Brown v. Board of Education through the eyes of DA alumna Valerie Kennedy Miller ’81 O N A MID - M AY A F T ER N O O N, T HE F O L LOW I N G E M A IL P O PPED I N TO HE A D O F S CH O O L MICH A EL U L K U - S T EI N ER’ S I N B OX . I T B RO U G H T T E A R S TO HI S E Y E S A N D A L L K I N D S O F ID E A S TO MI N D F O R HEL PI N G DA’ S S T U D E N T S , T E ACHER S A N D PA R E N T S K N OW M O R E A B O U T T HE G I A N T S O N W H O SE SH O U L D ER S T HE S CH O O L C U R R E N T LY S TA N D S .
D
ear Mr. Ulku-Steiner: I am writing you today as a proud alum of DA, who has been inspired to contact you by an important historic milestone. Tomorrow, May 17, marks the 60th anniversary of the landmark United States Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education. The decision rendered in this case changed history, most notably, by shifting the plates of American public policy on the matter of segregation and access to quality public education. But there is an interesting postscript to the Brown decision that is particularly relevant to the history of Durham Academy and its legacy of inclusion. Following the Brown decision, many communities throughout the South began private elementary and secondary school institutions that exclusively targeted white students. This trend reached its zenith in the aftermath of public school integration measures in the early 70s, but began at least 10 years earlier in the late 50s and early 60s. The Calvert Method School, Durham Academy’s predecessor, was not an outgrowth of this trend. From its beginning in 1933, the Calvert Method School sought to distinguish itself on the merits of its pedagogy, rather than as a philosophical rejection of the Brown decision. Yet, as it evolved into Durham Academy in 1959 and moved to a new campus in 1965, it was inextricably linked to the firmament in which private education in the South was being shaped and perceived. In 1969, a group of African-American parents, including my own, Ruth and Preston Kennedy, wrote a letter to headmaster Robert Johnston, alerting him of their intent to enroll their children at Durham Academy and seeking assurances from him that the school would be receptive to the enrollment of “colored” children. The response was a resoundingly enthusiastic “yes.” That summer, a little “colored” girl of kindergarten age took a tour of Durham Academy’s campus on Academy Road 14
with Mrs. Margaret Woods and Mrs. Nancy Brown — true legends for DA alums of a certain age. That “colored” girl was me and in the fall, I enrolled at Durham Academy in the kindergarten class of Mrs. Charlotte Johnson. Family friend Vincent Quiett also enrolled and was assigned as the other AfricanAmerican student in Mrs. Johnson’s class. Whatever apprehensions my parents had were immediately erased in the warm, inviting smile of Mrs. Johnson on my first day. Mrs. Johnson, who always dressed in fashionable sheath dresses, usually in pink, treated me with so much daily love and warmth that my mother feared I was getting “spoiled” by her. Vincent and I were not alone. There were other African-American kindergarten students at Durham Academy that fall, who were
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: • First-grade teacher Annie B. Mann • Robert Singdahlsen taught in Upper School • Bob Johnston was headmaster 1969-1977 • Margaret Woods taught in Lower School and became LS director
assigned to other kindergarten homerooms headed by Mrs. Amelia Thompson and Mrs. Nancy Brown. Those students included Durham Academy Distinguished alum Mark Sanders, now a professor at Emory, Brandy Collins, an elementary school teacher, Tommy Stith, a local businessman who is now chief of staff to Governor Pat McCrory, Nathan
DURHAM ACADEMY RECORD | SUMMER 2014 | WWW.DA.ORG
Garrett, Jr., whose father was a prominent accountant, and Billy Bell, a probation supervisor in Charlotte, whose father is Durham’s current mayor. Our parents were primarily either faculty or administrators at North Carolina Central University, then NCC (North Carolina College), executives at North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company,