember now, we
did not control school boards. School boards were exclusively ran by the
white community…we had no input into the overall policies of the school
systems here in Champaign and Urbana, we had very little to say about what
the curriculums was then and what the curriculum is now and what resources -
of the district resources - would go into that. Now some of that was
discussed in the detail that I’m discussing it now but not all of it because
I think that those factors were put aside from the overall benefit that many
black people felt that the kids would receive from desegregating our
schools. And also keep in mind that there was an element of the white
community who had came to the black community saying to the black community,
“This needs to be done.” And prior to that there had been very few times in
which the white community had ever knocked on the door of the black
community saying that we should be in partnership to do anything. Now part
of that, I think, in retrospect kind of blinded black people. You know, and
again – we were a community that was without quote-unquote “intellectuals,”
we did not have lawyers, we did not have real social scientists, we didn’t
have people who was familiar with the law and who could interpret the laws
to us and who could tell us what the Supreme Court meant in their decisions
and how it would affect us. So many black people felt that they were getting
the best deal and we have fought that – I mean – this was a derooted issue
among black people. This was not something that black people decided
overnight and after that night had passed they were willing to change their
minds. Many of them have held to that position even today – that the
ultimate benefit to their children has indeed resulted from the
desegregation of the Champaign schools.
DANIELLE: Ok. Um, we understand that you were against the desegregation plan
at first – or ultimately and that you thought that the plan was
unconstitutional. Exactly how was it unconstitutional?
MR. JOHNSON: Well I was – my original opposition to the plan had nothing to
do with the constitution in that I was unable at that time to articulate the
constitutional implications of the plan. I just knew that to close all of
our schools down and to force our children to attend schools away from their
neighborhood was not a good deal for us. The only people that was losing in
this deal were black kids. I mean, whites got a chance to keep their
schools, they got new schools if their schools were closed down – we got no
new schools. The only school we got out of it was Washington Elementary
School. All the other schools were closed down. That was not a good deal. I
did not know then that the question – excuse me – the questions of
structural displacement – I did not know then the questions of the
implications on achievement and burdens assumed by one race for the
satisfaction of another race. These became constitutional elements of school
desegregation as I learned much much later – from the time that Champaign
was discussing their desegregation plan.a
BROOKE: Ok. Well, I was going to say that – you said that the school – some
of the schools were torn down and they never rebuilt the black ones. Why
were they torn down in the first place?
MR. JOHNSON: Well they were torn down because the strategy of the white
community was that if – because we had won in the Supreme Court, and the
white community had been told that, “Your school systems in America and how
you have designed them – school systems only for blacks, school systems for
yourself, were unconstitutional.” And it said to the white community, “You
must now integrate your schools, you must now bring black kids and white
kids together.” That would mean that school boards all across America would
have to figure out how to bring these groups together. What the white
communities did in our community – and they did in most places in the
country – that they tore down the schools in the black community – they
closed them, and then therefore forced the black community to attend their
schools. Those schools that they had that were old - as our schools were old
– they simply tore them down and built new schools. But they built these new
schools in their neighborhoods or on agricultural sites, which ultimately
they built neighborhoods around. A good example of that would be Carrie
Busey, which is still situated next to a cornfield. But originally when
Carrie Busey was there all of that area was corn. There was no houses at
Carrie Busey at all. Uh, let’s see…you take Carrie Busey, you take
Bottenfield, you take Garden Hills, you take – I think Dr. Howard was an
original school that was there, I think South Side may have been there, but
in the main – all of the schools south of University Avenue were new schools
resulting from the deseg plan. We lost Lawhead Elementary School, we lost
Gregory School, we lost Williard School – which were schools in our
neighborhood in Champaign, we lost uh…Haye(?) School in Urbana, which became
Martin Luther King Elementary School in Urbana – but that was the plan and
no one really understood that. Black people thought then it was a good deal
because your kids were going to be able to sit down in the same room with
white children and they thought it was a very – it was not a hard price to
pay, that white kids were allowed to walk to their schools and blacks would
have to be bussed to theirs. No one talked about homework time, no one
talked about activities before school, activities after school – those kids
of discussions did not go into it. There was no discussions of what the
curriculum would be, what extra school activities would be and how that
would impact upon African American children from participating in those
activities.
BROOKE: Um, did anyone do anything when the schools were torn down?
MR. JOHNSON: What do you mean do anything?
DANIELLE: Like did they take any action to try to-
MR. JOHNSON: No it was part of a plan that was approved by the entire
community, including the African American community also. School districts
are unusual legal bodies in that they have a wide discretion of authority
within state governments to operate their schools. And tearing down schools
is something the school districts do often and its not illegal unless it
results in structural displacement of people because of their race. That’s
unconstitutional.
DANIELLE: Which is what happened.
MR. JOHNSON: That is what happened. That’s unconstitutional. But you can
tear a school down and build a new school anywhere that the school district
feels that that’s warranted. But when you’re moving one race of kids at the
benefit of another race of kids, that’s illegal. That’s a violation of
Illinois’ constitution equal protection clause and it’s a violation – and at
the time in - the United States constitution did not have a clause dealing
with that so the Supreme Court and Congress had to create a whole new clause
to make that a violation of the law.
DANIELLE: So there were complaints after-
MR. JOHNSON: No complaints, no complaints.
DANIELLE: There weren’t?
MR. JOHNSON: No. The black community – let me say this again – the black
community agreed to and shared in the desegregation plans of the Champaign
schools. The people who were opposed to that plan was Roy Williams and John
Lee Johnson and the People’s Poverty Board. The people who I talked about –
the blue-collar workers, the white-collar workers – all agreed to the plan.
They believed – the church leaders agreed to the plan – they believed that
the ultimate benefits to the black community outweighed the negative issues
that we talked about and therefore they bought in on it. It was something
that the black community welcomed. And I think I said even today there are
many blacks who feel, despite all the evidence, that black kids
overwhelmingly benefit from the desegregation of the Champaign schools.
DANIELLE: Ok, um…the desegregation plan turned Washington school from an all
black-
KIMBERLIE: Ok, I’m going to stop – pardon me. Before you go on I do have a
follow-up. One of the things that Danielle and Brooke want to get are
stories with your analysis. So I’m wondering – if the two of you and the
People’s Poverty Board were the only ones sort of speaking against this plan
and the whole rest of the black community and the white community – liberal
whites - wanted this, there must have been conflicts. Do you have any
stories that illustrate some of the work in the difference in opinion that
kind of – you know can you give us some stories about-
MR. JOHNSON: I would only talk about them in generality. Those people are
still alive.
KIMBERLIE: We don’t have to use names.
MR. JOHNSON: Right.
