Re: Black School shut down: Is this accidental? (fwd)

  Don't you find it ironic someone going to a large, publicly funded state
university system would be nostalgic for a one-room schoolhouse? Instead of
seeing racism at work, automatically, how about considering economies of
scale?
  And the, "Is this accidental?, " reminds me of the old Stalinists
prefacing some diatribe with, "It's no accident that..."
    I don't underestimate the amount of racism in South Carolina, they have
a very strong neo-Confederate movement, as witness the Council of
Conservative Citizens, League of the South and other yahoo groups, but as
the fight against the Con flag showed, Blacks and their allies in South
Carolina have a bit of power too. If this was truly racist, I betcha there
would be protests.
                                               Michael Pugliese

----- Original Message -----
From: <md7148@cnsvax.albany.edu>
To: <pen-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu>; <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 02, 2000 10:00 PM
Subject: Black School shut down: Is this accidental? (fwd)


>
>
> http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/06/02/one.room.schoolhouse.ap/index.html
>
> Miss Ruby's one-room school in South
>                   Carolina closes after almost a century
>
>                   June 2, 2000
>                   Web posted at: 1:57 p.m. EDT (1757 GMT)
>
>                   PAWLEYS ISLAND, South Carolina
>                   (AP) -- After Friday, young girls and
>                   boys will no longer come to Miss
>                   Ruby's School for classes.
>
>                   The one-room schoolhouse, where
>                   generations of black children have been
>                   educated, will shut its doors
>                   permanently as a result of budget and
>                   maintenance problems. The 35 students
>                   in preschool through fourth grade will
>                   be sent to other schools.
>
>                   "Everything must come to an end," said Bertha Smith, a
> graduate who became
>                   one of two volunteer teachers at the school. "It's
> done a lot for me and for the
>                   people in the community. Miss Ruby especially -- she
> taught me and I consider
>                   her to be my mentor."
>
>                   For 53 years, until her death in 1992, Ruby Middleton
> Forsythe was
>                   headmistress of Holy Cross-Faith Memorial School, as
> it is formally called.
>                   Founded in 1903 by the Episcopal Church, the school
> moved to its current
>                   gray-blue clapboard building in 1932. At the turn of
> the century, the church ran
>                   19 day schools for black South Carolinians.
>
>                                                "I really don't think the
> community
>                                                realizes what it is
> losing," said Carolyn
>                                                Wallace, who graduated
> from the school
>                                                in 1951 and became
> headmistress after
>                                                Miss Ruby's death.
>
>                                                In the 1980s, Newsweek
> magazine
>                                                named Miss Ruby an
> American hero.
>                                                She had taught
> generations of students
>                                                in as many as 11 grades
> at the school,
>                                                which is sheltered under
> oaks off a busy
>                                                highway about 25 miles
> southwest of
>                                                Myrtle Beach.
>
>                   "Small girls, small boys, come into Miss Ruby's
> school," the children would sing.
>                   "Small girls, small boys, come to learn the golden
> rule."
>
>                   Miss Ruby's philosophy was not to charge tuition. In
> recent years, students have
>                   paid a modest fee, perhaps a few hundred dollars per
> year, based on their
>                   parents' ability to pay. That meant the school had to
> raise about $30,000 a year
>                   from donations, bake sales and similar fund-raisers.
> Wallace is the only paid
>                   employee.
>
>                   "My reaction is bittersweet, recognizing
>                   time is progress and that we have had
>                   here for 97 years a successful
>                   institution," said Norman Deas, a 1950
>                   graduate who volunteered to teach after
>                   retiring from a federal job.
>
>                   "I'm getting more than I'm giving," he
>                   said. "These young people are really
>                   amazing. It's hard to cut loose from
>                   them once you're attached to them."
>
>                   Nine-year-old Lavern Dozier, sad at
>                   being one of the last graduates, said he
>                   enjoyed helping the younger students at their desks
> across the room.
>
>                   "I helped them write their ABCs correctly and I helped
> them with their numbers,"
>                   he said.
>
>                   In 1997 there were about 1,600 one-room schools
> nationwide. That probably has
>                   not changed much as public schools close and some
> religious and private
>                   schools open, said Mark Dewlap, an education professor
> at Winthrop University
>                   and an expert on one-room schoolhouses.
>
>                   Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. All rights
> reserved. This material may
>                           not be published, broadcast,
>
> --
>
> Mine Aysen Doyran
> PhD Student
> Department of Political Science
> SUNY at Albany
> Nelson A. Rockefeller College
> 135 Western Ave.; Milne 102
> Albany, NY 12222
>
>
> _____________________________________________
> NetZero - Defenders of the Free World
> Click here for FREE Internet Access and Email
> http://www.netzero.net/download/index.html
>