I went to Dunbar High School, recognized as the best high school of the segregated era. The education enabled students from Dunbar to attend the best colleges and universities in the country.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I was bused to a school in Gerritsen Beach in Brooklyn in 1972. I was one of the first black kids in the history of the school.
I didn't mind being in a school with a small African-American population. The African-American-community was very tight, and that was great. But I also wanted to interact with other types of folks.
I attended schools in Seattle through the University of Washington, from which I was graduated in 1931. I spent the next year at Northwestern University.
At this point I was strongly advised that I was too young socially to go to college so I took a second senior year at Andover, another boarding school.
I went to Midwood High School in Brooklyn and then to Brooklyn college for 1 1/2 years.
The school I went to was a little farm school in Wannaska, student body 61 or something. There was a kid, the only black kid in our county, Dustin Byfuglien. He won the Stanley Cup a couple years back with the Blackhawks. Out of a class of 21 kids, he and I always had to be on opposite teams on everything because we were the most athletic.
I went to graduate school at Harvard for one year I worked in the state legislature in Sacramento for one year. I taught school in Compton for two years.
I went to a segregated school; I was born a Negro, not a black man.
In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me.
I went to Holland Christian High School in Holland, Michigan, and to Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.