KIMBERLIE: Do you have any stories of conversations you had where, you know
– that illustrate the different opinions and the different strategies. Can
you remember a conversation – again, you don’t have to names but-
MR. JOHNSON: Oh there were numerous conversations and as I indicated earlier
that blacks argued over one component – I don’t know what whites argued over
because we were not privy to what the white community discussed when they
were discussing their plans. We argued over issues of bussing, we argued
over issues of blacks losing their schools, blacks being transported from
their neighborhood to other neighborhoods. As I indicated from the
ministerial leadership to black people who had attended the schools, who
attended the segregated schools in Champaign – individually and collectively
they all felt that this was something that they wanted done and they
virtually said to Roy Williams and John Lee Johnson, “You guys shut your
mouths. This is something that we think is in our best interest.” And this
is a fight that went on for 30 something odd years. It’s still going on
today. I mean, the black community was not overwhelmingly happy because suit
was filed against the Champaign schools.
DANIELLE: Did – ok. Now that you say that the argument is still going on –
did – I know that – I’m aware that you sued the school district many times.
Was that ever one of the topics?
MR. JOHNSON: Not many times. Uh, we did not have resources to hire attorneys
in those days to sue the school districts. And I think to be honest it
probably was just very few attorneys across America who really understood
school deseg law. There could have been a lot of them – I don’t know. But it
was something that was new. There’s not a lot of attorneys even today who
understand that law and are willing to tackle school districts because of
the complications of the law and all of the statistics that’s involved in
it. So that hampered us. So but throughout that period we filed complaints
to the office of civil rights – there were investigations done in the
Champaign schools on the numbers of kids that were dumped in special
education, you know I mean that’s strange because we came back to that issue
25 years later and filed another complaint against it. But despite all of
that, the black community were convinced that their decision to side with
the school district was the best decision and it was almost as if no one
wanted to look themselves in the face and say, “Ok, we were wrong. This was
not a good decision and we should not have made that decision.” That is not
to say, looking back over yesterday, that we could have overrode the Supreme
Court. We could not have overwritten the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court
said separate was not equal, meaning that we could not have legally kept our
schools segregated. But, if we would have been a little bit more intelligent
we may have been able to get better schools in northeast Champaign with more
white kids attending those schools instead of having a situation where
structurally all of our kids were uprooted and sent to schools in southwest
Champaign. And even today, when you talk to some of the people that were
around here in Champaign then, and that was a part of these issues, they kid
of frown. They don’t want to be reminded of it – anything like that. So yes,
there were all kinds of debates that went on. But keep in mind that some of
the people who participated in the desegregation of the Champaign schools
were – their spouses were employees of the Champaign schools. Even though
they were teaching in segregated schools, they were teachers. They were
teachers. And some of them, I think, felt that they had a greater allegiance
to the Board of Education than they had to the black community. But, our
arguments - to be fair – were new arguments. I mean, you go back and you
think that here the United States Supreme Court had said to white America,
“You can’t continue to segregate your schools, black kids are being denied a
quality education, a quality facility, they’re being denied a fair share of
their taxation,” and then all of a sudden somebody stands up and says,
“Yeah, that’s true. But we don’t want to integrate with them.” It takes a
very strong character person to buy that argument. The argument that had
been presented to the Court was an argument that represented most of the
schools in America, the quality of those schools and what many black people
felt was the quality of the education children were receiving from those
schools and they were <inaudible> on desegregating the American school
system. You know, so that was the face of that argument.
DANIELLE: When you say um, that the – that they had decided to bus the
blacks, wasn’t that further indicating that blacks were inferior to the
whites because they could have said that, “Ok, we’ll bus some of the white
students to the black schools,” but no, they decided to tear our schools
down and send the black students to the white schools.
MR. JOHNSON: Well it wasn’t ever a question of inferiority. It could have
been in white people’s minds – some white people – but that was not a
question. There were learning years (?) difference between the two races.
Whites scored more better in math, languages, other areas of curriculum than
blacks did. But that had, in essence, really nothing to do with the
segregated schools. That had more to do with the poverty of black kids. The
reason for that is, is that now that we have deseg schools and black schools
are attending newer facilities with better curriculums, that gap – that
learning gap still exists – 30, 40 years later that learning gap still
exists. But we didn’t know that then. We didn’t know that. We assumed that
the root of the problem had all to do with the buildings, it had all to do
with the curriculum, it had all to do with the teaching core, and in fact it
had nothing to do with that. It had to do with the poverty that the kids
lived in, who went to school and yet, there were good examples of what
Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP legal team that fought this issue before the
United States Supreme Court had all went to segregated schools. But yet they
were attorneys. And Thurgood Marshall ultimately became a member of the
Supreme Court. How did that happen? How did they achieve that? And they
attended segregated schools so clearly, blacks can learn in a segregated
school system. It has to do with the value of the teachers, the values of
the children and the value of their parents and how they placed to educate
the learning value within their community. So when you go back – now I’m
looking from hindsight now, remember now, I’m looking back 35, 40 years.
That was not knowledge that we had then. So we talked about it from a gut
reaction then, that this is not right as opposed to – you can pull out the
achievement data now. You know, you can pull out the ISAT test now. That was
not available then. But even when you pull that information out and discuss
these comparisons, and for the black people, some of them are not impressed
and some of them do not buy into that data. You know, but you can’t say
because there’s a difference in the learning between black kids and white
kids today – let’s go back to segregated schools because the law doesn’t
allow you to do that. And – which is what we sued them for and what the
<inaudible>, which exists today, is trying to close that gap. It’s not doing
it as quick as I would want it to do but that’s the ultimate interest. If
you go back and look – what we were talking about then – a lot of this
information was not available to the average black on the street. As I
indicated, we didn’t have any black faculty members from the Department of
Education or from the law school who could come across to our community and
say, “This is what the Supreme Court meant when they ruled on the
desegregation of the schools, this is how school boards can get around you,
this is what they’re doing now.” You can now walk over to the Department of
Education at the University of Illinois and there’s somebody there who knows
about every deseg plan in America, who knows about what every school board
has done either to implement that plan or to get around that plan. There
could have been people there then but those people did not come into the
black community and say, “Wait a minute here, you gonna get charred(?) into
the stick if you buy into this.” That was not what was presented. What was
presented was this collection of well-intended white citizens along with
well-intended black citizens who had came together with the sole purpose of
desegregating the Champaign schools.
DANIELLE: Did you have a follow up question? Ok. As I was going to say
earlier, um, the desegregation plan turned Washington school from an all
black population with nearly all black teachers into an integrated magnet
school with an emphasis on science. White children who went to that school
were bussed, black children who lived in the Washington school area could no
longer go to that school unless they applied to go there. Many teachers who
taught at Washington were sent elsewhere. Um, what was your opinion on that?
