Ten O'Clock News; Hyde Park teachers talk about racial tension at Hyde Park High School [Tape 1 of 2]

I. [background voices] I think these are from the Annex. - You want to watch the cars for a second. - Okay. Car coming, Bill. Bill? Another one. Wait a minute. Which way are you going?

[motorcycle revving] [voice in background] Good idea. I wish you'd do what... [unintelligible]

Get rid of them. Find.

Out.

[inaudible because of motorcycle noise]

[largely inaudible because of motorcycle noise] I think the idea... [motorcycle revving loudly] ...on a Friday, it would be good for both groups, both Black and white, to have a place to go to. Because also, white kids on the street, last year, I didn't teach here last year, I was on a leave of absence, I came in one day after a lot of trouble here. I drove through Cleary Square. And I was surprised to see some of the kids on the street. And what they were doing the same things. I drove by and they tried to kick my car. So that anger is still... was within them too. So if they had someplace to go, to deal, you know, in the school situation, carry out the school day, you know... I think that would be a very good idea, rather than just saying okay school is over, and let's you know, send you out on the streets.

[Pam Bullard offscreen] - OK. [Pam Bullard offscreen] - Mr. Mullen, how was the day today? [Hugh Mullen] The day was very good once we got the students into their homeroom, there was little marching about which we had to break up and get them in, but I didn't feel the tension begin to build up at all. I thought the lunches ran smoothly, I thought for the most part the kids, considering what we went through Friday, I thought they were very good. I think it was all in all a good day. [Pam Bullard offscreen] - What made the difference, was it the police in the building? - For sure. That was most of it. Yes, there was a very strong police presence there. And that's just what it was, it was a presence. They didn't interfere. They didn't... uh, they just were there and the students recognized the fact they were there and if there... riots broke out they'd do what they had to do. I'm sure that that contributed to keeping peace at Hyde Park High today. [Pam Bullard offscreen] - And Terry, what type of feedback do you get from the students after Friday? What were they like today? [Terry Gaskill] - Um, at first apprehensive about coming to school in the morning as you

would be coming off that kind of situation on Friday. But as the day progressed there was a calmness, you know, amongst the students when they found out that nothing was going to go down, you know, then to kind of ease down, you know during the day which was good. It was like, well you couldn't say before Friday, you know, because that apprehension was there, the tension was still there, but it was a quiet day, it was a good day. [Pam Bullard offscreen] - From... from the reports that you get from the newspapers and the television, I mean, it sounds very very bad in there, in that Black and white students aren't getting along, and they cut it down to a very racial thing. Is it a racial thing? - Well I think when you have this type of a problem I think it becomes... everything divides along racial lines after that. Right? Where you would have before have seen groups of kids, Black and white together, there's very little of that after a problem of this magnitude. This happened last year and the year before that there was a mixing until... until the line was drawn, and when the line was drawn, each kid knew which side of the line to go to.

There's, I would say, there was very little mixing... there was a little in the gym, but white kids stayed with white kids and Black kids with Black kids. [Pam Bullard offscreen] - Was there a build up of racial tensions before this happened? Or was it just sporadic fighting that then... made the division. - You mean, this school year? Yeah, I would say it was a buildup. First day, I felt a real calmness, you know, coming back in this situation after being out... being out on leave of absence for a year which was really nice. Had the feeling of a school day, like any other school day, in any other city or any other small town you know. But yet, as the school year began to progress, there began to be more incidences here and there. And you could begin to feel, you know, build up amongst the students and they did mention this, you know, of tension within them, you know, like that feeling of something was going to happen, something definitely was going to happen, you know, conflict between the two groups on a fairly big scale. [Pam Bullard offscreen] - Hugh, what... you've been here through desegregation. What... is, is it different this year? Is it any better, is it any worse?

Well as Terry said I think we thought it was better at the beginning of the year. We thought it was going to be much smoother. And... and yet the tensions start to build up again. Like I said before, I said last Friday that the faculty Senate, and the faculty as a whole, feel that they're a small group that want trouble here and they organize it. They orchestrate it. And, uh... We have no power to get rid of these kids. We can suspend them out, they'll back tomorrow or the next day and the same foolishness will start again. If only there was the power to take some of these kids and put them in an alternative site, put them somewhere else. I think it would really help. Until we get that power, this is just going to happen again and again. [Pam Bullard offscreen] - Overall if... I mean, last year it was also the problem with that hard core of trouble makers. But what about the other kids in the school, is the attitude better or is there still hostility between the whites and the Blacks? - Again, I thought the attitude was better. We've got a lot of younger kids this year. We have a much smaller senior class and a much larger freshman class. The kids were smaller and seemed to be friendly. And I thought the attitude was much, the... the feeling in the school was much lighter, until Friday,

You know... I just don't know. We won't know for a time. You know when the police are in the building, it's like an artificial presence, that you don't really get the feel. You don't know if the kids have quieted down or they just don't dare do anything because there's 75 policeman next right around. So you don't really know until. It settles in and the police are pulled out again and then when we find out one way or the other. [Gaskill] - I'm going to agree with that. It's... I guess the idea of artificial feeling is really true when you have policemen in the building. It's just a fear on the students' part, let's say, to do anything that they might do. I mean, maybe someone would want to start a fight, but he knows he's going to get arrested because he's a policeman three feet away from them, you know. So that, that stops him from doing what he might, might have done. You know, it's not that within him, within his self he feels that he shouldn't be doing this. You know it's that, you know, I'm going to get busted, you know, if I... if I so much as say anything, you know? It's that kind of feeling in the

school.