University of Florida Thesis Or Dissertation Formatting

THE POWERFUL PULL OF SUNCOAST HIGH SCHOOL: HOW MAGNET SCHOOLS TURNED DESEGREGATION INTO CHOICE, 1969-2000

AMY CAMILE MARTINELLI

A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

2015

To my South Bay Momma and Detroit Daddy who never forgot where they came from

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost, this work could not have been completed without the insight and guidance of my adviser, Dr. Sevan Terzian. Throughout this endeavor, he has driven me persistently to produce meaningful research. I have come to this point having had Sevan as my guide for more years than he or I may care to acknowledge.

Throughout, he has inspired me to keep going even in moments when all I wanted to do was quit. He had faith in me when I had doubts. I am grateful for the time we spent together and will carry on into the future with the knowledge he has imparted in me.

In addition, my committee members have all encouraged me in their own way.

Dr. Link’s seminar on Southern History helped me to choose the topic for this dissertation and exposed me to challenging historical concepts. My occasional hallway run-ins with Dr. Elizabeth Bondy kept me aware of my own progress toward completion, or lack thereof. And Dr. Dorene Ross’ personal and academic counsel not only motivated me to continue, but also inspired me to have faith that the work I would produce would matter. Their part in my journey into dissertation writing has been paramount to my ability to produce this work.

But scholarship without friendship would truly be nothing at all. Throughout my time as a graduate student I had the great fortune of becoming friends with a wonderful group of peers who became my people. Lauren Tripp Barlis, Emma Humphries, Katie

Tricarico, Elyse Hambacher, and Kathryn Comerford were there through evening classes and late night drinks. Each assured me that if they could do this I could do this.

These women helped to keep my “eyes on the prize” with encouragement and laughter.

These days, finding fellow historians of education can feel like a rare find. I’m eternally grateful to have had the opportunity to work alongside Jess Clawson and

Kenneth Noble. As we made our way through graduate school I felt like Jess, Kenneth, and I complemented each other very well—socially and academically. We fostered an environment of collegiality rather than competition and each of them showed me how to be myself in academia. Former graduates of this program have contributed to my scholarship and ability as well. Andrew Gruntzke, Patrick Ryan, and Bob Dahlgren included me in panels, discussions about my work, and even publications and have fostered my growth in this field. The relationships I made in the University of Florida

History Department have also pushed me to work harder than I would on my own. Allen

Kent, Mike Brandon, and Jessica Lancia welcomed me in a sometimes unwelcoming environment. I am also thankful for the opportunities that I’ve had within the History of

Education Society where I have been fortunate enough to forge relationships with students and professors from across the country. Jacob Hardesty and Emily Hodge helped me sustain a professional life outside of the University of Florida.

I am also indebted to those people who had no idea what I have been doing all these years but supported me nonetheless. Cori Clements Traynham has been my closest friend who always sees the best in me, who encourages me to work when I needed to work, and allows me to play when I need to play. Eric White, the other half of my heart, has been by my side for so long and is ready to see what life will give me next and what I will give to the world. Terrence Funke lives up to his name and has kept me dancing and singing through the hard days and the great days. Brittany Lee, took me to early morning breakfasts when I needed an early start to my day. I must also acknowledge my speech and debate family for giving me a home where I always felt competent. My fellow coaches Idania Herrera, Carrie Vath, Joy Fetchel, Colin Rawls,

and Hannah Strange helped me to become a leader. Working with students helped remind me about how to formulate arguments in a powerful way. Marna Weston always kept it real. Betsy McCann gave me rainbows, sunshine, and love all the way through.

There are almost no words for what Kellie Roberts has done for me. She had faith in me as an undergraduate student, allowed me to be a coach, and shown a light on the path to completion. I’ll be forever indebted to her generosity of spirit.

Lastly, my partner in life and love, Elliot Tebbe, showed me what it means to love academic work. I can’t wait to see what life has in store for us in Lincoln.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... 4

LIST OF TABLES ...... 9

LIST OF FIGURES ...... 10

ABSTRACT ...... 11

1 INTRODUCTION ...... 12

Scholarly Significance ...... 13 Research Questions and Methods ...... 23

2 DELAY AND SUBVERSION: FLORIDA’S HISTORY OF DESEGREGATION FROM BROWN TO UNITARY STATUS ...... 28

A Brick Wall Lasts Longer than a Riot: Florida’s Moderate Approach to Desegregation ...... 32 The Miami Test: Tokenism in “America’s Playground” ...... 38 Orchard Villa Elementary School: The Model For Desegregation in Florida, 1958 ...... 42 Throwing Pebbles at a Brick Wall: The Desegregation of Palm Beach County Schools ...... 54 Palm Beach County’s Early Desegregation Battle, 1955-1973 ...... 54

3 THE COSTS OF DESEGREGATION IN ‘THE SECOND MOST DIFFICULT’ REGION IN THE COUNTRY ...... 69

A Brief History of Race Relations in Palm Beach County ...... 69 The Civil Rights Tradition of Riviera Beach ...... 73 1969: Representing Kennedy High ...... 76 “The Second Most Difficult Desegregation Problem in the United States” ...... 83 1970-71: The Shuttle Bus Desegregation “Solution” ...... 91

4 SUNCOAST FROM UNITARY STATUS TO VOLUNTARY DESEGREGATION .. 109

Riviera Beach Becomes Charger Country, 1973-1978 ...... 111 A Decade of Decline, 1978-1989 ...... 120 Suncoast: “The Closest Thing to an Inner City School in the South,”1984- 1989 ...... 122 Suncoast Gets a “Spiritual Facelift”—Fredeva Nelson, 1984-1987 ...... 125 Discipline and Direction—Terry Andrews, 1987-1989 ...... 132 The Quest to Save Suncoast, 1987-1989 ...... 135

Planning for Change: Making Suncoast a Magnet School of Distinction ...... 142

5 THE MAGNET SCHOOL THAT “WORKED”: THE DOUBLE EDGE OF SUNCOAST’S SUCCESS, 1989-2000 ...... 148

Creating the New Suncoast—A School of Excellence ...... 153 1989-1993: Suncoast’s New Class of Student ...... 164 Being Black at Suncoast ...... 168 The Students Who Got Shipped Out ...... 174 The Price of Elitism, 1993-2000 ...... 178

6 CONCLUSION: THE LASTING IMPACT OF SUNCOAST HIGH SCHOOL’S MAGNET CONVERSION ...... 193

Local Problem – National Significance...... 198 Scholarly Implications ...... 207 The Inequality of Choice ...... 215

LIST OF REFERENCES ...... 219

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 229

LIST OF TABLES

Table page

4-1 Crimes Reported on High School Campuses, 1984-1986 ...... 147

5-1 Admission Requirements for Magnet Tracks at Suncoast ...... 191

5-2 Sample Four-Year Plan According to Curriculum ...... 192

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure page

2-1 Map of the State of Florida ...... 65

2-2 Map of Palm Beach County Divisions, 1950 ...... 66

2-3 Map of Palm Beach County Divisions, 1970 ...... 67

2-4 Urban Areas of Palm Beach County, 1970 ...... 68

Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

THE POWERFUL PULL OF SUNCOAST HIGH SCHOOL: HOW MAGNET SCHOOLS TURNED DESEGREGATION INTO CHOICE, 1969-2000

Amy Camile Martinelli

August 2015

Chair: Sevan Terzian Major: Curriculum and Instruction

This dissertation is a case history of the transformation of Suncoast High School, located in Riviera Beach Florida, from a neglected community school into a prestigious magnet school from 1969-2000. It highlights two periods of desegregation: first in 1969 as a result of federal demand and again in 1989 as a result of resegregation. Using newspapers, archival materials, high school student yearbooks, and oral history it highlights the people of Riviera Beach, a predominantly African American neighborhood, who struggled against local, state, and federal forces for decades to provide a good high school for their teenagers. This dissertation demonstrates that the process of desegregation placed undue burdens on this black community that physically and symbolically lost its community high school in the name of desegregation twice over. Finally, it demonstrates a shift in federal policy that prioritized academic excellence and global competitiveness over educational equality of opportunity.

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

On October 28, 2013, United States Congressman from Florida’s 20th district, honorable Alcee Hastings, recognized Suncoast High School before the House of

Representatives. Suncoast, located in Riviera Beach, Florida, had recently commemorated its 25th anniversary and Hastings heralded the “remarkable school…perennially ranked as a top high school in America.” He praised the faculty, staff, and students stating that when students graduate from Suncoast “they don’t simply matriculate” they go on to do extraordinary things. Hastings concluded by indicating that Suncoast was, indeed, a beacon for other schools across the United

States.1 To be sure, Suncoast, a magnet school with four distinct curricular tracks, has consistently ranked as one of America’s best high schools. In preparation for the school’s celebration of its 25th anniversary, the administration issued a press release that listed the many national accolades received in that year alone.2 This image of

Suncoast as a universal exemplar is one that the school’s administration and the Palm

Beach County school board has worked diligently to maintain. Yet to view Suncoast in only this light divorces it from its difficult and controversial past.

The Suncoast magnet school has become known as an example of successful voluntary desegregation because its highly academic curricular offerings attracted

1 Hon. Alcee Hastings, “House of Representatives, Congressional Record—Extension of Remarks,” October 28, 2013, E1576-E1577, last modified October 28, 2013, URL: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2013-10-28/pdf/CREC-2013-10-28-pt1-PgE1586-3.pdf

2 Vickie Middlebrooks, “Suncoast High Celebrates 25th Anniversary,” last modified October 31, 2013, URL: http://news.palmbeachschools.org/pao/2013/10/31/suncoast-high-to-celebrate-25th-anniversary/ In the article, Suncoast is cited as receiving the following recognitions: #5 2013 “Top Florida Schools,” Washington Post; #9 2013 “America’s Best High Schools,” Newsweek; #7 2013 “Top 25 High Schools: South,” Newsweek; #10 2013 “Top South Schools,” Washington Post; #16, 2013 “High School Challenge Index,” Washington Post.

privileged students. But for the people who lived in the almost all black community surrounding the school, it represented a failed promise to provide access to quality education to the neighborhood after decades of conflict. Although the school celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2013, Suncoast’s community history runs deep. This dissertation aims to unearth the school’s history of desegregation, resegregation, and transformation into a prestigious magnet school. The Palm Beach County school board and the state of

Florida use Suncoast as an example of a successful way to solve resegregation. This account reveals that those successes came with costs to the surrounding community of

Riviera Beach. Ultimately, this dissertation examines the ways that a powerful school board’s resistance to desegregation created impossible conditions for the nearly all- black population of Riviera Beach to attain high quality education for their students.

Scholarly Significance

The history of Suncoast offers a glimpse into the ways that the state, typically considered moderate, was governed by systemic patterns of racial discrimination. Like many Southern states, Florida took a “wait-and-see” approach to desegregation in the years immediately following the Brown decisions, and used legislative action to preserve segregation through legal means.3 Between 1954 and 1970, very little desegregation occurred in Florida, except for a handful of “token” instances wherein a small number of black students were admitted to previously all-white schools. It wasn’t until 1969 when the Supreme Court demanded desegregation take place that Florida’s counties made plans to desegregate. By 1971, the last school in Florida desegregated

3 Amy C. Martinelli, “A Moderate Calm? Florida’s Struggle Over Desegregation, 1955-1961” (master’s thesis, University of Florida, 2007).

in Lake Worth, a city in Palm Beach County.4 The state reluctantly worked to meet the standards of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), but the vestiges of prejudice still remained. Despite widespread segregationist sentiment,

Florida managed to maintain a reputation for civility.5 Several historians have produced local histories of segregation and civil rights in Florida after Brown.6 Geographically, these studies highlight northern regions of the state, which have historically been categorized as more culturally Southern than regions in South Florida, which is often depicted as separate from Southern culture.7 Few historians have written about South

Florida, and those that do most often focus on the urban landscape of Miami.8 This

4 Jane Snyder, “Osborne School,” National Register Nomination Form (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, 2003), Section 7, 1.

5 Anders Walker, The Ghost of Jim Crow: How Southern Moderates use Brown to Stall Civil Rights (New York: Oxford, 2009), 3.

6 For state-wide studies of Florida’s political history, which include issues of race see: David R. Colburn and Jane L. Landers, The African American Heritage of Florida (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1999); Michael Gannon, The New History of Florida (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1996); Paul Ortiz, Emancipation Betrayed: the Hidden History of Black Organizing and White Violence in Florida from Reconstruction to the Bloody Election of 1920 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005); Joseph A. Tomberlin, “Florida Whites and the Brown Decision of 1954,” Florida Historical Quarterly 53 no.1, 1974: 122-145; Joseph A. Tomberlin, “Florida and the Desegregation Issue, 1954-1959,” The Journal of Negro Education, 51 no. 1, 1972: 457-467; Irvin D.S. Winsboro, ed. Old South, New South, or Down South?: Florida and the Modern Civil Rights Movement (Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Press, 2009); Gary Mormino, Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams: A Social History of Modern Florida (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2005).