MR. JOHNSON: Well, Washington’s role was to replace Lawhead and for you guys
who do not know Lawhead School, it’s the parking lot which is on the west
side of the street across from the annex of Douglas Center. There’s a
parking lot, which is adjacent to the church. That was Lawhead School – and
to replace Willard School, which is the parking lot behind Salem Church.
Because those two schools had been torn down, the discussion by the Board of
Education at that time – there had to be a school there in order for whites
to attend. Because up until that time under the plan, all whites were being
transported out of the black community, and that plan clearly was not a
constitutional plan. And here comes the Vern Barkstalls and them…they come
in at that part of it and so the decision was that they would build a new
elementary, two strand (?) building in Douglas Park area and they would call
it Washington School and what they would do is that they would make it a
magnet school. Now magnet schools were allowed under the Supreme Court
ruling as a means of attracting the white community into the black
community. Now remember that the emphasis of the whole deseg case by the
NAACP was not asking white people to bring their children to the black
community, it was asking the Court to allow black children to go to white
schools…ok. And the reason for that emphasis, probably was on the fact that
black schools did not meet the same quality as white schools and they
probably felt that because of that it would be much better for black kids,
wherever they were in the American public school systems, to leave their
buildings and to go into white schools. So the question of declaring
Washington school as a magnet schools was to attract black kids to it, but
was to bring white kids in it. And by bringing white kids into Washington
School under a special curriculum operated school, then the Champaign
schools were able to maintain a legal desegregated plan. Do you understand
what I’m saying to you?
DANIELLE: Mhm.
MR. JOHNSON: Oh you’re smarter than I am then. <laughs> Ok, I’m just joking
with you.
DANIELLE: I understand! Ok, uh…is the idea of a charter or magnet school a
good idea in your opinion?
MR. JOHNSON: It all depends upon what the goals are. I mean, it’s a good
idea for families who are looking for unique curriculums because they have
children who want to specialize in arts, sciences, languages. It’s a good
idea if you want to attract special groups of people to neighborhoods who
don’t look on those neighborhoods as where they would want their children
attending. There’s nothing bad with chartered or other specific schools, as
long as those schools do not lock out children who reside within those
neighborhoods. One of the reasons that we included Washington School in our
racial complaint that was filed in ’97 against the Champaign schools is
because it locked out the children who lived close to the school and they
were not allowed to attend that school. And that’s why it was included and
that’s why the special designation that Washington school held prior to that
suit was lifted.
DANIELLE:Why were they not allowed to go to the school?
MR. JOHNSON: The assumption by the school board and other people who lived
around Washington were inferior to the white kids that were being bussed
from the south to the schools and the promise that the Board of Education
had made to those parents that, “We are providing you with an exceptional
education that you can’t get anywhere else in the district but at Washington
school, and to assure you of that exceptional accelerated curriculum we are
only going to bring in children of color who can max your children’s
learning speed and that there would be nothing that would slow your children
down in learning.” What I’m telling you is the truth.
DANIELLE: Heh, I mean…I ain’t ever heard no – well, the only school I heard
of something like that is a private school, cause-
MR. JOHNSON: No. No.
DANIELLE: Cause schools in our district today ain’t like that.
MR. JOHNSON: That’s what they have – they have that now in school of choice
but what they don’t have is the locking out of students. But under the
choice system, you can choose a school for your child based upon the
curriculum of that school. You can also choose a school based upon – you
know what I mean – the accelerated learning of the kids in that school. The
problem that black kids have, particularly those black kids who come from
the area north of University Avenue, is that their learning proportionately
is slower than their white counter parts. And that learning is slower, not
because there’s a difference in their mental capacity – because there’s a
real difference in preparation. Is that white families spend far more time
in preparing their children for school than black families. So as a result
of that difference in preparations, when white kids get there, they can be
one, two, or even three mean(?) years ahead of their black counterpart. And
so if you’re teaching a class to the midlevel of that class, and the
midlevel is the kids are three years advanced to the kids who are not, then
that means the kids who are less than that are always going to be behind
because you can’t teach to them. You’re teaching to those kids who are able
to learn at that rate. And black families have not figured that out.
DANIELLE: Is that where the special education problem came in?
MR. JOHNSON: Well it didn’t come in because of that but that’s one of the
reasons that there are so many blacks dumped into special education by the
Champaign schools and the Urbana schools. But that’s another reason why you
have medication that’s given to children because teachers do not have – well
we’re getting off the subject, but, I think that young teachers should not
be teaching elementary school. I think that older teachers, more mature
teachers, teachers who have born children (?), who have raised children need
to be teaching elementary schools. Because the greatest problems in teaching
children to learn aren’t small children but we believe in this country that
young girls fresh out of college should be sent to our elementary schools.
And they just simply don’t know how to handle it and as a result of it
children who are different, children who may have different lifestyles or a
different race or all that are simply swept under the rug. That was a
problem that occurred then back in the deseg of the Champaign schools, it’s
a problem that occurs even today. We have not gotten over the hump of that
and despite the fact that these have been some of the overriding issues
related to the disparities. Blacks have not figured that out. We still have
not figured that out. There are still not discussions in the black community
about the preparation of their children and how to support that. Now part of
that reason can be that your parents – if your parents grew up here in
Champaign – they were educated in a school system that gave them an inferior
education in general. Not every black kid got an inferior education, but in
the main, most black kids did because they didn’t come to school prepared.
So that could have soured their taste on the Champaign and the Urbana
schools. But, keep in mind that the free man – that’s the man who was a
slave and who became free - had no education. But yet thirsted for an
education because he understood the value of education to a slave master,
and he also understood that if he was to assume the same kinds of authority
in his community that the slave master took for granted, he had to be
educated. Now why don’t we know that now? Why don’t we know that today? Why
can’t we figure that out? And yet if you look at the latest audits that were
done on the Champaign schools, you will still see this gap between the
achievements of black and white students in all categories.
DANIELLE: So basically the – still problems remain as to the preparation of
black students when they get to elementary school?
MR. JOHNSON: Yes. But keep in – then it was structural problems. Then it was
tearing down buildings, picking up kids, hauling them from one side of town
to the other side of town, then there was this whole debate of Brown vs.
Topeka, Kansas and what all that meant – it was a whole – I think,
acceleration by black people that our kids are going to get for the first
time a chance to go to white schools, all of that there and we didn’t look
into the details. We didn’t really understand the details of the deseg plan.
