Integration, the baby and the bathwater
Whatever happened to neighborhoods? No, I don’t mean those areas in the St. Louis with names that, while appropriate, fit neatly into the travel guides touting St. Louis. And I certainly don’t mean the places dubbed “da ‘hood.” That’s a designation that started out as a uniquely black slang expression that soon became a synonym for the ‘60’s moniker, “the ghetto.” It was a new expression, for the same sorry, hopeless, drug-infested place.
No, I’m talking about real neighborhoods – the kind I grew up in during the 1950’s prior to integration.
I lived in two different houses in the 4400 block of Washington, between Taylor and Newstead. Everybody on the block was black. White people were quick to point out that it was one of those “colored sections.” That designation never seemed to bother the people living there. To those folks, these classic brick homes, once occupied by some of white society’s finest citizens, were just home.
Many of those houses, when I was a boy belonged to some of St. Louis’s finest black citizens. While others, like my house, were occupied by ordinary working people. That’s what made the neighborhood a neighborhood!
I lived at 4415 Washington, four houses west of Newstead. We rented the entire second floor. My dad was a laborer at Wagner Electric. My mother was a homemaker. We were hardly rich, but in those days we wanted for little.
The block was a tree-lined boulevard with dozens of kids on the streets at any one time during summer. Everyone knew everyone else, but what made the block most interesting was the mix of people.
Across the street from me lived the Cummins sisters, both respected teachers. Next door to them were Mr. and Mrs. Moore. He was a high level administrator at Homer G. Phillips hospital. A few doors down the block lived Dr. and Mrs. Mormon. He was a prominent physician and she had been a respected teacher. Further down the block were Dr. and Mrs. Stanfield. Dr. Stanfield had delivered by baby brother and my mother gave him the doctor’s last name for a middle name.
Not too far from them were Mr. and Mrs. Gray. They were entrepreneurs. They owned the tiny Gray Hotel. Next door to them was the Bruce family. A couple of generations lived on the upper floors of their funeral home.
These were just some of the professional people who shared the block with so many working folks. It was a different time. Our folks made us pay attention to these people “who had gone to college.”
They had lived at a time when finishing the eighth grade was considered a major accomplishment, so living on the same block with these professionals was a chance to expose their children to a “better class of people,” as my dad used to say.
The term “role model” didn’t exist. “Representing your race” was a phrase often heard. To many of the working class folks in the neighborhood, the professionals on our block were the best of our race. They were people to be respected and admired.
“Do what they do and you’ll never have to do what I do.” That seemed to be the attitude of every working-class family in the neighborhood.
Buoyed by that attitude, it was easy to get to know these professionals. We often asked them about their educations. For many of us it was the first time we ever heard of Lincoln University, Fisk University, Grambling University, Meharry Institute and other black schools.
While time and integration led some of us to other schools, the important lesson we learned from our neighbors was the value and power of education. We learned that education not only brings knowledge, but also respect and a desire to do better than our parents or even those friendly neighbors.
They were neighbors who looked like us and wanted us to grow up and be like them.
These days there are organizations that seek out successful blacks to act as role models for young black students because many of those students live in neighborhoods devoid of the kind of professionals I grew up around. I think back to those days and remember that I only had to walk down the block to see my role models because segregation forced them to live in my neighborhood.
Legal segregation is gone – and that’s good. But so are neighborhoods like the one I knew as a child – and that’s bad.
Last take:
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