7 Abel A. Bartley, Keeping the Faith: Race, Politics, and Social Development in Jacksonville, Florida, 1940-1970 (New York, NY: Praeger Publishing, 2002); David R. Colburn, Racial Change and Community Crisis: St. Augustine, Florida, 1877-1980 (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1985); Glenda Alice Rabby, The Pain and the Promise: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Tallahassee (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1999); Patricia Dillon, “Civil Rights and School Desegregation in Sanford,” The Florida Historical Quarterly, 76, no. 3 (Winter 1998): 310-325; Charlotte Downey-Anderson, “The "Coggins Affair": Desegregation and Southern Mores in Madison County, Florida,” The Florida Historical Quarterly 59, no. 4: 464-472; Benjamin Houston, “Voice of the Exploited Majority: Claude Kirk and the 1970 Manatee County Forced Busing Incident,” The Florida Historical Quarterly 83 no. 3: 258-286; Mark Newman, “The Florida Baptist Convention and Desegregation, 1954-1980,” The Florida Historical Quarterly 78, no. 1 (Summer, 1999): 1-22; Tana Mosier Porter, “Segregation and Desegregation in Parramore: Orlando's African American Community,” The Florida Historical Quarterly 82, no. 3 (Winter 2004): 289-312.

8 Chanelle Rose, “The "Jewel" of the South?: Miami, Florida and the NAACP's Struggle for Civil Rights in America's Vacation Paradise,” The Florida Historical Quarterly 86 no. 1: 39-69; Marvin Dunn, Black in 14

dissertation examines interactions between an all-black community and a powerful school board in Palm Beach County, Florida. Regardless of geography, racial segregation was a mainstay of the Sunshine state.

This dissertation promises to contribute, more broadly, to an already robust body of scholarship that traces the history of desegregation in the United States. Numan V.

Bartley’s historical examination of massive resistance that occurred after Brown argued that political and economic factors contributed to the violent and unwavering recrimination of desegregation in the 1950s.9 In the 1990s, community studies of desegregation proliferated in the field of history. These books highlighted mostly

Southern communities’ responses to Brown. Historian David Cecelski’s work on Hyde

County, North Carolina and revealed that in the wake of Brown efforts to integrate schools often resulted in closing black schools, which negatively impacted black communities. Cecelski drew the important implication that after Brown black institutions became stereotyped as inferior to white institutions.10 Other local studies in North

Carolina offer that massive resistance was not the only way that whites subverted desegregation. William Chafe’s investigation of Greensboro, North Carolina examined

Miami in the Twentieth Century (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1997); Raymond A. Mohl, Jewish Activists and the Civil Rights Movement in Miami, 1945-1960, (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2004); Raymond A Mohl, Matilda Graff, and Shirley M. Zoloth. South of the South: Jewish Activists and the Civil Rights Movement in Miami, 1945-1960 (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2004); There is one account of desegregation of Palm Beach County: Lise Steinhauer, “ ‘Wait Has Almost Always Meant ‘Never’”: The Long Road to School Desegregation in Palm Beach County,” in Irvin D.S. Winsboro (ed.), Old South, New South, or Down South? Florida and the Modern Civil Rights Movement (Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Press, 2009).

9 Numan V. Bartley, The Rise of Massive Resistance: Race and Politics in the South During the 1950’s (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969), 236-237.

10 David S. Cecelski, Along Freedom Road: Hyde County, North Carolina and the Fate of Black Schools in the South (Chapel Hill; The University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 117-119.

the moderate businessmen’s commitment to maintaining racial harmony, which ultimately maintained the status quo for racial integration.11 Davison M. Douglas’ study of the desegregation of Charlotte schools explored the use of the U.S. Supreme Court to implement desegregation through busing.12 Cumulatively, these community histories demonstrate the variety of factors that determined the way that different areas approached desegregation once massive resistance wore down. Community studies like these do much to facilitate understanding of the various constraints on desegregation. This dissertation contributes to the body of community histories of desegregation. In particular, the case of Suncoast High School adds to this scholarship by moving the border of the South into the mythological paradise of South Florida.

Other desegregation studies have also challenged the notion that desegregation was only a problem in the South. Notably, studies of desegregation in the north, west and the “sunbelt” and “blackbelt” regions of the nation have shifted the perception of desegregation and racism as merely a Southern problem.13 This dissertation contributes to this body of work because it represents the study of desegregation in a region of the

11 William H. Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 53, 57-58.

12 Davison M. Douglas traces the efforts that led up to the Swann vs. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education case in 1971, and argues that busing was effective in Charlotte as a means of desegregation. He also, however, demonstrates that blacks bore the brunt of desegregation as their schools were closed and their children were usually more impacted than white students. Davison M. Douglas, Reading, Writing, and Race: The Desegregation of the Charlotte Schools (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1995): 89.

13 Studies that focus on the impact of race and desegregation in regions outside the south argue that desegregation is a national problem. Robert O. Self, American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2003), 5-7; Thomas J. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North (New York: Random House, 2008), Matthew J. Countryman, Up South: Civil Rights and Black Power in Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 4; Ronald P. Formisano, Boston Against Busing: Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 3-4.

“hidden south.”14 South Florida is geographically in the South, though theoretically in a region on its own. The problems that race played in the formation of Suncoast are ones that plague the entire nation.

Another aspect of desegregation history that this dissertation addresses is resegregation. Gary Orfield has chronicled the rise and fall of desegregation and concluded that while there was a brief moment of true desegregation during the 1960s and 1970s, political, economic, and social changes ushered in an era of resegregation in the 1980s and 1990s.15 In fact, Orfield argued that magnet schools facilitated resegregation because they encouraged clusters of students based on curricular tracking.16 Orfield has termed the resegregation of suburban schools a “hidden crisis in

American education.” In the case of Suncoast High School became a magnet school in order to remedy racial segregation for the second time in two decades. This exploration of Suncoast, then, may offer insight into the ways that resegregation prompted new approaches to desegregation, including magnet schools.

14 Ann Lufkin Kelsey’s master’s thesis about the desegregation of public schools in Beaufort County, South Carolina describes the importance of conducting studies of desegregation set outside of the ‘visible south.’ By doing so, she argues, historians can create a more nuanced understanding of what desegregation means in light of the variety, or lack of variety found in various regions. It is this concept that informed my use of the term “hidden south.” Anne Lufkin Kelsey, “In Their Own Deliberate Speed: The Desegregation of the Public Schools In Beaufort County, South Carolina,” (master’s thesis, Clemson University, May 2010), 2.

15 Erica Frankenberg and Gary Orfield, “Why Racial Change in the Suburbs Matters,” in eds. Erica Frankenberg and Gary Orfield, The Resegregation of Suburban Schools: A Hidden Crisis in American Education (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Education Press, 2012), 3-7.

16 Gary Orfield, “The Growth of Segregation: African Americans, Latinos, and Unequal Education,” in eds. Gary Orfield and Susan E. Eaton. Dismantling Desegregation: The Quiet Reversal of Brown v. Board of Education (New York, NY: New Press, 1997), 53, 57-58.

The case of Suncoast High School promises to contribute much to current historical scholarship about race and education and the quest for academic excellence in the post-Brown era by addressing the use of magnet schools to desegregate. First, this dissertation illuminates the significance of magnet schools in desegregation policy.

Magnet schools, public schools that feature specialized and enriched curricula, emerged as a potential solution to racial disharmony and segregation in schools as part of the Emergency School Aid Act (ESAA) pushed through Congress by President

Richard Nixon in 1972. The ESAA presented a variety of ways to desegregate through incentives backed by the federal government’s competitive grants programs. The

Magnet School Assistance Program (MSAP) provided grants to school districts that would use magnet schools as an innovative way to desegregate schools in urban

America. Magnet schools purported to “attract diversity rather than mandating it” by providing white parents an incentive for voluntary desegregation into non-white majority schools.17 President George Bush continued efforts that provided incentives to using magnet schools for desegregation purposes and encouraged the reauthorization of the

MSAP. Between 1985 and 1991, for example, the federal government spent over $739 million in support of magnet programs, and that number has only continued to grow.18

More recently, a report by the Civil Rights Project expressed a desire for increased support for magnet schools, citing their success in desegregating schools, especially in

17 Lauri Steel and Roger Levine, Educational Innovations in Multiracial Contexts: The Growth of Magnet Schools in American Education (Palo Alto, California: American Institutes for Research in the Behavioral Sciences, 1994), 15.

18 Ibid., 15.

urban areas.19 Between 1981 and 2007, the number of magnet schools across the

United States rose from 1,019 to 2,400, enrolling 1.2 million students per year with an additional 3,300 public schools with magnet programs enrolling 3.1 million students.20

Magnet schools, first introduced as a means to convince white parents to desegregate black schools voluntarily, now represent an aspect of the school choice movement that has become a standard in the American education experience yet overlooked by historians of education. Magnet schools have become a hallmark in so-called voluntary desegregation programs.21 Suncoast presents a complex account of the gains and losses that can come along with implementing magnet schools with the intention of desegregating.

Despite widespread support for magnet schools, very few pieces of historical scholarship place magnet schools in the contexts of desegregation, federal policy, and the transformation of public education. Law scholars and social scientists have written about magnet schools from a variety of perspectives. Social scientists described magnet schools as a “carrot and stick” approach to desegregation. Christine H.

Rossell’s research suggested that while magnet schools could attract white students to black neighborhoods students of color often felt racially isolated within magnet schools,

19 Erica Frankenberg and Genevieve Seigel-Hawley, The Forgotten Choice? Rethinking Magnet Schools in a Changing Landscape, (Los Angeles, California: The Civil Rights Project, 2008), 6.

20 Christine H. Rossell “Magnet Schools: No Longer Famous, but still Intact,” Educationnext 5, no. 2, 2005:44-49; Sarah Grady, Stacey Bielick, and Susan Aud, “Trends in the Use of School Choice: 1993 to 2007: Statistical Analysis Report,” National Center for Education Statistics Institute of Education Science, April 2010, 7.

21 Cynthia Gersti-Pepin, “Magnet Schools: A Retrospective Case Study of Segregation,” The High School Journal. 85 no. 2, 2002: 47; Christine H. Rossell, The Carrot or the Stick for Desegregation Policy: Magnet Schools or Forced Busing (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1990), 7-11.

and that magnet schools could actually create “forced busing.”22 Rossell’s research questioned the credibility of the MSAP as a desegregation tool and noted that “the additional goal that MSAP has of educational improvement in minority schools has often taken precedence over integration.”23 Law scholars have also questioned the efficacy of magnet schools as a tool for desegregation, citing that these specialized schools tend to increase divisions between races both in terms of funding and classroom segregation.24

Recently, historical accounts of magnet schools have begun to surface. Elaine

Clift Gore’s history of an arts magnet school in Houston concluded that the nature of an arts high school eased racial problems. This work focused on the particular curricular draw of an arts school and argued that it is the curriculum that makes a magnet school uniquely suited to effectively promote desegregation.25 Other historical accounts of magnet schools focus on public perception. Historian Scott Gelber’s study of Boston

Magnet schools contended that the Boston board of education promoted the schools as a way to enhance academic excellence while promoting desegregation. Gelber found most parents and students dissatisfied with the schools, whether they were black or

22 Rossell, The Carrot or the Stick, 45-47; Rossell, “Magnet Schools: No Longer Famous, but still Intact,” 25.

23 Christine H. Rossell, “The Effectiveness of Desegregation Plans,” in eds. Christine H. Rossell, David J. Armor, and Herbert J. Walberg, School Desegregation in the Twenty-First Century (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2002), 97.

24 John Charles Boger, “Education’s “Perfect Storm”? Racial Resegregation, High Stakes Testing and School Resource Inequities: The Case of North Carolina,” North Carolina Law Review, 81 no. 1375 (2002-2003): 1379-1380; Kimberly C. West, “A Desegregation Tool that Backfired: Magnet Schools and Classroom Segregation,” Yale Law Journal (1994): 2567-2592.

25 Elaine Clift Gore, Talent Knows No Color: The History of An Arts Magnet School (Charlotte, North Carolina: Information Age Publishing: 2007), 15-17.

white.26 In addition, historian Regan Garner’s research on the history of Eastside High

School in Gainesville, Florida, demonstrated the ways that the introduction of a magnet school for desegregation stratified students along the color line, socio-economic, and curricular lines.27 Carl L. Bankston III and teacher Stephen J. Caldas studied desegregation in the state of Louisiana and found that magnet schools, used extensively in the state to desegregate, often pushed students of color out of their neighborhoods when white students clamored to get in. They concluded that this ultimately was an acceptable loss because magnet schools were often of the highest quality and they prevented whites from leaving the public school system.28

Cumulatively, this growing body of scholarship uses magnet schools to address curricular and social stratification within magnet schools. This dissertation promises to contribute to this burgeoning line of historical research on magnet schools through the case of Suncoast High School in important ways. The study of Suncoast is unique because it addresses the transformation of one school throughout three decades of desegregation. Also, this study focuses on the local context that led to implementing a magnet school as a result of desegregation. This approach accounts for the impact that magnet schools can have on their home.