And there were black people who were well thought of then, as I said there
were black people who were blue-collar workers, white-collar workers…in the
main (?), there were very few of these people who lived in northeast
Champaign. There were very few who lived outside of northeast Champaign, but
there were very few people who lived in the black community of Champaign who
had college degrees. There were very few black people who had professional
certificates. You know, I mean at one time, the most degreed people in
northeast Champaign were people with an elementary education certificate and
people who worked at the post office. Meaning that there were no people who
were doctors, there were no people who were lawyers, there were no people
who were engineers, there were no people who had those kids of credentials
who would have been able to understand three-dimensional problems. So there
were not people who could interpret for the black community what this issue
was. So when you had people who were elders in their church because of what
they did in their community saying, “This is a good deal,” I mean do you
think they’re going to buy in what John Lee Johnson is saying - this young
21, 22 year old so-called angry black guy who’s telling them, “No they
shouldn’t do this,” – “No this is not in our interest?” No. No they’re not.
Today there are different issues, you know. There are different issues.
We’re not talking about structurally tearing down buildings and all of that
there, we’re talking about achievement, achieving, learning gaps. We talked
about it then. We talked about it then. But the gap then – we thought –
would be closed by the desegregation of the schools. We assumed that just by
getting these kids into these buildings in south Champaign, that it was
miraculously going to improve their learning skills. Now, it was supposed to
because what was supposed to happen – and there it – see this is a tricky
thing and the reason that it’s tricky is because you’re talking about human
beings, and that there is no single factor that really dictates people, that
if you would bring kids together and kids are able to see kids who are
studying, who are achieving, and who have a hunger to learn, and kids who
have not been around that but sense it and sees it, that they can adopt that
same hunger, they can adopt that same encouragement to learn. That was what
Thurgood Marshall had said to the Supreme Court and that’s part of what the
Court bought in on, that there would be some miraculously improvement in the
learning desire of black kids just because they sit down beside a white kid.
Now, to show you how this works, here’s how you can look at this. If you
could go somewhere in northeast Champaign – there is one place that I’m
talking about in general – and you could find a room like this room where
there is a radio console, microphones, and that there is something going on
– that that something going on was served to elevate kids desire to learn.
But when you can’t find that and kids are unaware that things like this room
even exist, then they don’t aspire for it because they don’t even know that
it goes on. Well, these kinds of things may not be taken for granted in the
white community but these things are known by many whites in their community
because they have these things. We don’t have those things. So the concept
was that if you put black and white kids in the same room together, then
that desire by white kids to learn would rub off on black kids. Ok, it
didn’t happen out that way. Not in the main. It did happen for many blacks,
it didn’t happen that way. That’s the same thing that’s in segregated
schools where you have one group of kids who are good and that impacts
another group of kids but then you have all the sub particles of the racial
tensions – all of that, which I think serve to minimize the ability of kids
to achieve diversity <inaudible> and a lot of that could have been that
school officials were not really prepared to understand it. Many school
officials didn’t really care, didn’t want to understand it. What they wanted
to do was to maintain their own control to insure that their kids benefited
from it. Black communities were not really decisive voices in school
politics, we weren’t managing buildings and we really had very little to say
about how the curriculums and how the schools were managed. So when you go
back and you look at our community – well, where were our places that we
could discuss these kids of things? Well it was in our church and from our
church into our homes. And this was not a discussion in our church. This
ceased to be a topic that many ministers wanted to talk about. And some of
that had to do with – there was such transition among black church
leadership that many ministers who came in didn’t know anything about the
Champaign desegregation plan, didn’t come in committed to the whole question
of education, didn’t see it as a primary topic issue that they wanted to
discuss before, during, or after their sermons and as a result of it – now
this is my opinion – as a result of it many blacks were lullabied to sleep
over it. They didn’t – they forgot about it. That they forgot that these
were day-to-day battles that their children were facing and that the school
districts were losing and that the deseg plan did not satisfy - that the
problems were still here today.
DANIELLE: Ok, you talked about like some racial tensions in the schools –
did they ever ask the white people how they felt about it before they did it
because maybe if they had asked them they probably would have done it
because I don’t think most of them would have wanted it and maybe that was a
factor in how the white kids responded in school.
MR. JOHNSON: Well you’re correct. All of that is correct. Whites did not
want it. It was the law. It is the law. We happen to live in a nation that
is ruled by law. The courts do not necessarily ask you if you like it. The
court says, “This is what the constitution says that must be done,” and
because the constitution said that it must be done as interpreted by the
Court, then every American was obligated to abide by that law. But as I said
earlier that what white people said was, “Ok, if we gotta do it, we’ll do it
our way. If you have gone to court and you’ve won a case to go to school
with us, then you’re going to go to school with us. We’re not going to go to
school with you. So you gonna have to leave your neighborhood and come to
our neighborhood and go to school, we’re not going leave our neighborhood
and go to your neighborhood and go to school, we’re not going to create
curriculums that represent you. You’re going to learn us, we’re not going to
teach you about you, or we’re not going to teach ourselves about you.” So it
was really a very one-sided solution to a very complicated problem. But that
solution – it was too early in the game to go into all of that and the legal
attorneys that the NAACP had did not have the foresight to see these
problems, as they would unfold in America. The interpretation was left that
every school district and every community would have to hash out this
problem and find their own watermark, their own solution to the problem and
that’s what Champaign did. And we’re still in the process of trying to find
that solution.
DANIELLE: Ok. Ok, some of the black leaders were calling for integration.
The NAACP cited as one reason for this – poor student grades, poor teaching
staff and disciplinary problems at the black schools. Did you agree with the
NAACP’s terms or did you think that they should have had another basis for-
MR. JOHNSON: Well the NAACP did not describe the problems in that fashion
here. The comparison wasn’t kids in special education, disciplinary
problems, and all of that. Prior to the desegregation of the Champaign
schools, we got beat in school. We got our hands beat by paddles, we got
beat by <inaudible> straps. There were no special rooms you went to – you
got your butt whooped. You were carried in the cloakroom and the whole
classroom heard you. Your parents were called and they came to school and
then they beat you in front of the class. So it wasn’t no time out, you
didn’t get sent down to the library, no one sent you home. You act up in
school, you dealt with the principal and if you couldn’t deal with the
principal you dealt with the janitor. Between the two of them one of them
was going to win. So we didn’t have a disciplinary problem as we see in our
schools today. So that kind of problem didn’t exist – didn’t exist yet(?).
DANIELLE: So there were no special education rooms or nothing?
MR. JOHNSON: Well there was special education but it was not special
education as we see it now. The issue that the NAACP argued about here was
the overall benefit that black kids would obtain from the integration of the
schools and the fact that there was three learning years difference between
blacks and whites. And they felt that by closing – or integrating schools or
desegregating the schools, you would close that learning gap. I mean, to
understand, the average black kid in the Champaign schools is almost at a
five-year learning difference from their white counterpart.
