Clipboard Stories

CLASS OF 1974 BADGE OF HONOR

The First 4-Year Integrated Class to Graduate from Nacogdoches High School

 

Our Badge of Honor story began in 1954, 2-years before most of us were born, when the US Supreme Court decided the Brown v. Board of Education (1) case, concluding that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional and overruling the 1896 Supreme Court decision that established the mythical “separate but equal schools” doctrine. In the Brown v Board (2) decision in 1955, the same justices handed down a plan that required desegregation in public schools to proceed “with all deliberate speed”. It was not speedy, with Nacogdoches and many other east Texas schools being among the last in the nation to integrate.

 

While we attended segregated 3rd through 8th grades from 1965 through May 1970, NISD offered a “Freedom of Choice” integration plan that allowed black students to voluntarily attend white schools, and vice versa. The 1967 NHS “Book N” yearbook includes 2 black students (0.3%) and 784 white students (99.7%) – clearly, freedom of choice was not working at NHS. The US Supreme Court heard 3 different freedom of choice cases in 1968 and determined that all 3 were insufficient under the law to achieve desegregation. These court decisions created even stronger opposition to integration, especially where a freedom of choice plan was being offered with the unrealistic hope that desegregation could be locally managed, minimized, or avoided altogether.

 

In March 1970 the US District Court in Marshall filed United States of America v. State of Texas. The action charged that a majority of Texas schools denied equal education opportunities to black students in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. On June 23, Governor Preston Smith’s Committee on Human Relations voted 30 to 4 in favor of recommending to the 1971 legislative session, that desegregation be enforced by withholding funds from schools that had not yet integrated (Texas lawmakers were not in session during 1970, convening only in odd years). This threat was more serious than the loss of federal funds, since state funds represent the majority of government dollars going to public schools.

 

During our summer break between the 8th and 9th grades, east Texas became more chaotic and violent. On July 3, the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare announced it would cease funding Nacogdoches County schools because their desegregation plans did not meet requirements. The president of the Nacogdoches School Board smugly responded the loss would have little effect since NISD received only about 5% of their funding from Washington. On July 4, two white supremacists named Fred L. Hayes and Kenneth R. McMaster dynamited the school bus depot in their hometown of Longview 70-miles north of Nacogdoches, damaging 36 buses that would transport black students to white schools. During their trial, testimony was given that Hayes and McMaster had also dynamited a home purchased by a black woman in a white Longview neighborhood and that they had planted at least 2 diabolical booby-trap flashlight bombs in the Shawnee Street neighborhood of Nacogdoches that were allegedly filled with explosives that would ignite when the flashlight was switched on. Thankfully, they were never detonated. Each man received an 11-year prison term. On July 9 the US Department of Justice informed Texas that 48 school districts faced imminent federal lawsuits. A meeting was held the same day at the capital between Governor Smith, Attorney General Crawford C. Martin and the Assistant Commissioner of Education to discuss the “desegregation problem”. Just 42-miles north of Nacogdoches in Henderson, from July 14 through 17, a DOJ investigation into Henderson’s “unacceptable integration plan” was conducted by the FBI who photographed facilities, took statements from the superintendent and teachers, and inspected school district personnel records - an event that did not go unnoticed in Nacogdoches. On July 28 and 29, officials from 38 Texas school districts met with federal officials across the state to negotiate their desegregation plans. Two districts came to an agreement. The remaining 36 continued to face federal lawsuits, knowing that if they challenged them in court, the costs could financially cripple their districts. The next day on July 30, DOJ filed a lawsuit in Washington DC naming the Nacogdoches and Rusk boards of education, Garrison ISD and the Texas Education Agency as defendants, stating that each had failed to prevent the perpetuation of segregation. By August 11, the number of Texas schools with inadequate desegregation plans had dropped by 22, from 48 to 26 hold-outs.

 

Legal, financial and political pressures at the federal and state level finally overwhelmed local resistance to integration in Nacogdoches County. By the end of August, all county schools had developed satisfactory desegregation plans. For our class, that meant we were to meet, black and white, for the first time as freshmen at Nacogdoches High School on North Mound Street as the future Class of 1974. Unquestionably, it was the black students in Nacogdoches and across the nation who made the greatest sacrifices. Every school morning, they left behind familiar and safe neighborhoods or rural communities with all-black schools, often bussed for hours, to attend former all-white schools in all-white neighborhoods, where in places, white prejudice and bigotry sadly remained. In many schools, including NHS, black students were forced to accept the white school’s different colors, song, yearbook, uniforms, traditions and more, with little consideration given to the pride they had in their own school traditions. Black NHS freshmen had looked forward to attending E.J. Campbell High School, like their parents, siblings and friends, and black upperclassmen and women had already attended EJC from 1 to 3 years.