26 Scott Gelber, “The Crux and the Magic: The Political History of Boston Magnet Schools, 1968-1989,” Equity and Excellence in Education, 41 no.4 (2008): 453-466. See also, Stephen J. Caldas, Roslin Growe, and Carl L. Bankston III, “African American Reaction to Lafayette Parish School Desegregation Order: From Delight to Disenchantment,” The Journal of Negro Education 71 no. ½ (2002): 43-59.

27 Regan Garner, “School Without a Name: Desegregation of Eastside High School 1970-1987,” University of Florida Journal of Law and Public Policy 16 (2005): 233-261.

28 Carl L. Bankston III and Stephen J. Caldas, A Troubled Dream: The Promise and Failure of School Desegregation in Louisiana (Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press, 2002).47.

“The Powerful Pull of Suncoast High School” addresses the intersection of desegregation and the school choice movement through the lens of magnet schools. It aligns with scholarship that traces the shift in education reform from increasing educational opportunity to enhancing academic achievement in an era of accountability and high stakes testing in the late twentieth century because the goals of MSAP shifted in this way.29 In the educational landscape, school choice has come to equate with the hot topics of school vouchers and charter schools.30 Both charter schools and voucher programs seek to provide an alternative system of education with the use of public education funding. Magnet schools also draw on public funding, as well as federal and private funding, but their presence in historical scholarship that discusses education reforms is scant.31 In fact, Diane Ravitch’s The Death and Life of the Great American

School System: How Testing and Choice is Undermining Education, scrutinizes the reforms that occurred in the 1980s and 1990 because they bolstered a system of privatization of schooling. In this account however, Ravitch reserves her analysis almost

29 Adam R. Nelson, The Elusive Ideal: Equal Educational Opportunity and the Federal Role in Boston’s Public Schools, 1950-1985 (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2005), 27-29.

30 Jim Carl, Freedom of Choice: Vouchers in American Education (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2011), 11-13; Maris A. Vinovkis, From A Nation at Risk to No Child Left Behind: National Education Goals and the Creation of Federal Education Policy (New York, NY: Teachers College Press, 2009), 20.

31 The following works address magnet schools briefly, but do not highlight their impact on education; this leads to the issue of magnet schools as a desegregation method to become neutral, making it easy to assume that magnet schools were successful in desegregating schools: Michael Casserly, “Uncle Sam and the Nation’s Great City Schools: Reflections on a Rocky Relationship,” in Carrots, Sticks, and the Bully Pulpit: Lessons From a Half-Century of Federal Efforts to Improve America’s Schools, eds. Frederick M. Hess and Andrew P. Kelly (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2011), 211; Paul E. Peterson, “The New Politics of Choice” in Learning From the Past: What History Teaches us about School Reform, in eds. Diane Ravitch and Maris A. Vinovskis (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 15.

exclusively for charter schools.32 This dissertation seeks to place greater emphasis on the impact that magnet schools have made in the school choice movement. Magnet schools like Suncoast bolster the privatization of public schooling and alter the position of the public school in a community. Arthur G. Powell, Eleanor Farrar, and David K.

Cohen argued in 1985 that public high schools had become akin to shopping malls because they provided something for everyone.33 Magnet schools like Suncoast High

School defer from the shopping mall metaphor and offer a new one. Magnet schools made school districts into shopping mall school districts—parents and students chose among schools whereas before they chose among classes and clubs. When a district uses magnet schools to facilitate desegregation it compromises neighborhood schools, especially those whose residents had little money, political power, or racial privilege. It also strengthens the power of those who do; they already have the tools to succeed.

MSAP grants placed magnet schools specifically in minority and low-income neighborhoods that sustained racial segregation, and in doing so stripped a community of people of its school.

Research Questions and Methods

This dissertation questions the development of voluntary desegregation tactics by investigating one such instance. It seeks to better understand in what ways the use of magnet schools fulfilled the goals of desegregation and academic achievement, and in what ways the policy falls short of these goals. To better understand the key

32 Diane Ravitch, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2010), 35, 57-58.

33 Arthur G. Powell, Eleanor Farrar, and David K. Cohen, The Shopping Mall High School: Winners and Losers in the Educational Marketplace (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1985), 72-74. 23

decisions surrounding the move toward magnet schools as a policy tool, I will articulate questions from three perspectives. First, I address the national context that allowed magnet schools to become part of educational policy and purported to address reforms that boasted both desegregation and academic achievement. In what ways did federal involvement contribute to Palm Beach County’s decision making for desegregation?

Second, this study seeks to understand the state level context that allowed for magnet schools to become a significant part of Florida’s education system. Who in the state of

Florida supported the use of magnet schools as a tool for desegregation and why?

Finally, I examine the historic repercussions of using magnet schools for desegregation by viewing the impact of policy decisions on the ground. What conditions made

Suncoast High School a site for the implementation of a magnet school to desegregate?

Whose interests did the decision to magnetize Suncoast serve? Who did not support the decision to magnetize Suncoast High School and for what reasons?

To answer these questions, I utilized the available scholarship that relates to the history of Suncoast High School in order to place it within historical context. I also relied on three categories of primary source material including archival, print media, and oral histories. To understand the series of events that and the people involved in important decision making, I consulted the meeting minutes of the Palm Beach County’s Board of

Public Instruction from 1969 to 2000. Print media, in particular newspapers, constitute an important portion of my data. They provided insight into how media outlets perceived and presented issues of race and desegregation. Much of my data came from local newspapers including The Palm Beach Post (Palm Beach County) and the Sun Sentinel

(South Florida region) from 1955-2000, which covered the story of Suncoast for

decades. These newspapers show the perspectives of local people, in particular white business and middle-class perspectives about the way that Suncoast HS developed and changed over time as a result of desegregation in general, and through the magnet program, in particular. These sources provided community context about Palm Beach

County during desegregation.

In addition to materials located outside of the school, I also consulted student created and published materials. To do so, I gained access to the school’s yearbooks to provide the students’ perspectives about the ways that Suncoast HS changed over time.

These school level materials provided insight into student voices, but only from the perspective of those who participated in these journalistic activities. These sources do not necessarily speak as the voice of all students at Suncoast HS. Finally, because this dissertation aims to provide perspectives at the grass-roots level, I conducted oral histories to better understand the various viewpoints of administrators, teachers, and students who attended Suncoast High School before and after it became a magnet school. These histories, though important will serve as supplementary data that will help to inform my understanding of the ways that different people who were part of the high school experienced it. The use of oral histories helps historians to avoid the institutional perspective and can make the people involved in history become three-dimensional and integral to historical understanding.34

34 Michael Crotty, The Foundations of Social Research: Meaning and Perspective in the Research Process (London: Sage Publications, 1998), 62; Michael Frisch, A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History (New York, NY: State University of New York Press, 1989), xv; Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, et al., Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1987); Valerie Raleigh Yow, Recording Oral History: A Guide for the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2nd ed. (Lanham: AltaMira Press, 2005).

A case study of one school does not offer a comprehensive analysis of the impact of magnet schools in the United States. It can, however, can illuminate the experiences of a district that decided to turn to magnet schools as a remedy.35 A case study has much to offer, especially when writing about changes within school, because it can illuminate the voices of students, teachers, administrators, and parents. Those voices are more prominent when a case study is done within a school because they are the people who directly influence the institutions. A case study cannot provide generalized explanations of policy or reform. They can, however, demonstrate how federal, state, and local initiatives and decisions impact individual schools and neighborhoods. By examining the repercussions of a policy enacted on the local level, a case study can expose what works about a federal policy and what doesn’t. Case studies can be problematic, because it is easy to lose sight of the state and national political context on race, public education, and school choice. This case, however attempts to highlight the work of people who experienced a transition to magnet schools in light of those broader manifestations.

This dissertation, then, advances arguments about the implications of the history of Suncoast High School. First, I argue that racial segregation is a perennial problem in the United States education system, and that almost all moves to desegregate place the burdens and hardships on the black population. Derrick Bell argued that any moves to bring about racial change came about in the interest of middle/upper-class white

35 Case studies that serve as examples are: Gerald Grant, The World We Created at Hamilton High School (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988); Vanessa Siddle Walker, Their Highest Potential: An African American School Community in the Segregated South (Chapel Hill, NC: University Change at Thomas Jefferson High School (Albany, NY: SUNY University Press, 1995). 26

ideologies.36 The history of Suncoast aligns with this idea because despite active engagement, the school board consistently made decisions that ran counter to the desires of Riviera Beach’s black community. Second, magnet schools ought to be considered part of the educational reforms of choice as a move toward the privatization of the American public school system. While not part of a specific strategy of reform, magnet schools have received significant financial backing from the federal government, and that has influenced their presence across the nation. After Suncoast became a “success” Palm Beach County continued to use magnet schools to address desegregation. Indeed, Suncoast was a model for that particular county. When school districts embrace magnet schools in the way that Palm Beach County did the nature of schools changes by turning the school system into a marketplace. This placed the burden of becoming a winner or a loser into the hands of parents and students. Perhaps most importantly, this dissertation offers insight into a shunned African American community. In Riviera Beach, parents, adult activists, and high school students’ simple request for a community school went unanswered. Further, Suncoast’s depiction as a school turned around by a magnet school unfairly places the blame for its demise on the community. This investigation demonstrates that, in truth, Suncoast’s decline was the result of pointed neglect from its home county. “The Powerful Pull of Suncoast High

School” asks its audience to reframe assumptions about poor black communities whose residents are all-too-often blamed for problems created by systems steeped in racism.

36 Derrick Bell, Silent covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform (Oxford University Press: USA, 2004), 134.

CHAPTER 2 DELAY AND SUBVERSION: FLORIDA’S HISTORY OF DESEGREGATION FROM BROWN TO UNITARY STATUS

On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that segregation by race in public schools was unconstitutional. The decision made national headlines, and newspapers across the country reported myriad responses from Southern states.

The news prompted both outrage and glee.1 In Florida, a state historically characterized as moderate, the reaction appeared to reflect a calm rational tone.

Indeed, national newspaper coverage of high-level state leaders’ reactions exemplified its aversion to inflammatory, vitriolic language. Florida senators Spessard Holland and

George Smathers both advocated a reasoned and rational response to the ruling— neither condemning the courts nor embracing the call to desegregate. Holland and

Smathers advocated a cautious approach to the ruling, advised a non-violent response and Smathers believed “it is wasteful to spend time condemning the Supreme Court for the decision it rendered, which was unanimous.”2 Especially in conjunction with the news from states like Mississippi where the governor vowed to “take whatever steps are necessary to retain segregation,” Florida’s response stood out as reasoned.3

Responses from various representatives across Florida reflected this calm and cautious tone. Moderate as these reactions were, they could not be categorized as anything other than segregationist. In Tallahassee, the state’s capitol, state leaders highlighted a silver lining: the ruling did not mandate a specific timeline for

1 Atlanta (UP), “Defiance, Caution Greet Court Ruling,” The Palm Beach Post, May 18, 1954, 1.

2 Ibid., 1.

3 Ibid. 1.

desegregation. Attorney General Richard Ervin assured the citizens of Florida that black and white students would not be in schools together in the immediate future. In

Jacksonville state senator and candidate for Governor, LeRoy Collins, advocated that the state react to the decision “calmly and properly,” yet also remarked that he remained in favor of segregation in schools as “part of Florida’s custom and law.” Collins promised that he would “use all the lawful power of the governor’s office” to preserve segregation. And at the same time, the paper reported “hints” that the acting Governor,

Charley Johns, would call a special session of the legislature to determine how to respond to the decree.4 While the responses did not advocate outright defiance, they did promote delays to desegregation—emphasizing that Brown had not yet provided parameters to act.

Florida has traditionally enjoyed a moderate reputation when it comes to race relations. Media representations of Florida in the immediate wake of Brown depicted the state as distinct from places like Alabama or Mississippi where governors vowed to never accept racial integration. In addition, political scientist V.O. Key described Florida as “scarcely part of the South,” which solidified its description as exceptional.5 The major factor that contributed to this narrative had to do with it’s socially and politically, though not racially, diverse population. Historian Karen Graves visually described this divide through a map of Florida split by a diagonal line, and noted that Florida has its

4 Tallahassee (UP), “Delay Seen in Ending School Segregation: Johns Hints at Early Session,” The Palm Beach Post, May 18, 1954, 1 . 5 Vladimir O. Key, Jr. Southern Politics in State and Nation (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1977), 57.

own North and South: the further south one travels, the more “Northern” it feels.6

Political scientists and historians alike agreed that financial reliance on tourism and differences in population facilitated harmonious race relations as a statewide priority.7

Yet, for a state with such a mild reputation in regard to race relations, the desegregation patterns reflected its deeply segregationist neighbors. The Sunshine state remained steeped in Deep South politics despite the population influx that brought

Northerners and Midwesterners. Florida historians David Colburn and Gary Mormino have collectively constructed a rationale for this phenomenon. They draw on what

Florida Senator Bob Graham termed the “Cincinnati Factor” to explain how Florida could become at once more influenced by other regions of the country yet retain Jim Crow practices of the South. In essence, these historians have argued that while the population of Florida grew, the new inhabitants retained allegiance to their home state.