DANIELLE: Now?
MR. JOHNSON: Now.
DANIELLE: Who said?
MR. JOHNSON: Who says is the school district’s records. And how you say that
is by you look at the ISAT test, you look at other testing, and you look at
the achievement rate. You look at the numbers of kids who are meeting state
average, you look at the numbers of kids who are meeting national average,
and you look at the numbers of kids who are meeting the district’s average.
I’m talking about achievement averages. The reason that the Bush
administration enacted ‘No child left behind’ is because those differences –
his wife being a schoolteacher was aware of those growing enormous gaps of
learning between children of color in our nation.
DANIELLE: But the ‘No child left behind thing’ – don’t that – well – I might
not be right but don’t that make like – if you’re behind in school like they
still pass you up to 9th grade?
MR. JOHNSON: No. It makes that you cannot do that.
DANIELLE: Oh.
MR. JOHNSON: It means that you cannot do it. It means that you cannot do it.
It means that given a certain amount of time, school districts must bring an
equal achievement level of all children. Now, if you go back and if you say
“Well, John, you were right – the real differences lies in preparation of
children,” then that means that more money should be put into kindergarten
programs, more money should be put into Head Start, more money should be put
into preschools, more money should be put into elementary schools, and
parents of colors should be given more resources. One of the reasons that
there’s only one neighborhood in Champaign County with a library – what
neighborhood is that?
DANIELLE: Douglas.
MR. JOHNSON: And why does Douglass Center – why is it the only neighborhood
in Champaign County with a library? Do you know?
DANIELLE: Well I know that’s the north end but…
MR. JOHNSON: Because of the learning gap.
DANIELLE: But it’s still the gap.
MR. JOHNSON: No. Because of the learning gap. And the idea was, if a library
was placed closer to you, you would use it more, you would read more. And a
result of using the library more, when you got into school you would be
better prepared and that gap would not be there.
DANIELLE: But is that the case?
MR. JOHNSON: Well, no. It’s not the case. Because many black families don’t
use the library - the main library or Douglas Center as they should. Now
after saying all of that – see this is why I’m saying this is tricky – heard
start children – and our country spends about five million dollars a year in
Champaign County on Head Start, ok? And Head Start is just that – is to give
children a Head Start. But yet Head Start children who go into the Champaign
schools, after the third year, after the third year they drop off. And
that’s unexplainable. Despite everything that they’ve been given in Head
Start – and they’ve been given all of this preschool preparation and all of
this – because the national government mandates the curriculum to make sure
that they’re getting the same kinds of supports that they’re getting in
these middle class homes. Yet when these black kids go through Head Start
and get into these Champaign schools, when they get to the third grade that
learning difference still exists between them and whites.
DANIELLE: I know my mom is one of the directors of Head Start and she –
sometimes she tells me like that the – ok there’s low income kids that come
there but there’s not a motivation at home and so when they get there
they’re not motivated to learn. And then they send them home and they send
them back and then she said most of their parents is prejudice against some
of the teachers so they’ll go home and they say, “Well oh, you don’t need to
listen to her - da da da da da da – she’s just being racist.”
MR. JOHNSON: Parents have a tendency of doing that but part of the role of
Head Start, which is – we’ve changed Head Start nationally and we’ve changed
it locally. Head Start used to be a breeding ground for low-income parents
to become schoolteachers and to become administrators. It used to be that
primarily the work force of Head Start were parents who had children,
initially, in Head Start. Now the rules are mandated by Congress that Head
Start teachers must be certified and that they all must be working towards a
four year certificate in education. That’s a Congress rule in order for a
Head Start program to maintain its funding. As a result of that, you bring
in teachers who are not necessarily committed to the children as the old
Head Start teachers were committed to them. And there is disbelief too often
by low-income parents that their job is to defend their children against the
teachers as opposed to supporting the teachers to help the teachers help the
child learn. And that goes back to the whole question about poor preparation
at home -poor preparation at home. Your child cannot learn when your child
will not follow directions, when your child had not been taught to be
attentive, when your child runs all around the room – plays, or when your
child is disobedient, or when your child has been taught that he or she can
do whatever they want to because their mom or whomever is going to defend
them against the teacher. Normally what happens when children do that is
that teachers spend less time with them to the point that no time is being
spent with them. But that’s not only a problem in Head Start. That’s a
problem at Central High School, that’s a problem at Centennial High School
for African American children. That’s a problem at Franklin, that’s a
problem at Jefferson, it’s a problem at Edison.
DANIELLE: What was the impact of Dr. King’s and John F. Kennedy’s
assassination in Champaign and how did it affect the desegregation process?
MR. JOHNSON: Well I think everyone in Champaign was saddened. I was working
with youth when – the night that Dr. King was killed and I was having a
rally at Burch Village. And I had went in and told that rally that Dr. King
had been assassinated and asked for a moment of silence and attempted to get
them to place themselves, to improve themselves to honor his life’s work.
And I left there and went out to a rally that was at the – oh I can’t think
of the church…uh…there was a church on campus that there was a rally and I
went out to that rally. John F. Kennedy had the same kind of an impact for
different reasons on the black community. For the first time black people
saw, I think, a president who they thought was committed to social change
that would improve their lives when in fact, Harry Truman may have been a
better socially minded president than John F. Kennedy. Cleary John F.
Kennedy was not Lyndon Johnson when it came to enacting legislation that
integrated the races and gave civil rights to African American people. But I
think that John F. Kennedy’s death, his brother’s death had a lot to do with
the directions that president Johnson went and it gave – it served as an
<inaudible> for Dr. King and others to go and to demand that Congress move
forward on those rights. But now – see I mean, I was working in northeast
Champaign dealing with other issues. I mean I was dealing with youth, I was
dealing with problems of the quality of our neighborhood, issues like this
and I was looking at Dr. King from afar. There were people – because Dr.
King was a church person as well as a civil rights leader – there were
church people who was committed to his issues because of that connection
between church and civil rights. I was not in church in the sense that I was
an elder in church. So I was trying to bring or help young people in our
community and I was trying to learn more about how to redevelop our
neighborhoods and do things like that. But it clearly had an impact but it
didn’t change my strategy, it didn’t change my approach to my neighborhood
and my approach to the community because my approach wasn’t created through
my connections to them.
BROOKE: Ok um, going back to the situation after school where you did
something – you got into trouble…were – did you ever do anything to get you
in trouble?
MR. JOHNSON: Going back to school when I got into trouble?
BROOKE: When – about the like if you got in trouble you would get whooped on
your hand or something?
MR. JOHNSON: Oh, ok.
BROOKE: Going back to that situation, did you ever do anything to get that
while you were in school?
