WITH MORE THAN DELIBERATE SPEED: A HISTORICAL STUDY OF SIX MAJOR ISSUES IN SECONDARY EDUCATION IN PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA 1954 - 1972 FROM A BLACK PERSPECTIVE

In the decision-making process, the exclusion of participants
who are to be guided by the resulting decision is
unconstitutional and undemocratic. Black voices in Palm
Beach County, Florida were totally excluded from the six
major issues--The Phase-Out of all Black Secondary Schools;
Re-assignment of Black Administrators and Teachers; Busing;
Curriculum: Secondary Migrant Education--that affected their
socio-economic welfare.
The study of these six major issues in Palm Beach
County was compiled using historical methodology based on investigations
conducted through interviews, school board
minutes and agendas, court cases, and news media records.
More than three-hundred Blacks were interviewed but only
twenty-seven gave their permission to be quoted directly or
to be taped while being interviewed. Several Whites were interviewed and, among these, was Dr. A. D. Thorpe, a former
school board member and its chairman at one time.
Interviews were open-ended, taped when possible, and
in other cases, notes were made immediately after the conclusion
of the interview.
This study illustrates the hard-line resistance to
federal laws and guidelines demonstrated by Palm Beach
County's power structure in its effort to retain a separate but-
equal system of education. Even though the elected officials
were White, many KNIGHTS (Known Negroes In Good
Harmonious Taste) were supportive of any action taken so long
as they received their dole from whatever gross accumulated.
The year 1970 brought a change of color to the county
school board with the election of Daniel W. Hendrix, a former
all Black Roosevelt Junior College (now phased out) teacher,
who currently teaches at the desegregated Palm Beach Junior
College.
The observable changes in Palm Beach County's Secondary
Education System are very few. Positions in the decision-making
ranks are so minute that Black voices remain a whisper
when shouting for equality under the laws of state and nation.
This general attitude and adamant position must change if
racial harmony and humanism are to become the ways and means
for progress to touch Palm Beach County.
The dissident voices of Black protestation must be
heard and the relevance of their protest incorporated into
the educational fabric of Palm Beach County. Until this is done, continued unrest, racism and distrust will remain the
device by which progress must be measured now and in the future.