The newcomers, then, had a somewhat apathetic view toward Florida politics and focused their attention on their newly inhabited regions.8 Thus, though outwardly

6 Karen L. Graves, And They Were Wonderful Teachers: Florida’s Purge of Gay and Lesbian Teachers (Urbana: University of Illinois Press: 2009), 14-16. To construct this line, Graves utilized a dissertation from History professor Kevin Klein from the University of Florida, and a 1939 study conducted by the Works Project Administration.

7 David R. Colburn and Lance DeHaven Smith, Florida’s Megatrends: Critical Issues in Florida (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2001), 40-45; David R. Colburn and Lance DeHaven Smith, Florida Since Statehood: Government in the Sunshine State (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida: 2002), 123; David R. Colburn and Richard S. Scher, Florida’s Gubernatorial Politics in the Twentieth Century (Tallahassee, FL; University Press of Florida: 1980), 33; David R. Colburn, From Yellow Dog Democrats to Red State Republicans: Florida and its Politics Since 1940 (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2007), 113-115; Gary R. Mormino, Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams: A Social History of Modern Florida, (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2005), 57.

8 Colburn, From Yellow Dog Democrats to Red State Republicans, 23. Mormino, Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams, 53.

moderate, the state’s roots were steeped in a Deep South mentality built upon racial discrimination.

Scholars have continued to attempt to place Florida in light of the socioeconomic, political, and racial exceptionalism that mythologizes the state. They argue that racial victories in Florida were hard fought in a virulent environment through coordination and organization.9 Social Historian Raymond Mohl’s account of the civil rights movement in Miami disrupts the city’s storied image as “south of the South.” He argued that in Miami civil rights activists faced anti-communism, anti-semitism and racism that “set back the movement by a decade or more.”10 His work contributes to a growing body of scholarship that challenges the notion that Florida’s racial past was exceptional by uncovering the state’s history of racism. Irvin D. Winslow’s edited volume includes narratives that all claim Florida’s heartbreaking history of discrimination. It encapsulates the state’s position as neither Deep South nor exceptional. Instead, it describes much of Florida as “Down South,” a society that carefully constructed roadblocks to racial equality but never “stood in the schoolhouse door.”11 Riots in the streets over desegregation were rare and never garnered national media attention, but

9 For a history of civil rights struggles in Florida see: Paul Ortiz, Emancipation Betrayed: The Hidden History of Black Organizing and White Violence in Florida from Reconstruction to the Bloody Election of 1920 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005); Ed. Irvin D.S. Winsboro, Old South, New South, or Down South? Florida and the Modern Civil Rights Movement (Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Press: 2009); Ed. David R. Colburn and Jane L. Landers, The Black Heritage of Florida (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1999).

10 Raymond A. Mohl, South of the South: Jewish Activists and the Civil Rights Movement in Miami, 1945- 1960 (Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida: 2004), 61.

11 Lise M. Steinhauer, “Wait Has Always Mean “Never”: The Long Road to School Desegregation in Palm Beach County,” in Irvin D.S. Winsboro, Old South, New South, or Down South? Florida and the Modern Civil Rights Movement (Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Press: 2009), 112. 31

state and local officials meticulously laid a legislative and court ordered system of defiance.

This chapter explicates the ways that Florida constructed exacted a “Down

South” approach to desegregation, which hampered the state’s African American population’s educational success. Anders Walker’s monograph, The Ghost of Jim Crow:

How Moderates used Brown v. Board of Education to Stall Civil Rights, examined the ways that moderate states like Florida undermined efforts for black rights with just as much difficulty as outwardly discriminatory states, but did so without attracting national attention.12 This chapter examines Florida’s statewide “wait and see” approach to desegregation immediately after Brown. It shows how Florida bought time to carefully construct a brick wall that staved desegregation.

A Brick Wall Lasts Longer than a Riot: Florida’s Moderate Approach to Desegregation

The state of Florida has historically supported racial segregation in its schools. In

1938 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Gaines vs. Canada that all races required equal educational accommodations. Realizing that huge disparities between all-white and all- black educational institutions existed, Florida’s leaders sought to hastily repair the crimes of its past and justify Jim Crow practices. Between 1940 and 1952, expenditures on black students and teacher salaries nearly tripled, and in 1947, Florida’s legislature passed the Minimum Foundation Act to improve, overall, the public education system, with special attention to African American institutions.13 State officials hoped the

12 Anders Walker, The Ghost of Jim Crow: How Southern Moderates used Brown vs. Board of Education to Stall Civil Rights (New York: Oxford, 2009), 3.

13 In 1940, the state expended $23.67 per Black student. By 1952, the state expended $153.24 per Black Student. Black teachers earned $583 per year in 1940, but by 1953 they earned $2,922. The state also equalized the school year so that every child attended school during the 180 day cycle. 32

Minimum Foundation Program would demonstrate adherence to the “separate but equal doctrine” and thereby allow segregation to continue unfettered. These measures ironically bolstered African American education, but also fortified Florida’s resolve for separated educational facilities for people of color.

The landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education,

Topeka Kansas in 1954 compelled Florida’s state leadership to respond. The state’s response set the stage for resistance to Brown without creating national headlines.

Under Democratic Governor Daniel McCarty, the Florida legislature enacted Senate Bill

124, known as the Pupil Placement Law. This law allowed local school boards to admit or deny pupils from public schools for virtually any reason besides race, but it did not allow for schools to close to avoid desegregating schools. The Pupil Placement Law did not explicitly prohibit segregation nor did it demand desegregation. Instead, it allowed local communities to control segregation policies on their own and also incur the fallout for conflicts that arose.14 Historian Kathryn Blieler Palmer described this aversion without aggravation a “cruel hoax,” because it twisted the promise of Brown to suit the needs of the white majority.15

Florida also erected a law school at Florida A&M University, a college for black students. That school was abandoned after Brown and the contents of its library were sent to Florida State University’s school of law. Joseph Tomberlin, “Florida and the Desegregation Issue, 1954-1959,” The Journal of Negro Education XLII, no. 4 (1974): 457-467; R.W. Puryear, “Desegregation of Public Education in Florida—One Year Afterward,” The Journal of Negro Education, XXIV, no. 3 (1955):219-227.

14 General Acts and Resolutions Adopted by the Legislature of Florida at its Thirty-fifth Regular Session, Volume 1 Part One, 1955: 302-305; Tomberlin, “Florida and the Desegregation Issue,” 457.

15 Kathryn Blieler Palmer, ““A Cruel Hoax”: How Brown v. Board of Education Undermined Florida’s Black Educators, an Examination of Two Counties, 1954-1971 (master’s thesis, Florida State University, 2014), 6.

In 1955, Governor McCarty died while in office, causing an upheaval in the state’s leadership. Senator LeRoy Collins, a Democrat from Leon County and a friend of the governor’s ran for office, hoping to carry out his friend’s plans for Florida’s future.

Collins’ major focus while in office had less to do with race relations and more to do with reapportionment of the state’s legislature. Collins hoped to reduce the power of the so- called the Pork Chop Gang, a group of Deep South senators from North Central Florida, who dominated the state legislature. This group set up the Johns Committee, whose priorities in Florida included the largest-scale investigation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and a witch hunt to root out teachers with same sex desire.16 Collins prioritized reapportionment because the growing population of South Florida was misrepresented in the legislature.17 He hoped to foster a transition in Florida’s economy and politics from its Deep South past and move the state into a new age of prosperity through industrialization and tourism.

In 1955, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Brown for the second time, racial segregation threatened to overshadow Collins’s goal for reapportionment of the legislature. In his campaign speeches, Collins promised the citizens of Florida that he

16 Graves, And They Were Wonderful Teachers,10.

17 According to Tom Wagy’s biographical account of the governor’s life, the historical Brown decision altered Collins’s priorities. The moderate governor gained most of his voter support from constituents who would attain more political power through reapportionment. On the other hand, the small “Pork Chop Gang” presented a dominant voice of opposition toward the governor and his initiatives. William C. Harvard and Loren P. Beth explained, however, that reapportionment would only succeed if forced from the outside. The current legislative body would not approve the change because it would strip it of power. Furthermore, in the 1955 legislative session, Collins first introduced reapportionment as a key issue of contention and continued to do so in every session as governor. Harvard and Beth indicated that his strong stance on reapportionment isolated some legislators, who “resolved to fight every measure the governor backed.” William C. Harvard and Loren P. Beth, The Politics of Mis-Representation: Rural Urban Conflict in the Florida Legislature (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1962), 46; Tom R. Wagy, Governor LeRoy Collins of Florida: Spokesman of the New South (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1980), 53.

would preserve segregation to the best of his ability but generally downplayed it’s significance for the people of Florida. The new governor faced Brown, and all the problems associated with it, by advocating a moderate approach that would allow segregation to continue through legal measures.18 The Pupil Placement Law, enacted by McCarty in 1954, was a provisionary action intended to fend off desegregation and endured the year between the two Brown rulings. In fact, in 1955 Florida’s news writers essentially ignored Brown. The editor of the Tallahassee Democrat cautioned the legislature not to produce sweeping segregation measures until the U.S. Supreme Court released its second Brown ruling. The court revealed its Brown II directive to desegregate “with all deliberate speed,” and Governor LeRoy Collins told the

Tallahassee Democrat that the state could move calmly. The vagueness of the condition allowed time to consider a proper course of action. 19

Collins may have cared little for segregation politics, but he understood the necessity of a plan for segregation. Brown could generate a potentially virulent atmosphere, so he sought assistance. In 1956, Governor Collins and Attorney General

Richard Ervin formed a committee of legal experts to devise segregation legislation.

This group, known as the Fabisinski Committee, attempted to solve the conundrum of legally maintaining segregation. If the governor ascertained some “lawful and practical proposal” to handle integration from the committee’s report, he would call a special

18 Colburn and DeHaven-Smith, Florida’s Megatrends, 127.

19 John Tapers, “What’s Being Done About Segregation?” The Tallahassee Democrat, 22 April 1955, 2; John Tapers, “The Governor’s Program” The Tallahassee Democrat, 6 April 1955, 6; John Tapers, “End of Segregation” The Tallahassee Democrat, 14 May 1955, 2; “Floridians Relieved: Collins says State Can Move Calmly”, The Florida Times Union, 1 June 1955, 6.

session of legislature to act upon it.20 The committee suggested a plan that strengthened the existing Pupil Placement Law to attain these goals. The reworked

Pupil Assignment Law allowed districts to determine student school assignments on psychological and socio-economic factors. The law reflected similar legislation in North

Carolina but did not allow for schools to close in the event of integration.21

Implementation of pupil assignment relied on tests to account for socio-cultural and psychological considerations to determine a student’s welfare in a school. Essentially, the tests utilized vague justifications for school placement decisions. In addition to testing and other psychological factors that would be measured, parents would have to apply to have their children placed in the school that they saw fit. All decisions about student placement would happen at the local level. Indeed, the principal of any school could deny a student’s admittance to the school if he or she found the student unfit for any reason other than race. The law did not enforce segregation, but it made it difficult for black families to enter their students into all-white schools. Collins hoped the Pupil

20The members of the committee included Judge L.L. Fabisinski, chairman, Judge Rivers Buford, vice chairman, Judge Millard Smith, Cody Fowler, Luther Mershon, J. Lewis Hall and John T. Wigginton (only one of these men was Black: Lewis Hall.) On July 16, 1956 the Fabisinski Committee released its report. It concluded that in the days after the Brown decision, Florida and the nation were bound to experience difficult times. The report cautioned legislators against acting on emotion. To determine segregation policies based on tradition and emotion alone could amplify unnecessary tension. The committee shared similar goals with the governor. They wanted to preserve the public school system in Florida so that every child had the opportunity to succeed through education. Educated children produced educated workers. They wanted to prevent “hostile feelings” between different classes and groups to maintain harmony. Finally, they wanted to maintain segregation but also comply with the United States Constitution; Herbert Cameron, “Collins to Curb Session Agenda, “The Florida Times Union, 3 July 1956, 12; Night Press- Collect, 10 May 1956, file 1, box 33, series 776, Correspondence 1955-1961, Collins Collection, Florida State Archives; The one vote of dissent came from Dade County Representative John B. Orr Jr. who believed that the state should begin gradual desegregation because the schools in the state were not equal at all.

21 The Florida Legislature did, actually, pass one law that would allow parents to receive money for private schooling in the event of integration and another that would allow for school closings. LeRoy Collins actively fought against these laws and vetoed them when they crossed his desk. But the sentiment of the legislature was clear: desegregation was not an option in Florida.

Assignment Law would retain segregation without suffering immediate judicial peril. So, on July 20, 1956, he sent a proclamation to the Florida State Legislature calling for a special session of legislature to consider the law. Legislators reacted favorably and decidedly approved the measure with only one dissenting vote from democratic Dade

County representative John B. Orr Jr., and this piece of legislation became the hallmark of Governor Collins’ moderate segregation plan. 22 Orr, the sole dissenter of the blatant attempt to continue segregation in Florida schools, was essentially ousted out of committee work in the state legislature for his vote.