 

So, in September 1970, our 414-strong integrated freshman class began our high school journey as a gaggle of naïve 14-year-olds who were a bit stunned, not fully understanding or appreciating that the 16-years since Brown V. Board (and far beyond) had brought us to this moment. The next 4-years included many challenges, but with the leadership of EJC and NHS faculty, teachers, coaches and counselors, and as we grew to know and respect one another, we overcame those challenges and 342 of us graduated in May of 1974 with a sense of pride and accomplishment.

 

It's been 54-years since we were adolescent freshmen and 50-years since graduating. As we look back, remember that we were the first fully-integrated, 4-year NHS class. We succeeded collectively and individually, and although we had many difficulties, we were each made better by the experience. As trailblazers of integration, we made our town and nation a better place for our children and grandchildren to live and be educated - and that is the Badge of Honor we exclusively share as the NHS Class of 1974. Hopefully, all remaining 258 of us will reunite at our 50th reunion in July 2024 as a tribute to our class journey and to honor the memories of our 84 departed classmates.

 

Joe Hamrick, August 21, 2023.

 

Coach J with some of his players a few years after they almost beat JT...

 

Dragon Football Stories

Tales from the Clipboard

 

From Cal Barton:

I'd like to relate a football story. Everyone who played football at NHS during my short career will remember that I was a very "marginal" football player. I spent my years firmly entrenched as a member of the "scrubs", and my love for the game kept me at it probably longer than reason would have otherwise dictated. I would also like to say before I go on that the hardest hitter from our class pound for pound was Garry Moynihan. Garry went full tilt every play. It is a good thing he was not 6 foot 4 and 280 pounds - many of us would still be in rehab!

Anyway, at the beginning of my junior year I was finally going to get to practice with the varsity and I was very excited about that. As a scrub on defense it was my job to be a part of the unit that practiced against the first team offense. Little did I know that the reason for this is because the coaches did not want their good defensive players getting hurt!

On the first day of practice - my first play on defense - I was determined to cover my assignment and make my play. I was at defensive end and I was supposed to cover the running back on an end run, so I stepped across the line and concentrated on the running back coming in my direction, intent on making a good play .... the next thing I remember is being run over by a freight train, or so I thought. Otis Norris had pulled from his left guard position to lead the play and he hit me so hard that I thought I was dying. Coach Ronnie Collum was standing over me screaming at me to get up and I was laying there waiting for the ambulance! I felt like every internal organ I owned had just exploded. I never saw the guy coming at me!

I finally struggled to my feet, with tears in my eyes and lined up again. Next play Kim Hogan did almost the same thing to me. I thought if I was going to have to go through that every 30 seconds I wasn't gonna last very long.

Needless to say my football career went seriously downhill from that moment. I figured I better listen a little better in math class because this certainly wasn't my future. I did, however, develop a true and lasting respect for all the guys who played the game so well and gave us all those thrills on Friday evenings.

From Dan Peppard:

Dan tells the story about not always being fair when he doled out the water.  If a teammate had not treated him well, sometimes he would just accidentally skip him when the water was flowing during a timeout.  

He tells of one such time when he had just trotted in and given water to some of the guys.  Well, as luck would have it, a timeout was called on the next play.  He was tired and just didn't feel like running back out with water.  Coach Johnston came over to him and told him in no uncertain terms to get out there with the water!

Dan, in his special way, proceeded to begin tossing water bottles out onto the field.  Coach J quickly walked him to the fieldhouse.

Dan is still not sure why he did not receive a scholarship for football managing.

From Coach J:

Coach Johnston has untold stories of his days as a Dragon coach.  One involved watering of the new practice field, using some of his best athletes to turn the sprinkler heads.

Charles Caldwell, Donald Wayne Raussaw, Danny Moore, Leroy Porter and several others were given the task after dark when it was cooler.  Donald Wayne finished his row and was resting on the bleachers, which were open to mostly woods at the time.  Suddenly from the dark a howl arose that sounded as if from the devil himself.

Donald Wayne took off running for the truck that had brought them all there, passing Charles Caldwell in a sprint that probably set a new track record for NISD if only someone had timed it.