Viewing page 33 of 100

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

WEEKSVILLE                BANKS

believe that the people in every locality are the best judges of what they want or desire."21

Though it is obvious that Weeksville has seen this device at work before it is just as obvious that the Board had the power to exploit while the community's only defense was to expose the exploitation. Nonetheless the community took every opportunity to use this weapon. In the same meeting it was also noted that,

"The leader of this movement against colored schools, was introduced into our neighborhood some few years past. . . . He visited Colored School No. 2, examined a class or two . . . wrote his name and title in the visitor's book, with the following appended; 'Was highly gratified.' Some time after this visit, a vacancy occurred . . . by the resignation of a teacher. The . . . Local Committee. . . appointed a white teacher. . . . This appointment was denounced by the leader in this movement and others. . . . The very consistent gentleman who now leads the opposition to colored schools, was then the most ardent . . . advocate of colored schools and colored teachers. . . . But a great change has come over this gentleman, which leads me to believe that if he could be appointed Superintendent of colored schools in this city, the odiousness of the pre-fix colored would in a short time be annihilated, and the gentleman be 'highly gratified' again."22

The Board, as an arm of a racist institution, exercised its "right" to define the residents of Weeksville as a people and to assess their educational needs in light of that definition. The Board-community confrontations made it rather clear that the Board viewed Blacks as easily exploited, inferior intellectually and at best, a negative reflection of white excellence. Each confrontation 
was an assertion of this racist logic.

quality education lost in "crisis"
The apparent divisiveness in intra-community relations seems to stem from differing viewpoints as to the means of achieving the same goals and our own brand of an "identity crisis". In 1869 and again in 1873 the goal uppermost in the collective mind of the community seemed to be quality education. This goal was lost in the conflict

21 Ibid.
22 Ibid.
                                       
295

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-20 01:41:11