The actions of the Florida state legislature typify its contradictory political approach to race. Legislation developed in response to Brown did not explicitly name race as a factor in assigning students to schools, but the laws enabled segregation to continue. While these laws were enacted, the legislation approved the creation of the

22 Acts and Regulations Adopted by the Legislature of Florida at its Extraordinary Sessions: June 6, 1955 to June 11, 1956 and July 23, 1956 to August 1, 1956, Published by Authority of Law, 1956: 30-35. The Fabisinski Committee based its recommendations on laws that succeeded in the State courts of North Carolina. Report of the Special Committee, 2-3. “A Proclamation by the Governor, State of Florida,” Executive Department, Tallahassee, 20 July 1956, file unmarked, box 25, series 776 A, Proclamations, Collins Collection, Florida State Archives. Superintendent of Public Instruction Thomas D. Bailey opposed the use of tests so broadly. The four-point program included the Pupil Assignment Law, regulating assignments of teachers, vesting power in the governor to use necessary means to protect peace and tranquility, and allow the governor to call forth all law enforcement agencies in the state in case of an emergency. This paper focuses on the Pupil Assignment Law because it is the major piece of legislation utilized in Florida after Brown to avoid desegregation. When he called for a special session of the legislature in 1956, Governor Collins asked members not to produce any other bills regarding segregation. Controversy came from Attorney General Richard Ervin who helped Governor Collins create the Fabisinski Committee. Ervin honored Collins’s request not to propose any new legislation during the special session of 1956. However, Ervin indicated that a private school system might be a necessary precaution to preserve segregation. He was not alone. In 1956, House Representative Prentice Pruitt (Dem., Monticello) introduced two segregation bills known as the Local Option Plan. The first allowed for emergency suspension of public schools, and the second allowed students from suspended schools either to attend another public institution or receive a subsidy for a private school. Governor Collins did not favor either because they allowed for the possibility to close public schools. As promised, Collins vetoed the ‘Local Option Plan.’ This use of veto is an example of the exceptions in Florida’s status as a typical southern state. A typical southern governor would welcome a plan to close schools in order to avoid desegregation. Collins also vetoed a motion to adopt the doctrine of Interposition, a pre-Civil War doctrine that maintained states’ rights against the federal government; Louise Blanchard, “Principals May Deny Kids’ Entry to School: Assignment Forms are Discussed,” Miami Daily News, 23 August, 1956, 4.

Johns Committee, a group of legislators bent on rooting out integrationists. And the legislative body shunned the one representative who suggested that the body enact meaningful legislation that would end the state’s Jim Crow practices. Thus in Florida the

“ghost of Jim Crow” remained clearly intact regardless of outside appearances of moderation.23

The Miami Test: Tokenism in “America’s Playground”

Florida’s Pupil Assignment Law appeared to fare well in the battle to legally maintain racial segregation in schools. But it did not take long for black leaders to begin to test the legislation in Dade County, the birthplace of “America’s Playground,” Miami.

In 1956, the superintendent of public schools in Dade County, Joe Hall, declared Miami schools integrated as defined by the stipulations of the Public Assignment Law even though no inter-racial mingling had taken place. In fact, the county had used the law to successfully deny applications for school reassignment submitted on behalf of Theodore

Gibson, son of the head of the NAACP in Miami, and John O. Brown Jr., president of the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) in Miami.24 In short, Joe Hall’s assertion that

Miami-Dade schools were integrated proved that Florida’s law served as a legal barrier to enacting Brown to the fullest extent.

The Pupil Assignment law had indeed staved desegregation, and in 1956, the

NAACP tested its strength by bringing the system to court to demand a thorough examination into its enactment. In particular, the NAACP hoped to prove that black students had been denied entrance into white schools because of their race. The first

23 Amy C. Martinelli, “A Moderate Calm? Florida’s Struggle Over School Desegregation after Brown, 1955-1961,” (master’s thesis, University of Florida, 2007), 12-15.

24 “Mrs. Meyer’s Dissents,” Miami Times, September 8, 1956, 5.

suit for black admission into a white elementary school was filed in Miami by the local head of the NAACP in Dade County, Theodore Gibson. The NAACP’s lawsuit wrested on the belief that the Dade County school board denied the two boys’ admittance to a white school because of their race. Three months later, Judge Emmet C. Choate dismissed the case because he claimed there was not enough evidence for him to take any action. Judge Choate allowed the plaintiffs ten days to file an amended complaint.

G.E. Graves, the attorney for the NAACP working on the case, filed the amendment.

Graves also encouraged black children in Dade County to apply for admission to white primary and secondary schools in order to start a campaign to force the hand of the county. The case was thrown out of the court once again in 1957, this time on the grounds that it failed to establish that black students were prohibited from attending white schools because of their race and not any other reason.25 The NAACP’s court cases in Miami brought attention to the city and forced the school board to consider seriously the question of desegregation in public schools. Also in 1957, the NAACP organized a bus boycott that led to the desegregation of public transportation in Miami.

With negative attention mounting in Miami, an important tourism destination, the school board began to discuss desegregation in its city for the first time in 1957.

In public hearings, Dade County leaders discussed the merits of continuing the

Pupil Assignment Law. Neal P. Rutledge, a member of the Dade County Council on

Community Relations told the school board that the Pupil Assignment Law could be

25 “School Suit Hits New Delays,” Miami Herald, November 17, 1956, 4B, School Integration Dade County 1955-1972, box 14, Education in Florida Subject Files, Special and Area Studies Collections, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida; Dom Bonafede, “Attorney Says Negroes To Try at White School: Tells Plan as Racial Suite Fizzles,” School Integration Dade County 1955-1972, box 14, Education in Florida Subject Files, Special and Area Studies Collections, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida; “School Segregation Suit Dismissed Here,” Miami Times, August 25, 1956, 1.

“double barreled,”—it could feasibly lead to gradual desegregation in Miami.26 Large crowds attended the board’s meetings and spoke on behalf of and in opposition to integration. School board member S.D. Phillips Jr. introduced an anti-integration resolution that the board could adopt to “explain to the public our position and stop people from coming down here to continually harass this group.”27 This motion was voted down in a six to one vote, and members of the board remained silent on the issue. Lyle Roberts, a board member, stated, “I don’t see how I could vote for it [the resolution]. It goes against the Pupil Assignment Law, and in light of impending litigation, I don’t think it is wise.”28 Though the school board remained reticent about its plans for integration, it did begin to commission studies to plan for integration. Its silence signified a clear desire to protect the law.

In part, these discussions began in reaction to the tragic events in Little Rock,

Arkansas, where violent riots prompted federal imposition. Many in Miami appeared hesitant to bring about any action that might enhance racial tensions in their city. One resident expressed concerns that if Miami did not address the issue of integration it would lose its status as a progressive southern city. The writer expressed the belief that the values of the Deep South were not at embedded into Miami’s cultural landscape, and that a plan for gradual integration could take place.29 In October of 1957, the Dade

26 Doris McAbee, “That Pupil Law’s Double-Barreled, Mrs. Meyers Told—Can it Integrate?” Miami Herald, September 23, 1957, 3A.

27 Dom Bonafede, “Hears Hot Arguments: School Board Puts Off Stand on Segregation,” Miami Herald, November 7, 1957 2B.

28 Doris McAbee, “Segregation May Be Put to Vote,” Miami Herald, November 18, 1957, 5A.

29 “We Can’t Bury our Heads in the Sand,” Miami Herald, October, 1 1957, 10B.

County Council on Community Relations proposed a plan to bring integration to Dade

County schools immediately. The announcement read: “Evasion of the law over one issue leads to general breakdown of the law in other areas. This we can ill afford in our area which connects the Americas and plays host to thousands of tourists annually.”30

This group understood the importance of preserving an image of tranquility in

“America’s playground.”

After two long years, courts retried Gibson et al. vs. Dade County Board of

Instruction on August 18, 1958. The Dade County Board of Instruction claimed it had made decisions about school placement using the Pupil Assignment Law not the segregation provisions of the state constitution. The NAACP had not proved that

Florida’s constitution prevented black admittance to white schools, so the case failed.

When a Dade County school subsequently denied two black boys admittance to a white school, however, the lawsuit came back.31 This case brought the “state’s eyes on

Miami,” as the fate of desegregation in all of Florida. Integrationists viewed the case as an opportunity to invalidate pupil assignment. Black citizens in Miami attended the court hearings, and were “keenly interested” in their proceedings. The NAACP planned to call in all African American principals as witnesses, and most importantly, Joe Hall,

Superintendent of Dade County Schools. In court hearings and in public school board meetings, Hall and the school board maintained their stance that race was not a factor

30 Bert Collier, “Council Suggests Method to Bring Dade Integration,” Miami Herald, October 7, 1957, 5B..

31 “Assignment of Pupils Law Faces Attack,” The Florida Star, 20 June 1959, 1; “School Board is Rebuffed: School Integration Suit Set for April,” The Miami Times, March 20 1958, 6. The case was originally set for April of 1958, but was delayed until August to give both sides time to adjust to the change in the case, since it had not included the two boys who were not admitted to the white school previously.

in student placement. They argued that all the decisions made by the board in regard to student placement operated legally under the law and asked that the NAACP rescind all court cases based on this claim.32 But operating under the guise of the Pupil

Assignment Law would not last much longer and the events that ensued prompted the school board to move quickly on its decision to begin some form of integration within

Miami schools.33

Orchard Villa Elementary School: The Model For Desegregation in Florida, 1958

On September 29, 1958, the Dade County Board of Instruction denied four black students admittance to the all-white Orchard Villa Elementary School. Black families increasingly populated the school’s surrounding neighborhood, yet none of their children attended the school. The denied children all lived within two blocks of the all-white

Orchard Villa Elementary School but were still barred entrance. The population misrepresentation provoked the NAACP to bring forth a “massive frontal attack” to break down segregation in that school. Fourteen families blamed the Pupil Assignment Law for discrimination in Orchard Villa.34 In the public hearing for these denied applicants,

Joe Hall, who had previously denied that race was a factor in the board’s decision finally cracked. During the hearing, G.E. Graves questioned the placement of six-year-old

Sherry Joseph by “sociological and other factors.”35 In a line of questioning about the

32 Bert Collier, “Hall Says Race is No Factor Here: School Head Last Witness,” Miami Herald, August 2, 1958, 2B; Bert Collier, “Race Not School Factor, Hall Says,” Miami Herald, August 2, 1958, 3B.

33 Garth C. Reeves, “School Battle Monday In Dade County To Determine Fate of Segregation,” The Miami Times, August 16 1958, 1; Elliot J. Pieze, “School Integration Decision Delayed Here,” The Miami Times, August 23,1958, 1.

34“Fourteen Miami Students Denied Transfer to White School: Showdown Set on Pupil Assignment Law,” The Miami Times, September 20, 1958, 1; Louise Blanchard, “Attack Launched on School Laws by NAACP Here,” Miami Daily News, September 29, 1958, 1.

35 Phil Meyer, “Educator Admits Race a Factor in Negro Ban,” Miami Herald, September 21, 1958, 3A. 42

child’s placement, the superintendent eventually admitted that “tension existing as a result of race was the main factor,” in the decision to deny the girl entrance into the all- white school. This admission from the superintendent of public schools was the break that the NAACP needed to bring integration to Miami. Hall’s admission, along with his declaration in 1955 that Miami schools would remain segregated “until further notice” seemingly brought about the impetus to conjure a plan to integrate. As one writer in the

Miami Daily News put it, “the suit is an early sign of what may be the most perilous and trying road of Hall’s career. It is a road down which all school administrators must, sooner or later, travel.”36 With court cases and public hearings mounting, the board finally had to face making a decision about integration once and for all. The school board began to conduct studies to determine whether or not Dade County schools could be integrated.37 And as desegregation became more likely, ideas about how to go about it in a peaceful manner came about from a variety of sources.

Although most of the city’s white leadership favored resistance to Brown, the sole voice of dissent in the state legislature, representative John Orr, came from Miami. Orr was an outspoken opponent of any laws that would actively seek to avoid obeying the court’s ruling. Indeed, he believed that avoiding the mandate through legislation would ultimately bring public scrutiny to the state of Florida, and that this was not good for a state that relied upon a burgeoning tourism industry as the bulk of its economy.38

36 “Man in the News, Hall: He Faces Delicate Job,” Miami Daily News, August 19, 1958, 4.

37 Louise Blanchard, “Negro Ability Ratings Eyed as Mixing ‘Key’, Miami Daily News, October 2, 1958, 6.

38 Paul Davis, “Orr Says Integration Foes Hasten School Race-Mixing,” St. Petersburg Times, October 28, 1956, 13.

Representative Orr also had moral explanations for his opposition toward the segregation legislation, which he explained after the extraordinary legislative session held in 1956 to address desegregation in Florida schools. Orr’s dissent was met with great hostility in the legislature, and he found himself isolated within the legislative body.