MR. JOHNSON: A couple times. A couple times I got my hands slapped by the
teacher and a couple times I got my behind whooped by the teachers. It was
things that you didn’t normally do because you understood what was going to
happen. So that served – but kids were kids. I mean, we didn’t have
television, we didn’t have cell phones, we didn’t have movies as you guys
have movies. There wasn’t any MTV – we had different kinds of influences on
us that you have on you today. We didn’t have – cigarettes were there but
cigarettes was not a normal part of our lives. We didn’t – no one ever had
marijuana. I mean no one ever had hard-core drugs. There were not – there
were kids who were in groups but there were not gangs. Those kinds of
problems…I mean, the school districts were in complete control of the
schools. When I went to school you did everything that you were told to do
by teachers and everything that you were told to do by administrators. You
did not talk back to anyone. You know, and you did what your parents told
you to do. In a lot of kids’ lives today that’s somewhat different. Kids go
to school being their own parent and controlling their own destiny and kids
operate in different kinds of groups and they have different kinds of
pressures bring brought on them today. But it’s not new. It’s not new. I
mean there were pressures in my lifetime that were new, that were new. So
MTV is television but there were different pressures that were brought on us
that were pressures that were not brought on our parents. And when kids
think that they’re dealing with something new, it’s not new. It’s just
outside pressures that they have to deal with and they have to come to
understand how to put those things aside and to continue on with what their
responsibilities are, which is to go to school to learn and to prepare
themselves to go to the next stage of life.
BROOKE: Thank you.
DANIELLE: Do you think now that there are as many black leaders as there
were back when the desegregation process was going on?
MR. JOHNSON: No. There are more now than there were then but the paradox
could be: although there were fewer leaders then, that people listened to
leaders more than they do now. Because people have so much information
coming at them now that they feel that they are as much of a leader
themselves as men and women were back then. Because what made people leaders
were that they had information and they were using that information. A lot
of people have information today but they don’t use it, they just store it.
And when they don’t store it they just chuck it away. So, although there are
more people with information, they don’t use it. I mean, we didn’t have
computers. We didn’t have access to any computers. I mean, if you want to
know about the Champaign schools, you can look it up on eBay. You know, you
couldn’t do that then. You want to know about the University of Illinois –
go to their website. There was no website then. You know there could have
been but we didn’t know anything about it. So there are great advantages
today to help kids learn and to be better citizens than we had. In fact, it
was harder for us to be citizens when I grew up – much harder then than it
is for you. Even despite the fact that you’ve got all these different things
coming at you – than we had. The question is: how do you deal with them?
Because we didn’t have access to all the things that you have to help you,
see. But a lot of kids don’t recognize that these things are here to help
them. So as a result of it they don’t use them and kids who do use them
don’t necessarily share with other kids that they’re usable, which is why
when you go to a University 90% of the way that you must communicate is
through what? That’s a question. Through computers.
DANIELLE: Yeah, like email and stuff.
MR. JOHNSON: Yes, through computers. Everything now is totally used through
computers. It’s totally used through computers, everything. And the reason –
and even schools who are helping kids understand and use computers. And
that’s why there are now computers in public places. So for you to
understand that that’s the tool of tomorrow. That is the tool of tomorrow.
Well there was not that tool. I mean, and it’s taken me 45 years to be John
Lee Johnson. You can be John Lee Johnson in three years. And you’re frowning
at “How can you be John Lee Johnson in three years?” Very simply. Everything
that I have learned is right in there. It took me 45 years to learn it – you
can learn it in less than three years just by accessing it. I spent my whole
life trying to understand urban renewal and understand the politics of our
national government related to the redevelopment of neighborhoods – just
right on that machine right there you can find it.
DANIELLE: Who says it’s going to take me three years?
MR. JOHNSON: Well I know a whole lot. That’s only one aspect of what I know.
But what I’m saying to you – you can learn what I know – that took me 45
years – you can learn it in three years.
DANIELLE: Ok.
MR. JOHNSON: That’s a heck of a difference in a span of time.
DANIELLE: Do you think that people learned better back then when they didn’t
have computers or now when they do?
MR. JOHNSON: I think it has to do with the motivation and it has to do with
who you’re with and who you’re around. I really didn’t start learning until
I met a schoolteacher in Urbana – a retired white schoolteacher who had
retired and came back to teach and who had graded one of my test in
contemporary history. And when the class let out she said, “John, can I talk
to you?” And she showed me my test with all these red marks on it. And she
said, “John, look at your test.” And she said, “This is not good John. You
only have a little time left in school and you’re going to have to work very
hard to catch up,” because there was that gap between me and the other kids.
And I never forgot that and that served as an engine that drove me from the
day I left Mrs. Lawson’s class and even until today. So you really never
know what’s going to stimulate a kid. You know, it could be stimulated by
computers, it could be stimulated by television, it could be stimulated by
books, it could be stimulated just by the friends that they know, it could
be stimulated by a movie, it could be stimulated by anything that could
serve to wake you up and knock you on your hard head that, “Hey, I’ve wasted
a lot of time in school and I don’t have but a little time left and I better
get busy because everybody’s going to leave me behind.” But we talked about
that kind of stuff as kids. A lot of kids today don’t talk about that. They
don’t get on each other about the books that they’re carrying up and down
the hallways. We used to always look at each other’s books because the books
told you what they were doing. I mean, you know, if you don’t see
trigonometry, if you don’t see chemistry – that tells you that these kids
are going out the door backwards. You know, then how in the world are they
going to a four-year institution if there’s no foreign language? How you
gonna go into an institution if you only have practical math? Who’s going to
hire you? Where are these jobs at? The jobs are not out there. And then you
go out and you have a baby – who’s going to help you take care of the baby?
You go out there – man or – boy or girl. Who’s going to help you pay for the
baby, who’s going to help you raise the baby? So no one is talking about
this kind of stuff. What kids are talking about too much of is being cool.
Kids are talking about how not to assume the responsibility and too many
kids that are good kids are being shonked(?) out of being good by their
peers who are telling them, “Girl, you just think you’re so smart cause you
think you got them books – you think you trying to be somebody.” And they
don’t want to be outside of their peers. And they want to be well liked. You
know? What does well liked have to do with who’s going to buy your home? You
know? Who’s going to send your children to college? Nobody. Nobody. You all
going to live in public housing together because you all liked each other?
The answer to that is no. That’s not the solution. So the place that you get
that foundation is in school and if in fact you’re five years behind, how do
you catch up? How do you catch up? It’s not rocket science. It’s not rocket
science. I tell you what you and your friend do. One day – one Saturday – go
out to the university and go to the union building. You know where the union
building is? Ok. And go downstairs or go out on the quad on a nice summer
day. And what you will find are groups of kids in groups studying together.
