VP Kamala Harris in an early debate with President Biden referred to being part of the second class of children integrating public schools by being bussed every day in Berkeley, CA, That little girl was me, she said. Harris is in the center of the picture leaning forward.
Tilden68
Author is 2nd row, 2nd from left.
In the spring of 1968, Martin Luther King was murdered.
While some of the nation mourned and others rioted, a group of 5 year olds began kindergarten that fall in Berkeley, California.
I was one of them.
Berkeley was the first city of its size (over 100,000) to voluntarily integrate elementary schools by two-way busing. This was an attempt to try once again to desegregate American education. It had failed disastrously after Brown vs Board of Education made it the law in 1954.
The idealistic, progressive town believed maybe this would finally bring about King’s dream of a beloved community.
After that summer, the Civil Rights Movement splintered. Many activists moved their energies to the Vietnam war protests; others joined the compelling Black Power Movement. These children lived in the shadow of that change from which emerged the creation of the first African American Studies Department at UC Berkeley. They saw a trickle and then stream of an afro-centric curriculum in their primary, middle and high schools.
They are now almost 60.
This project will take a deep dive into the impact of this unique experiment on their attitudes towards race, life choices and psychological development.
It will ask questions including:
● How did parents, teachers or others talk to them about the historic moment they were embarking on
● What was the racial climate like at school
● How racially mixed has their adult life been
● How have they been affected by this early experience and how did it form them
Before Martin Luther King was shot, he said that his hope had grown dim, as had many of his dreams of racial equality. But when he learned about the Berkeley integration plan slated for September 1968, he wrote
Hope returned to my soul and spirit.