In response, the Dade representative gave a ten-minute speech in which he defended and explained his position on integration. In this speech, Orr presented his expectation that gradual desegregation would be the best course of action for the entire state of

Florida to take in response to Brown: “I believe…that had we devoted as much energy, time, and talent to discovering means to live under the law instead of in defiance of it, we could have discovered a way.”39

His stance on integration drew heat in Miami as well. In 1958, Orr faced an embittered election standoff against David Eldredge who suggested that Orr’s steadfast position on integration hurt his chances of reelection in Dade County. Eldgredge cited that the 70,000 votes he received indicated that the people of Miami were not behind this strong position.40 These indictments, however, did not deter Orr, who had an inventive plan to begin gradual and peaceful desegregation. In the face of pending court suits and the controversial developments in Little Rock, Arkansas, he prepared a plan with a committee of citizens to deal with desegregation, which called for a “junior legislature” composed of junior high and high school students to study and propose a program of integration to the school board. The legislators on the board would be

39 Explanation of the Vote of Honorable John B. Orr Jr., Representative of Dade County, On House Bills 4-XX, 5-XX, 6-XX, 10-XX and House Concurrent Resolution 31-XX of the Extraordinary Session of July 1956. Education in Florida Subject Files, Special and Area Studies Collections, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida.

40 Bert Collier, “Orr Would Let Pupils Take Lead,” Miami Herald, September 25, 1958, 4A.

chosen from the top third of their classes and would be biracial. Those who endorsed this plan did so because of its appearance of sincerity. The Miami Daily News wrote in support citing that “it is likely the federal courts would give us the necessary time for a calm, intelligent solution.”41 This plan did not come out of nowhere. Calvin Patterson, principal of the Van Buren Senior High School in Van Buren, Arkansas allowed students to facilitate bring peaceful desegregation despite its close proximity to Little Rock.42

William K. Williams, executive director of the Florida Council on Human Relations agreed that this could be a viable way to ease mounting tensions over desegregation in

Miami and urged the school board to endorse the plan. He stated in an interview with the Miami Herald that “a solid year without emotional strife in Dade County is almost too good to be true, but the value of a year of calm discussion cannot be underestimated.”43

Support for this plan indicated a belief that students could better handle the job of integrating because the results would affect them directly.

Soon after the proposal John Orr invited student leaders from eleven high schools across Dade County met to discuss the possibility of creating the student legislative board. He invited juniors and seniors from across Dade County who held leadership positions in their schools to discuss the possibility of creating the advisory board. Orr believed that a board of students could better address the issue of desegregation than many adults because they could make decisions away from political

41 “Orr’s Plan Might Be Answer,” Miami Daily News, September 25, 1958, 3.

42 Bert Collier, “Plan for Student Study is Lauded,” Miami Herald, September 26, 1958, 4.

43 Ibid.

pressure.44 The thirty students who attended the meeting said they did not come as representatives of their schools but as individuals. In the meeting, Orr outlined the plan that would require participation of 65 white students and 15 black students to serve on the board for a year of study. When the informative meeting concluded, the students answered a series of question by secret ballot. The results showed willingness to serve on this board among the students that attended. Orr believed that the potential for these students to make progress in education decisions in Dade County could go beyond the current discussions of desegregation and could become a training ground for future community leaders.45 Significantly, leaders of the local NAACP agreed that if the school board accepted this plan that would delay desegregation for only one year, they put their court cases on hiatus. This would provide for a year of peaceful negotiations to sort out desegregating Dade County schools.46

High school students also proposed a plan for integration as a part of South

Florida’s first National Forensic League Student Congress at Miami Edison High school.

Their plan called for gradual desegregation of schools over the span of twelve years beginning with first grade and gradually bringing integration to all schools. It reflected the “First Grade Plan” proposed by a South Florida community newspaper Town and

Country.47 Town and Country endorsed a plan to begin integrating schools at the first

44 Bert Collier, “Students Endorse School Plan at Meeting with Orr,” The Miami Herald, September 28,1958, 3.

45 Ibid. This initial meeting was the only instance I could find that showed initiative toward supporting this action. Even though there was support for this type of solution, it was never endorsed by the school board.

46 “Dade Negroes Agree ‘Slow’ Plans Best,” Miami Beach Sun, September 25, 1958, 1A.

47 “The First Grade Plan,” Town and Country, October 8, 1957, 2.

grade level and steadily integrating from there on out. That way, in twelve years the entire school system of Dade County would be effectively integrated. The plan would not only satisfy the need to desegregate but also the desire to retain Miami’s reputation for racial harmony: “If Dade County were to take the first step in the Solid South, and pull it off without incidents such as those that occurred in Little Rock, Arkansas and

Clinton, Tennessee, it would greatly enhance the reputation of Miami, Dade and Florida in the eyes of the U.S. and the world.”48 The paper indicated that their plan for gradual desegregation starting in the first grade received dozens of letters supporting the plan from across Dade County. But the “First Grade Plan” raised objections from those on both sides of the segregation debate. Two members of the Dade County school board indicated that endorsing this plan of gradual desegregation would essentially equate to an endorsement of integration, something they were not willing to do. G.E. Graves, attorney for the NAACP in Miami, disagreed with the plan because it denied immediate desegregation.49

Another voice advocating for some form of desegregation came from the late night local talk radio show host Alan Courtney who advocated for a self-proclaimed moderate approach to solving the “segregation problem.”50 The approach consisted of creating a voluntary pilot school that would be equipped with excellent teachers and facilities. The belief was that if a pilot school was successful, then those on both sides of

48 Ibid.

49 Russ Marchner, “Student Race Plan Raises Objections,” Miami Herald, October 8, 1958, 12A.

50 “A Moderate’s Answer to the Segregation Problem,” September 13, 1958, WQAM radio Station, Alan Courtney Program, Education in Florida Subject Files, Special and Area Studies Collections, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida.

the debate would be satisfied. School board member Jess Yarborough, the newest to the board also endorsed a “pilot” school proposal for similar reasons. “This is a new way of life we have to learn,” Yarborough stated, “My idea is that if we have a school which both races can attend but nobody is required to attend, nobody can say, ‘You’re making my kid go to an integrated school.”51 The school board had already called for studies to determine if Orchard Villa Elementary could become this “pilot” school.

Amid calls for gradual desegregation and student legislative boards, the school board endorsed a plan to possibly make Orchard Villa Elementary School a “pilot” for desegregation. The school was selected because of the changing demographics in the area. Many black families had moved into the neighborhood, and it was close to Liberty

Square, a large housing project with a black population.52 As part of the study, the school board conducted a survey to gauge parents’ and teachers’ acceptance of the move to make desegregate Orchard Villa. The results were mixed. Of the 143 white families surveyed, nearly half indicated that would ask to move their students to different schools. Seventy six of those families also responded, however, that they would be willing to work within a racially mixed Parent Teacher Association (PTA). But almost all of the families stated that the proposed integration would impact their decision to go or to stay at the school.53 The teachers and other employees of Orchard Villa were similarly divided. The survey showed that while all of the teachers preferred to teach in an all-white school, more than half of them were willing to stay if it were integrated. Most

51 Ibid.

52 “Miami Tries Integration, Finds Pupils Move,” Tampa Tribune, June 5, 1959, 8; Andrea Robinson, “When Miami Was a Cracker Town,” Miami Herald, February 2, 2004, 10A..

53 Phil Meyer, “Families Sharply Split on ‘Pilot’ Integration Plan,” Miami Herald, November 20, 1958, 5B.

of the concerns expressed by teachers dealt with community relations problems but only a handful believed that students would actually present a problem. Perhaps the most revealing indication of how parents perceived this change was that most indicated that they would move out of the neighborhood if the school became a testing ground for integration.54

Moderate integrationists, who wanted to desegregate some school somewhere,

(though not their own), and Governor Collins, who believed a study of integration in one community would serve to strengthen the Pupil Assignment Law, supported the plan.

Blacks however, were not sure a “pilot school” solved segregation problems in the state, but viewed it as a good first step.55 Skeptics feared white flight would prevent actual desegregation at Orchard Villa and African American students would eventually dominate the population. A writer for the Miami Times noted that as black families moved into the neighborhood, white families sold their homes near Orchard Villa quickly, and black parents “hungrily” eyed the well-built school. If the school board adopted a plan to desegregate the school the following year, white parents would leave before the next term. The Dade County School Board adopted the “pilot school” plan and both Governor Collins and the editor of the Miami Times deemed it “a wise decision.”56

54 Ibid.

55 “Orr’s Integration Plan Gets Backing: NAACP Would Drop All Suits,” The Miami Times, September 20,1958, 1; H.E. Sigmund Reeves, “Integrate Dade Schools?” The Miami Times, 27 September 1958, 2.

56 “Orchard Villa May Be Negro School In February,” The Miami Times, October 15, 1958, 1; H.E. Sigmund Reeves, “A Wise Decision,” The Miami Times, February 21, 1959, 4. These predictions were essentially correct. In September of 1959, a total of twelve students entered Orchard Villa Elementary, four of whom were Black. An October 13, 1959 edition of The Miami Times reported that the School Board of Dade County assigned 379 Black students to attend Orchard Villa, essentially segregating the school one again, and soon drawing heat from the NAACP. 49

The conflict over school desegregation in Miami revealed some innovative and sincere approaches from integrationists and young people that supported gradual desegregation. If the city had moved forward to allow gradual desegregation, it may have become the first urban place in the South to do so, and may have directed

Florida’s course. However, the school board’s ultimate decision to allow small numbers of black students into school with white students signified the white leadership’s preference for the status quo. The move to test integration in Miami was generally well received by the white public because it was not viewed as an effort toward massive desegregation. Governor Collins believed a study of integration in one community could serve to strengthen the current segregation laws designed by his bi-racial advisory committee because it required that communities control their own efforts toward integration. The Miami Herald reported the governor’s reaction to the “race study” proposed at Orchard Villa Elementary: “They are just seeking information upon which they may later base some conclusions. I think the board should be encouraged in doing this.” The governor did not treat the Dade County School Board’s decision as an effort toward widespread integration; rather, he viewed it as a local test of desegregation.57

The Dade County Council on Community Relations also endorsed the study of integration in Miami. The Council on Community Relations had convened in 1952 in response to a series bombings aimed at the Black and Jewish populations in the city.

The Miami Herald reported that the council had often called for integration since the

57 Bert Collier, “Dade Race Study Hailed,” The Miami Herald, 17 October, 1958, 5A..

U.S. Supreme Court decided in favor of ending racial segregation in schools and offered its support but ultimately left the onus of control with the school board itself.58

Amid general approval, voices of dissent appeared from prominent members of the African American community in Miami. Theodore R. Gibson, president of the Miami chapter of the NAACP, expressed fears that a pilot school based on voluntary attendance was problematic and would eventually lead to white flight. Ten days after the

Dade County School Board decided to investigate testing integration at Orchard Villa, a student group at the University of Miami invited Gibson to speak. Gibson noted that the neighborhoods surrounding Orchard Villa became increasingly black as white families moved out, and soon enough black students would dominate the school’s population.

Indeed, the Miami Herald reported that the mere mention of integration prompted nearly half of the school’s population to leave Orchard Villa in favor of other schools in the district.59 Gibson advised the student group that “the Negro has been understanding for years. Now is the time to misunderstand.”60 The discussion of token integration in

Miami seemingly instigated a rhetorical turn in his beliefs about how Blacks should go about the task of bringing equality into the schools and their lives. Instead of compliance, Gibson advocated a stronger stance from the black community. H.E.

Sigmund Reeves, editor of the Negro Press newspaper The Miami Times echoed

Gibson’s doubts over the viability of promoting true desegregation in Miami but cautiously endorsed the plan anyway. Reeves asserted his faith that Miami could be a

58 Ibid.

59 “Mixing Talk Pinches: Pupils Dwindle in 2-Race Area,” The Miami Herald, October 17, 1958, 2B.

60 “NAACP Leader’s Prophecy: ‘All Colored Pilot School,” Miami Daily News, October 27, 1958, 3A.

beacon of integration for the state of Florida, and any plan to initiate desegregation was a good first step: “This might not be the answer to our integration problem, but it is worth trying as an experiment.”61 Whereas Gibson’s reaction exhibited the need for more pressure to bring about integration, Reeves’ reaction allowed for time to test the idea of the pilot school. Despite their different reactions, both black leaders advocated the need for moderation and a calm approach to desegregation to preserve order in their state.62

The school board of Dade County eventually decided to test desegregation at

Orchard Villa. In the fall of 1959 four black students and fourteen white children began school together. Gary Range, one of the four black students admitted to Orchard Villa recalled in a 2004 interview this entrance into a previously all-white school induced great amount of pride and also fear. Policemen lined the streets as he and the other three students entered the building on September 8, 1959. The sidewalks were segregated: whites on one side and blacks on the other. In the interview, Range he did not remember any violence: “It was a smooth transition. Kids don't have problems with things like that. The grown folks had the problem.''63 The effort to desegregate at

Orchard Villa was ultimately a failure. After two months, all but one white student transferred or moved away from the neighborhood and the school board decided to assign 400 black students to Orchard Villa Elementary. The teaching staff too became

61 H.E. Sigmund Reeves, “Integrate Dade Schools?” The Miami Times, September 27, 1958, 2.

62 “Orchard Villa May Be Negro School In February,” The Miami Times, October 15, 1958, 1; H.E. Sigmund Reeves, “A Wise Decision,” The Miami Times, 21 February 1959, 4. These predictions were essentially correct. In September of 1959, a total of twelve students entered Orchard Villa Elementary, four of whom were Black. An October 13, 1959 edition of The Miami Times reported that the School Board of Dade County assigned 379 Black students to attend Orchard Villa, essentially segregating the school once again, and soon drawing heat from the NAACP.