And what they’re doing is helping each other learn. And so you find kids who
are strong in something and weak in something else and you bring the
strengths and the weaknesses together. You know, like you may be able to sew
well but I can cook. So if you sew this button on for me, I’ll make you a
pie. If you can do algebra better than I can, I’ll come over and you’ll help
me figure out the algebra problems and I’ll help you write your paper – that
kind of thing. Well that kind of partnershiping is not going on and the
reason that everybody else is accelerating quicker in their learning process
than African American children is because we don’t bridge one another.
DANIELLE: Some African Americans.
MR. JOHNSON: Well some African American children – well you know – I tell
you. If there’s 80 – if there’s 100 kids – and only ten of those kids are
succeeding and 90 of them are not, that is a number that ought to scare the
heck out of you. That ought to scare the heck out of you. That for every 100
kids at your middle school only 10 are meeting district’s average. That
tells you that when you become my age there won’t be anybody looking like
you and me in leadership positions. There will not be, there will not be.
And either you’re going to sit back and allow those kids to destroy
themselves because they’re taking other avenues, because you know, they
can’t do it so they might as well make fun, have a good time, do things that
really don’t make any sense. You know, bring attention to themselves because
they cant stand up and raise their hand and answer the question, they can’t
go to the blackboard and solve the problem, they cant go and do the research
on the paper…so you know, they’ll do the booty call, they’ll do something
that’s cute. Instead of we serving as a family trying to say, “That ain’t
going to get it,” I mean – these are things that fundamentally we have to do
to achieve. Because achieving is not easy. If it was easy we would all be
Einsteins. You know? If God would have wanted you and me to come here as
geniuses we would have come out of our mothers’ wombs as such. It’s an
evolutionary process that we have to learn and it’s not easy. But one of the
things that we know – that the brain is almost as wide and as deep as the
universe. It as an unbelievable computer storing information and figuring
out problems and that there is no problem that the human brain cannot
master. So the trigonometry book, the chemistry book – the brain can master
it because it took a brain to develop it. We just have to convince ourselves
of that and we just have to convince each other of that. So when you go down
your halls – hallways tomorrow, just look at what the kids are carrying in
their hands. That tells you. Look at how the boys are dressed and that tells
you where their minds are. You know and go over to the family information
center one day with your mom and ask for a report card on your building and
ask for an achievement card and look at that achievement card by race – and
go and ask for it about the district. I think the district could be online –
look it up. I mean, that’s what this is for. If I gave you a problem and
you’re not sure of that problem or my answer - go look it up and then call
me back and say, “Ah hah! Mr. Johnson, that was not right.” Or if I’m right,
you need to stand up in front of your mom and say, “Let’s go to church
because I want to stand up after the sermon and say to the pastor, ‘Do you
know that 80% of the kids at Jefferson school who are black cannot read at
the district’s level, cannot meet the state level, cannot meet the national
level and do you know what the implications of that is to our race of
people? Do you understand that? And that the issue is that we’re not
preparing our kids – what can we do about that? What strategy should we have
at home? What should we be doing in our churches? What should we be doing in
our community? Where should our emphasis be?’” Or if not, this gap is going
to grow so far that we are virtually going to become an illiterate race of
people in the most industrialized nation in the world. We won’t be able to
use technology, we won’t be able to communicate, we won’t be able to find
employment because we would not have the basic skills that are necessary to
survive. That’s what this is about. This isn’t just about you doing a school
project. This is about training you to survive and training you to be a
better American because somewhere over in Korea – south and north –
somewhere in China, somewhere in Indian, somewhere in Western Europe,
Eastern Europe, there are little girls like the two of you who are busting
their behinds to try and learn everything that they possibly can so when
those few jobs are available on the world’s market, they got them – you
don’t. When that great company is asking for the new engineer to figure out
that new project, they can figure it out – you can’t. And when they’re
deciding where to put that factory because they need they need the highest
intelligence and skill level people to do that job, they’ll build it in
their city and not yours. And you’ll be sitting here wondering – “Why don’t
we have a job? Why can’t we buy a new car? Why can’t we do all of that?” And
if you stand back and trace all of that problem, it’s with our education.
It’s with all of that. Now, the good thing about what I’m saying is that
this is all factual evidence. I mean, you go back 30 years or 40 years ago
and we were arguing deseg issues, this was just from the gut. We now have
facts that this is indeed the case. Look at the Mitsubishi plan in Normal,
Illinois where Mitsubishi selected certain employees to work for them. And
if you didn’t have certain Iqs, certain curriculums in high school you did
not go to work for them. And that’s applying today. So kids that are walking
away from their math, walking away from their science, walking away from
their literature courses, walking away from technology courses – who will
employ them? They won’t even be able to work at McDonalds because everything
there is becoming computerized. So how are you going to work? You can’t. And
this message is not being brought home. Hopefully, they hear this tape.
What’s the next question?
DANIELLE: Ok. After you sued the Unit 4 school district what kind of changes
occurred?
MR. JOHNSON: Very little. There were changes that occurred. We got the court
to overlook the school district, which it is now, we have a monitor who
serves the court in auditing what the schools are doing or not doing and
reporting that to the court, we have a policy implementation committee
that’s made up of citizens, school officials, and a university professor of
education who helps in interpreting and setting policies and guidelines for
the schools towards the <inaudible>. But I – you know – I’m looking at it as
– how many kids are actually improving in their learning? How many kids are
not being dumped into special education? How many kids are not being put
into alternate education? How many kids are being sent to upper level
courses? Those numbers are not changing. We’re into 2½ years and those
numbers have not changed. In fact, the numbers can be even a little worse
than they were before 1997. And that’s because you asked the question
earlier – did anybody ask the white community if they really wanted to do –
desegregate their schools – because maybe they didn’t. Well its like asking
– did anyone ever ask the teachers did they really want to assure equity for
black kids in the Champaign schools because they didn’t want the courts to
mandate this on them. Clearly they did not. And they’re taking the attitude
that despite the fact that we may have went to court and that we may have
gotten a no contest position by them, they’re not going to do it. They’re
not going to do it. We’re not going to move your kids to upper level
classes, we’re not going to stop dumping them into special education, we’re
going to keep on doing business as we were doing it, there ain’t nothing you
can do about it, John Lee. Why do you smile? I take that to be their
attitude. Now why would I say that? If you would look the racial climate
study that was done by professor Abare(?) here at the University of Illinois
at the request of the federal government, their attitudes are as I just
described them. You’re not going to make us do anything.
KIMBERLIE: I have to get you to Savoy by six? Do we have one more question?
Alright. Pick your best last question.
MR. JOHNSON: Uh, ok. Is it the questions that are long or my answers?
