Education As My Agenda: Gertrude Williams, Race, and the Baltimore Public Schools (Palgrave Studies in Oral History)

324 Pages·2005·1.26 MB·English

by  Jo Ann Robinson

01_Ooiman_fm.qxd 23/7/05 9:12 PM Page i
Education as
My Agenda
01_Ooiman_fm.qxd 23/7/05 9:12 PM Page ii
Palgrave Studies in Oral History
Series Editors: Linda Shopes and Bruce M. Stave
Sticking to the Union: An Oral History of the Life and Times of Julia Ruuttila, by Sandy Polishuk;
Foreword by Amy Kesselman (2003)
To Wear the Dust of War: An Oral History, by Samuel Iwry, edited by Leslie J.H. Kelley (2004)
Education as My Agenda: Gertrude Williams, Race, and the Baltimore Public Schools, by Jo Ann
OoimanRobinson (2005)
Remembering: Oral History Performance, edited by Della Pollock (2005)
Postmemories of Terror: A New Generation Copes with the Legacy of the“Dirty War,” by Susana
Kaiser (forthcoming)
Growing Up in The People’s Republic: Conversations between Two Daughters of China’s Revolution,
by Weili Ye and Ma Xiadong (forthcoming)
Creating Choice: A Community Responds to the Need for Abortion and Birth Control, 1961–1973,
by David P. Cline (forthcoming)
Life and Death in the Delta: African American Narratives of Violence, Resilience, and Social
Change, by Kim Lacy Rogers (forthcoming)
Voices from This Long Brown Land: Oral Recollection of Owens Valley Lives and Manzanar Pasts,
by Jane Wehrey (forthcoming)
Inthe Wake of Kent State: Campus Rhetoric and Protest at the University of Nevada, by Brad
Lucas (forthcoming)
Sisters in the Brotherhoods: Organizing for Equality, by Jane Latour (forthcoming)
01_Ooiman_fm.qxd 23/7/05 9:12 PM Page iii
Education as
My Agenda
Gertrude Williams, Race, and the
Baltimore Public Schools
Gertrude S. Williams
with
Jo Ann Ooiman Robinson
01_Ooiman_fm.qxd 25/7/05 11:09 AM Page iv
EDUCATIONASMYAGENDA
© Gertrude S. Williams and Jo Ann Ooiman Robinson, 2005.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published in 2005 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS
Companies and representatives throughout the world.
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave
Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.
Macmillan®is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom
and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European
Union and other countries.
ISBN 0–312–29542–1
ISBN 0–312–29543–X
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Williams, Gertrude S., 1927–
Education as my agenda : Gertrude Williams, race, and the Baltimore
Public Schools / Gertrude S. Williams with Jo Ann Ooiman Robinson.
p. cm.—(Palgrave studies in oral history)
ISBN 0–312–29542–1 (alk. paper)
ISBN 0–312–29543–X (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Williams, Gertrude S., 1927–. 2. School principals—United States—
Biography. 3. African American school principals—Biography. 4. Public
schools—Maryland—Baltimore—History—20th century. 5. United
States— Race relations—History—20th century—Sources. I. Robinson,
Jo Ann, 1942–. II. Title. III. Series.
LA2317.W5132A3 2005
371(cid:2).01(cid:2)09752(cid:2)6—dc22 2005047619
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: October 2005
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America.
01_Ooiman_fm.qxd 23/7/05 9:12 PM Page v
This book is dedicated to the memory of
Mamie Wallace Williams
and her faith in education as the key to freedom
This page intentionally left blank
01_Ooiman_fm.qxd 23/7/05 9:12 PM Page vii
Contents
Series Editors’ Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
ONE
Beginnings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . 11
TWO
Teacher Training at Cheyney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . 37
THREE
Teacher at Charles Carroll of Carrollton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
FOUR
Counselor at Mordecai Gist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
FIVE
Becoming Principal at Barclay School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
SIX
Principal at Barclay, Part One: “Barclay is Everybody’s Business” . . . . . 99
SEVEN
Principal at Barclay, Part Two: “To Learn as Fast as They Can
and as Slow as They Must” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 127
EIGHT
Principal at Barclay, Part Three: “We Did Not Want a Poor Man’s
Curriculum” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
NINE
Principal at Barclay, Part Four: In the Spotlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
01_Ooiman_fm.qxd 26/7/05 3:45 PM Page viii
viii / Contents
TEN
Retirement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
01_Ooiman_fm.qxd 23/7/05 9:12 PM Page ix
Series Editors’ Foreword
Oral historians enjoy a particular relationship with the subjects of our inquiry. Like
all historians, we investigate topics that interest us. But in addition, we frequently
interview people we admire, people whose personal histories we believe deserve wider
recognition and whom we want to represent well to others. Moreover, the intimacy
that often develops in an interview can serve to heighten our regard for the narrator,
as we come to a fuller appreciation of the complex human being with whom we are
speaking. Yet the positive relationship we have with narrators has its drawbacks too:
it can inhibit critical inquiry, prevent us from asking the hard questions, and lead us
to represent interviewees as heroes rather than historical actors.
Jo Ann Ooiman Robinson’s oral biography of African American educator
Gertrude Williams is notable, therefore, for the skill with which it has negotiated the
Scylla of admiration and Charybdis of historical inquiry. This balancing act is all the
more remarkable because Robinson herself is an actor in Williams’s story, which
embraces much of the history of public schooling in Baltimore during the last half
century. She played a leadership role in parent organizations at Baltimore’s Barclay
School during Williams’s tenure as principal and joined her in numerous struggles to
improve the quality of education at the school. Yet with the discipline and dispassion
of the historian, Robinson has prodded Williams to give a full historical account,
pointed out those (few) places where this account differs from the extant record, and
provided informed context for Williams’s narrative.
Of course, it is not just Robinson’s skill as a historian that accounts for the
sophistication and depth of Education as My Agenda. Gertrude Williams herself is an
articulate and self-assured narrator, a woman with a sharp memory, firm point of
view, and keen awareness of the historical significance of her story. She began her
career in 1949 as a third grade teacher in Baltimore’s segregated school system and
retired in 1998 as principal of an integrated elementary and middle school. During
those 49 years, she was both witness to and participant in the enormous changes,
many of them racially inflected, convulsing urban education during the latter half of
the twentieth century. Coming of age at a time when teachers enjoyed the highest
regard in the African American community, Williams retained a profound sense of
vocation throughout her career, rooted in a passionate belief in every child’s right to
an excellent public education. During the latter half of her career especially, this belief
led her to become an education activist in Baltimore City: she advanced innovative