63 Andrea Robinson, “When Miami Was a Cracker Town,” Miami Herald, February 2, 2004, 1A.

all black by the end of the school year. The Tampa Tribune described the situation this way: “While Orchard Villa has been used in court suits as evidence of intent to follow the integration of schools within the state’s Pupil Assignment Law, the white residents of the area have pulled the rug out from under the move.”64 By implementing a gradual approach to desegregation, Miami set an example of how to avoid fulfilling the hopes of black parents and students.

After the Dade County School Board desegregated Orchard Villa Elementary

School, more school boards granted requests from black parents for their children to attend white schools. However, integrationists viewed the admissions as “token” and not the widespread desegregation they wanted. During the 1960 State Conference of the

NAACP, the president of Florida’s branches, Reverend Leon Lowry declared spurts of token integration in Ft. Lauderdale and Daytona proof that for too long school administrators used the Pupil Assignment Law to discriminate against Blacks: “In each instance, school officials hurriedly admitted a few Negroes after court suits had been filed.”65 Desegregation in Florida was still a myth and not a way of life. The first instance that “tested” integration really only tested the strength of the Pupil Assignment

Law. Members of the NAACP recognized that pupil assignment successfully prevented

Black children from attending white schools. Miami’s example of tokenism proved to be the brick wall that fortified white, institutional resistance to desegregation throughout the state.

64 “5 Stay in First School: Miami Tries Integration, Finds Pupils Move,” Tampa Tribune, June 5, 1959, 6.

65 Conference Statement, 1960, 13 May 1960, Part 27:Selected Branch Files, 1956-1965, Series A: The South, Reel 4, Frame 639-641, Papers of the NAACP, Library of Congress.

Throwing Pebbles at a Brick Wall: The Desegregation of Palm Beach County Schools

The “successful” desegregation of Orchard Villa Elementary School in Miami prescribed blueprints for avoiding Brown legally throughout the Sunshine State. To be sure, the token approach to desegregation appeared to permit enough racial mixing in schools without large-scale changes to educational structure. This was certainly the case in the southeastern county of Palm Beach. In fact, during the same time period that the NAACP fought to desegregate Miami’s schools, a local black attorney in West

Palm Beach waged a similar battle with decidedly different results. Historian Lise M.

Steinhaur presented Palm Beach County’s desegregation as a quest that began and ended with William Holland Sr.’s long and arduous battle against the Palm Beach

County Board of Instruction.66 A quest that would last over a decade and would never truly fulfill the promise of equal education for the black and white students who lived there. According to Steinhaur, Holland’s battle for desegregation culminated when the

U.S. Department of Education declared Palm Beach County a unitary system in 1973, signifying an end to his decade long court battle. However, the bizarre account of Palm

Beach County’s eventual entrance into a full-scale desegregation plan reveals the great lengths taken by its school board to maintain the racist tradition of racial separation.

Palm Beach County’s Early Desegregation Battle, 1955-1973

Palm Beach County provides a useful case to study the complexity of politics and race relations in Florida because it epitomizes the paradoxical regions of the state. The county sits in the southeastern corner of Florida and is something of a gateway between

66 Steinhaur,“Wait” Has Always Meant “Never”, 110-112.

its rural bordering counties to the north and west and the metropolitan counties to the south, Broward and Dade (Figure 2-1). Its land mass covers a large area at just over

2,000 square miles, however, most of the population congregated on the eastern coast

(Figure 2-2), while the far western region of the county (close to Lake Okeechobee) remained isolated in agriculture. In 1950 Palm Beach County had a population of

114,688 and was hardly metropolitan. But by 1960 the population jumped to 228,106, reflecting a statewide trend in population growth; Palm Beach County began to more closely reflect the industrial urges of Dade and Broward County, at least in population growth.67 In addition, the urban areas of the region became more densely populated and in 1960 82% of the county’s population congregated in the coastal, increasingly urban areas.68 By the 1970 census, the county had changed substantially with a 52% total increase of overall population and a 68% increase in urban population since 1960

(Figures 2-2 and 2-3).69 The county also began to develop in ways that created new divisions of cities, which influenced not only housing patterns, but school assignments as well. By 1970, areas such as Lake Park developed as mostly white and were treated separately from Riviera Beach, which was mostly black, although the two small communities sat beside one another (Figure 2-4). While some similarities exist between

67 The state of Florida experienced at 78% population increase between 1950 and 1960, and Palm Beach County was part of this change. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Table Census of the Population: 1970, Vol.1 Characteristics of the Population, Part II, Florida, Section 1 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973).

68 Data from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Table Census of the Population: 1970, Vol.1 Characteristics of the Population, Part II, Florida, Section 1, (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973); U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1950: Characteristics of the Population, Part II, Florida, Section 1 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1953).

69 U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1970.

Miami and Palm Beach County, the differences make it an integral place of study to better comprehend where Florida fits into the regional and national landscape in regard to race relations. Because of its location and population, Palm Beach County provides a microcosm of the “two Floridas.” Located well below the diagonal line that most contend divides the state politically and socially, the sprawling county provides a lens through which to view the intersectionality of the state. As Palm Beach County grew, it attracted out-of-state implants, and the changes the county made typically aimed to attend to the newcomers.

If news of the Brown ruling reached the Palm Beach County Board of Instruction, it was difficult to tell from the outside. The silence must have felt deafening to black inhabitants there because by 1955, a year after Brown, the board approved and appropriated funds to build a brand new, all-white high school in Riviera Beach. Riviera

Beach High School would serve the white population of the growing region. Given this context, the story of black attorneys William Holland Sr. and his partner, Isaiah C.

Smith’s efforts to desegregate the schools in Palm Beach County is remarkable. Indeed, when Holland died in 2002, commemoration of his death highlighted the fact that he worked toward desegregation and racial justice mostly on his own. As reported in The

Palm Beach Post upon his death, “there were some people who assisted him…but many others, even in the black community, wondered at his efforts.”70 The initial push for desegregation in Palm Beach County began as an individual effort in an area that had little support for civil rights in the 1950s.

70 Mary Ellen Flannery, “William Holland, Civil Rights Champion, Dies,” The Palm Beach Post, July 25, 2002, 1C.

On May 31, 1956, William Holland Sr., petitioned the public board of instruction of Palm Beach County, and asked that his son be allowed entrance to the all-white

Northboro Elementary school.71 On August 30, 1956, Holland brought his son to

Northboro and was turned away. Holland recalled in 1978 “they met us at the door, everybody was real nice.”72 Despite cordial behavior, Holland’s six-year-old son,

William Holland Jr. could not attend the all-white school. The school board denied this petition, citing the Florida state Pupil Assignment Law. It claimed that even though

Holland lived a mere two miles away from Northboro Elementary their residence was outside of the school’s attendance zone; William Holland Jr. could not attend the all- white school. The decision, the board claimed, was not made based on race, but in accordance with the law of the State of Florida. Just as in Miami, the Pupil Assignment

Law could keep black students like Holland Jr. out of white schools.

After the board denied his initial petition, Holland Sr. brought a class action suit against the board of instruction in 1958 on behalf of all African Americans in the county.

In it, Holland accused the school board of “gerrymandering” districts and abusing the

Pupil Assignment Law to maintain segregation. Significantly, the judges who ruled on the case clearly acknowledged that Palm Beach County “maintained and enforced” a

“completely segregated public school system.” 73 The ruling also called into question

71 William Holland Sr. was an attorney in South Florida who originally came from Orange County, Florida, now best known for tourist attractions like the Walt Disney World Resort. He met Isaiah Courtney Smith on a train that would take them both to Florida A & M University. It was there that the two decided to go to law school so that they could do something about the unfair treatment they had felt growing up as black boys in Florida. Holland attended Boston University Law School and Smith attended Brooklyn Law College and they retained their devotion to changing the face of schools for black children.

72 Flannery, “William Holland, Civil Rights Champion, Dies,”4C.

73 United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit, Holland v. Board of Public Instruction, 258 F.2D 730 (5th Cir. 1958).

the Pupil Assignment Law, citing a recent case in Alabama that questioned the constitutionality of a similar piece of legislation. The court’s ruling concluded that while the law was not unconstitutional “on its face,” it did allowed for segregation to continue.

And on August 26, 1958, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that Palm Beach County must make “a prompt and reasonable start” at desegregation. The ruling was a rhetorical victory but produced a practical standstill.

By 1961, very little had changed in Palm Beach County schools, and in the state of Florida writ large. Desegregation was simply not a top priority in a state that hoped to maintain peace in what could be a tumultuous time. Yet, some steps toward desegregation were taking place in the 1960s, albeit at a glacial pace. An article in The

Palm Beach Post in 1962 explained that desegregation in public schools in Florida was

“spreading slowly and quietly, voluntarily, and court-ordered.”74 It was not until 1961 that a judge ruled that black students must be allowed to attend secondary schools closest to their homes. This ruling was likely influenced by the case that had started token integration in Miami only three years prior. The term “token” is more than adequate in the case of Palm Beach County. The county board of public instruction complied by creating a “Freedom of Choice” plan that would allow high school students to apply to any school with available space within their geographical attendance area.

As a result, 87 black families applied for their children to transfer to a school closer to their home, but only four black students were admitted into white high schools.

Approximately 15,000 black students continued to attend segregated schools in 1961.

Steinhaur’s account of the desegregation of Palm Beach County school testifies that

74 Associated Press, “Integration Stepped Up in Florida,” The Palm Beach Post, August 19, 1962, 1-2.

those four token students experienced similar difficulties that black students who broke the color barrier did in other places, like Little Rock, Arkansas.75 In Steinhaur’s account, black students felt intimidated, fearful, and recalled their time in the white schools as painful. These token instances of desegregation served largely to maintain segregation rather than to promote integration.

In the 1960s, national initiatives for civil rights began to influence Florida.

President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title VI prohibited racial desegregation in federally assisted programs. Also, the Fifth Circuit Court in New

Orleans, assigned by the U.S. Supreme Court to enforce Brown, responded to the lack of compliance in Florida by issuing an order that desegregation begin in 1964 and be completed by 1967. In response, the University of Miami established the South Florida

Desegregation Consulting Center, partially financed by the U.S. Department of Health,

Education, and Welfare (HEW).76 This group of educators and educational researchers worked throughout the state to develop desegregation plans and visited all of the counties in Florida, except for Palm Beach.77 Despite these changes in political rhetoric, the Palm Beach County school board merely maintained token desegregation and the schools in the county remained as segregated as ever.

The Civil Rights Act required that counties file reports with the U.S. Office of Civil

Rights (OCR) in Atlanta. In 1965, Palm Beach County did send reports to the government body. The county reported only 137 of the over 15,000 black students who

75 Steinhaur, “Wait Has Always Meant “Never,” 164-165.

76 Harry O. Hall, “South Florida Desegregation Consulting Center Annual Report Covering the Period from August 1, 1965 to June 30, 1966,” (Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami, 1966), 1.

77 Ibid, 23.

attended school in majority white schools, the OCR declared eleven of the county’s 102 schools as “integrated.” Elsewhere in Florida, many other regions also had failed to initiate desegregation programs, yet the compliance plan presented by the School

Board of Palm Beach County became one of the first twelve approved in the South. In response to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the school board said it would comply with the federal demands to desegregate and submitted a four-part plan to the Department of

Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) to desegregate mostly on a voluntary basis.

National momentum toward desegregation continued and in March of 1966, U.S.

Commissioner of Education Harold Howe II became impatient with the lack of true compliance with Brown in the Southern and border-states. He began a process to accelerate the demands of the Civil Rights Act through Title VI; school districts would lose federal funding if they did not comply with the call to desegregate schools.

Commissioner Howe wanted districts, like many in Florida that had filed plans for desegregation but had not enacted them, to do so. Howe required schools to pledge to desegregation in 1965 and to complete the task by 1967; he vowed to only accept

Freedom-of-Choice Plans (like the one used in Palm Beach County) if there was sufficient proof toward real progress, and that he would order that inferior black schools be closed.78

In 1968, the regional HEW in Atlanta charged that the school board of Palm

Beach County was not in compliance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Though the school board attempted to deny the allegations, the Atlanta office upheld the original

78 “Report on H.E.W Option II by Deputy Superintendent, Russell R. Below,” School Board Minutes of the Board of Instruction for Palm Beach County from August 13, 1969, Book 38, pg 18, West Palm Beach, Florida, Palm Beach County School Board; Steinhaur, “Wait Has Always Meant Never,” 163. 60

charge and sent the case to the HEW’s Washington office, into the division that ruled over Title VI of the law. The school board came up with several options to bring about desegregation in the county to comply with the demand by the U.S. government. The plan emphasized raising standards for the entire K-12 school system throughout the county, and would take five years to implement.79 In October of 1969, in the middle of the school year, the HEW sent two staff members to check in on the progress achieved through the implementation of the plan to desegregate the schools. According to their report, though the school board had implemented the plan, but it did not “effectively desegregate” the school system. The board responded by employing the University of

Miami School Desegregation Consulting Center to advise methods to effectively desegregate.80 Additionally, board member Robert Johnson cited an article from the

Sun Sentinel, a newspaper based out of neighboring Broward County entitled “Schools

‘Pairing’ May Satisfy HEW,” a method of pairing junior high and high schools to appease the powers that demanded desegregation.81 The commentary by the board member hinted that while the pressure to desegregate was substantial, the board still sought to merely “satisfy,” court ordered desegregation.