KIMBERLIE: <laughs> I think it’s your answers!
DANIELLE: Ok, why do you think that the percentage of black kids in honors
classes is very low?
MR. JOHNSON: I think for all the reasons that I gave – poor preparation and
in fact that there’s a gate kept at the door of the honors classes by
teachers, philosophies of school administrators, and the positions of the
schools themselves. It’s like saying that despite all the things that have
been done to black kids, by us, that they are still achieving at a level
that they’re equal to our honor students. And by saying that they’re not
honor caliber students, were saying that we were right, that inherently
these kids are less achievers than our kids. Now, that’s the evilness that
can be imbedded in race and the learning philosophy of a community that all
children must learn because the survival of a nation depends upon their
learning has not risen to the top. There is a fundamental attitude by too
many people who teach in the Champaign schools that race has all to do with
who’s going to be successful and if you are not of the right race, then you
are not going to be successful in the Champaign schools…and all these other
issues – let other people figure that out. You know what I mean? Let other
people figure out what’s going to be the next generation of atomic bombs,
the next generation of nuclear missiles and all that kind of stuff – I ain’t
dealing with that, I’m only dealing with the children who are in front me
and you better believe the children who come from southwest Champaign are
going to get to the kids who are going to go to Harvard and the kids who
look – who are black are not going to Harvard – not out of my school. Now
that sounds a little cruel, but when you go back and you look at all these
numbers, and you try to figure out an explanation for these numbers, there
is no explanation because if you go back and compare the numbers to the
schools’ budget, the schools is not putting money into what other
explanations could be in the budget. And if I’m right that it’s preparation,
then why are we not spending more money to help these kids – families
prepare them for schools. We’re not spending money doing that. We’re not
spending money. Why is it that you can’t find – you don’t find – or there
are very few black kids that are in jazz bands? And jazz was a music created
by black people. Why is that? Because they require you to buy instruments
and most black families cannot afford the instruments so hence their
children don’t play those instruments and the illusion is that jazz is a
music that was created by somebody other than children of color. Why is it
that you don’t find black kids in the band but they’re out there on the
football field? Cause you gotta have an instrument. So this is a public
education system – why aren’t those instruments not given to them to use for
the time that they’re using them? Because they know that you can segregate
with money. If you want to have a housing policy that anybody can live in it
– if you build houses that are so expensive you exclude people. If you want
to have a program that costs money, the people that cannot afford it are
immediately excluded from it. So when you got open programs and you don’t
have to pay then anybody can come. The way that you exclude people is that
you charge fees – you charge them fees. And that’s what we see in our own
schools, that’s what’s going on right here today, that’s what goes on across
our nation.
KIMBERLIE: I’m going to ask a question that Tiarra had – she was listening
on headphones – she wanted me to ask you to tell them what the People’s
Poverty Board was.
MR. JOHNSON: The People’s Poverty Board was a reaction to issues of poverty
here in Champaign-Urbana – Champaign County. It consisted of Roy Williams,
John Lee Johnson and Peter Rasmussen. Uh, we worked to create the Black
Student Association at the University of Illinois, we wrote the first black
newspaper – maybe not the first black newspaper but we wrote a newspaper
called ‘Spectrum,’ I wrote a poem to excite black kids called “The Fighting
Black Illini,” we dealt with school desegregation, urban renewal programs,
other issues – the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana schools, we ran
candidates for the Urbana School Board, the Champaign School Board,
Champaign City Council – things like that. We operated it for maybe 10
years.
KIMBERLIE: Ok, you had a question?
DANIELLE: I already asked it.
BROOKE: Um, one last thing – um…who else do you suggest that we interview?
Like that had an impact during desegregation.
MR. JOHNSON: Well you should interview Roy Williams if you can find him. He
is available – I think that he’s in the telephone book.
KIMBERLIE: Yeah, he um, I scared him away. He said no.
MR. JOHNSON: Ok. Uh, there’s a Evelyn Underwood, who is the wife of King
James Underwood. So they’re in the phone book – Evelyn and King James
Underwood. Who else? I assume you’ve interviewed Mrs. Bridgewater…there’s a
David Sessions who was a part of the CCQE.
KIMBERLIE: Is he still around?
MR. JOHNSON: Yes, he’s still alive.
KIMBERLIE: Oh, good. Ok.
MR. JOHNSON: Uh, he was there – there is a – I’m trying to think of the lady
who was the principal of Washington Elementary School after D.U. Westley(?)…
KIMBERLIE: Oh, Hester Suggs?
MR. JOHNSON: Yes.
KIMBERLIE: Oh, yes, they’ve interviewed her.
MR. JOHNSON: Ok. Uh…there is Mrs. Stratton – Mr. Stratton is not alive but
Mrs. Stratton is alive and who may recall some of these events. I think she
still works for the University or she’s just retired from the university.
Um, who else? Uh – that’s uh…
KIMBERLIE: What is Mrs. Stratton’s first name?
MR. JOHNSON: I don’t know.
KIMBERLIE: We’ll find out.
MR. JOHNSON: Right. I never called her by her first name. Uh, so there’s
those people. They’re still here. You know. But you are talking about
something that occurred almost four decades ago. You know. See, and Vern is
not around but his wife is. She’s retired from Parkland and she still lives
here.
KIMBERLIE: Yeah, I scared her too. She said no. Uh…having some bad luck
here. Getting good yeses but yeah, she said no to me so-
MR. JOHNSON: Well, I mean – you know, her husband was involved in it – not
her-
KIMBERLIE: Yeah, I know, I know.
MR. JOHNSON: So, what she understands about it might be limited-
KIMBERLIE: Could be.
MR. JOHNSON: But she was around then. Uh, I’m trying to think of some of the
administers who were leaders – are they still alive…um – then of course Mrs.
Pope is not here anymore – Mr. Pope is gone but she’s moved away from uh –
she’s with her son. I think they’re in Chicago or Springfield…um – off hand
those are the only people that come to mind. But when you’re talking about
the Plain Truth there was only Roy Williams, myself, and Peter Rasmussen. We
were the people that made the People’s Poverty Board. Then there was the
Concerned Citizens Committee but most of those people don’t live here
anymore and some of them are gone.
KIMBERLIE: David Session is - was in that.
MR. JOHNSON: But David Session was in the CCQE - not the Concerned Citizens
Committee…see…David was one of the chief persons – his wife was a member of
the Board of – she taught school in the Champaign schools…see.
KIMBERLIE: He was on the same committee that Mr. Barkstall was on?
MR. JOHNSON: He was on that committee – yes.
KIMBERLIE: Oh, ok.
MR. JOHNSON: Uh…so that’s about that, you guys.
END
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