79 “Report on H.E.W Option II by Deputy Superintendent, Russell R. Below,” School Board Minutes of the Board of Instruction for Palm Beach County from August 13, 1969, Book 38, pg 18, West Palm Beach, Florida, Palm Beach County School Board.

80 According to their Annual Report in 1966, the desegregation consulting center promoted school closings, particularly black school closings, as the best way to facilitate desegregation. Their plans typically featured this method.

81 “Attorney’s Report: Recent Visit by HEW re: Desegregation,” Report on H.E.W Option II by Deputy Superintendent, Russell R. Below,” School Board Minutes of the Board of Instruction for Palm Beach County from November 5, 1969, Book 39, pg 163, West Palm Beach, Florida, Palm Beach County School Board.

When the HEW rejected the school board’s plans to desegregate voluntarily,

Holland seized the opportunity to renew his case against the board into a U.S. Court of

Appeals in Miami, Florida. With pressure from federal agencies, and locals alike, the school board had to devise some plan to desegregate the schools or face losing federal funding. But the added pressure did not keep the school board from producing plans that would serve to delay a hard ruling from the district court. In May of 1970, the Palm

Beach Post reported that school officials “pulled a surprise” and offered a new plan to desegregate Palm Beach County schools using a dual campus, shuttle bus approach.

Under the plan, each school would operate slightly differently, but the major premise behind the idea was that black schools and white schools in close proximity to one would operate as dual campus schools. Students would “shuffle” back and forth between campuses throughout the day. In Riviera Beach, the Riviera Beach High

School and John F. Kennedy Jr. High School was described as “a Las Vegas type proposal,” wherein student assignment to either campus would be determined by shuffling student cards, “without regard to race.”82 In this instance, no students would move between campuses, except for extracurricular activities.

To say the plan was cumbersome is an understatement of immense proportions.

Under the plan, in some instances, students would literally shuffle between classes using buses throughout the school day. Judge Joe Eaton, who presided over the case brought on by Holland in Miami, however, agreed to extend the previously set deadline to produce a viable plan for desegregation based on the shuttle bus approach because

82 Tom Sawyer, “New Dual Campus Delay Desegregation Ruling,” The Palm Beach Post, May 22, 1970, B1.

the plan would “meet all the requirements of the course, if it can be put into effect,” alluding to transportation problems.83 Holland, who opposed the dual campus proposal said that he did not see how transportation problems could be solved and described the plan as “an automobile without a motor.”84 Defenders of the plan, namely, the school officials who had come up with it, claimed that transportation would not be a problem, and that the plan would benefit black students in the county. Charles Godwin, director of secondary education, cited that the shuffle plan would expand courses available to black students because it was “a matter of record” that the black high schools had not had a “wide base of education.” Godwin was quick to note that the black schools had not offered as many courses as the white schools, not because they were black schools but because they were small.85 Michael Jackson, attorney for the school board said that

143 new courses, including a “Negro History” course would be offered at the combined high schools.86 This expansion would ostensibly benefit the black students. Still, the intent of the plan was to stall the decision in the court, which would most likely have resulted unfavorably for the school board. In this respect, the Palm Beach County

School Board had found a way to delay and subvert the call to desegregate, even through ridiculous measures.

Lise M. Steinhaur’s depiction of the history of desegregation in Palm Beach

County contributes much to the historical understanding of this strange region in the

83 Ibid., B1.

84 Ibid.

85 Tom Sawyer, “Testimony: 28 Towns Ban Blacks,” The Palm Beach Post, April 4, 1970, A1 and A8.

86 Tom Sawyer, “Court to Hear Revised Plan for Schools,” The Palm Beach Post, May 22, 1970, D1. 63

South.87 Steinhaur’s account focuses on the actions of William Holland Sr. and his battle in the courts to bring desegregation to his home county. Steinhaur ambivalently concluded that although the county achieved unitary status 1973, that the Office of Civil

Rights continued to monitor its status until 1999. Steinhaur offered a glimpse into this story but did not delve into the details of what happened in these schools after unitary status. She focused so much on the efforts of Holland that she did not effectively acknowledge the work of other community members in places such as Riviera Beach, where the fight for civil rights and justice still continues. And so it is, as in so many other cases, that the story of desegregation in Palm Beach County did not end in 1973 with the declaration of a unitary system of education. The following chapters cast the gaze on one community, and one school, to reflect the impact of the decisions made in the years that immediately followed Brown. Indeed, the past ought not rest in the past, to let it lie would be to deny the three tumultuous decades that preceded and to pretend that so very much has changed in this region.

Florida’s “wait and see” approach to desegregation presented as a moderate way to deal with Brown vs. Board, which aimed to forever alter the complexion of America’s schools. Because local school boards and state legislators remained in the control of white people, their actions corresponded with their views. In other words, although the

African American population asked for change, their ideas about how change might come about did not come into consideration. Instead, the state of Florida, and especially

Palm Beach County, worked diligently to maintain a separate and discriminatory system of education without making national headlines.

87 Steinhaur, “Wait” Has Always Meant “Never.,” 162.

Figure 2-1. Map of the State of Florida

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, “Florida: Counties, Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas, and Selected Places,” Census of the Population: 1970, Vol.1 Characteristics of the Population, Part II, Florida, Section 1, (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973).

Figure 2-2. Map of Palm Beach County Divisions, 1950

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of the Population: 1590, Vol.1 Characteristics of the Population, (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1953).

Figure 2-3. Map of Palm Beach County Divisions, 1970

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, “Florida: County Subdivisions/Census County Divisions and Places,” Census of the Population: 1970, Vol.1 Characteristics of the Population, Part II, Florida, Section 1, (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973).

Figure 2-4. Urban Areas of Palm Beach County, 1970

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, “Florida: Urbanized Areas,” Census of the Population: 1970, Vol.1 Characteristics of the Population, Part II, Florida, Section 1, (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973).

CHAPTER 3 THE COSTS OF DESEGREGATION IN ‘THE SECOND MOST DIFFICULT’ REGION IN THE COUNTRY

In many ways, Palm Beach County was just like other communities in the South.

Despite images of idyllic palm-lined beaches and tropical weather, race and socioeconomic status have historically divided the region. To exemplify this fact, this dissertation focuses on the story of Suncoast High School in Riviera Beach, Florida, a city that became one of the few predominantly black communities in the county. The school’s history, just like the city’s history, reveals much about the ways that black people and communities in South Florida have been neglected, rejected, and shunned by white majority leadership. In this chapter, I first recount a brief history of Riviera

Beach and then examine three major instances of resistance and protest surrounding the education of African Americans that involved high school students from Riviera

Beach between the years 1969 and 1972. This cumulative history highlights the significance of the school in a mostly black community, and it reveals important ways that student-led and community-supported protest influenced the development of

Suncoast High School. Importantly, however, these instances demonstrate that regardless of their earnestness, institutional discrimination limited the public’s ability to affect decisions made by the school board. In Riviera Beach, the issue of race was as relevant as in any Deep South community.

A Brief History of Race Relations in Palm Beach County

In comparison to the rest of the state, Palm Beach County developed relatively slowly until Henry Morrison Flagler, railroad tycoon and land developer, staked it out as a tourist resort. In March of 1892 Flagler first visited West Palm Beach, and by 1894 his

railroad system reached the then sleepy town. There Flagler built the Hotel Royal

Poinciana on what is now known as Palm Beach, home to vacation mansions of the wealthiest people in the United States. In addition, he built the Breakers Hotel and

Whitehall, his private 75 room 100,000 square foot winter home. With the establishment of his railroad and luxurious lodging, Flagler secured Palm Beach as a winter resort town for the elite socialites of the Gilded Age.1

The black population of Palm Beach County migrated from Northern Florida,

Georgia, and the Bahamas and constructed both the railroad and the new luxurious hotels. These migrants and their families typically settled in a tent and shack community known as “the Styx,” located on the western side of the city of West Palm Beach.2 The landowners ordered these families to leave Palm Beach so that the land could be used solely for the wealthy. When the families refused to leave, a fire mysteriously destroyed the community, forcing the residents out of town.3 Many of those residents then relocated to a community called Oak Lawn, which in 1893 became known as Riviera

Beach because of its beachside landscape that resembled the famous French Riviera.

Riviera Beach already housed black settlers who had come to build the railroad and resort hotels in addition to the other black people who had established the town as a farming community. Riviera Beach was also home to an important marine community, one that provided both tourism and commercial ventures in fishing. Commercial

1Donald W. Curl, Palm Beach County: An Illustrated History (Northridge, CA: Windsor Publications, 1986), 35-38.

2 Raymond A. Mohl, “The Settlement of Blacks in South Florida,” in ed. Thomas D. Roswell., South Florida: The Winds of Change (Miami: The Association of American Geographers, 1991), 112-113, 117.

3 Curl, Palm Beach County, 37-38.

fishermen from the Bahamas called “conchs” fished and eventually settled in Riviera

Beach.4 The collusion of refugees who fled the burnt down “Styx,” farmers, and

“conchs” comprised the sleepy, mostly black town by 1900.

Although Riviera Beach had all the makings of an industrious coastal community with its waterfront properties and burgeoning marine industry, the town never developed in the ways that its surrounding neighbors did. In the mid-1920s, speculation about the future prosperity of the town abounded. J. Wadsworth Travers, in History of Beautiful

Palm Beach, wrote in 1928 of Riviera Beach’s “splendid railroad facilities and a back country that will astonish the world with its products.”5 Despite these assurances,

Riviera Beach suffered from three-fold forces of destruction. First, a devastating hurricane in 1928 halted building and construction and also cooled tourists’ vigor for venturing there. Second, the land boom of south Florida collapsed in general during the

1920s. Finally, the beginning of the Great Depression nationwide exacerbated these trends. These conditions stifled population growth, and Riviera Beach, a once promising tourist and fishing destination, came to be regarded by the white residents of West Palm

Beach as a “backward community.”6 It was not until 1940 when the town of Riviera

Beach purchased a barrier island called Singer Island that it began to see some economic and residential growth. During the 1950s, Singer Island became a resort destination in its own right and drew seasonal residents during the winter months.

4 Bicentennial Commission of Riviera Beach, History of Riviera Beach, Florida (Riviera Beach: City of Riviera Beach, 1976), 9-10.

5 J. Wadsworth Travers, History of Beautiful Palm Beach (West Palm Beach, FL: Palm Beach Press, 1928), 43.

6 Bicentennial Commission, History of Riviera Beach, 28-37; Travers, J. History of Beautiful Palm Beach, 43. 71

Additionally, the construction of a commercial park attracted more industry to the town, and between 1940 and 1960, the population exploded from 1,981 to 13,036.7 The percentage of the black population in Riviera Beach also increased from 23 percent to

43 percent between 1950 and 1960.8 Riviera Beach was becoming an increasingly prosperous and increasingly black community.

As in most southern communities in mid-twentieth century America, however, the

African Americans who lived in Riviera Beach were segregated both physically and socio-economically from their white counterparts. The historic residential pattern in Palm

Beach County excluded black people through the use of explicit law and city ordinances that separated the races. Black people could only own land in designated areas in

Riviera Beach. Discriminatory housing patterns restricted African American homeownership and residence to the part of Riviera Beach that was not nearly as thriving—west of the railway tracks they had built, and away from the burgeoning coastal businesses.9 In addition, the people who lived in Riviera Beach could only hold labor intensive and low-paying jobs. According to the U.S. Census of 1960, thirty percent of whites held professional jobs, whereas about eleven percent of African

Americans held similar positions. Most women were domestic servants, and about thirty

7 Bicentennial Commission, History of Riviera Beach, 39-41.

8 United States Bureau of the Census, United States Census of Population: 1960. General Social and Economic Characteristics, Florida (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1961), 11- 209.

9 Mohl, “The Settlement of Blacks,” 125.

percent of the men were employed as laborers.10 Indeed, the history of the black population of Riviera Beach is one of oppression by law and by cultural practice.

The Civil Rights Tradition of Riviera Beach

Despite this discrimination, or perhaps because of it, the community in Riviera

Beach demonstrated remarkable persistence in the pursuit of equality. Historian James

Button described Riviera Beach as central to the civil rights movement in Palm Beach

County because of individuals who fought against oppression.11 Residents fought bitterly for voting rights, the end of segregation in public accommodations, and desegregation of schools. But the odds were never in their favor; those who fought against institutionalized powers faced masterfully crafted aversions to changes in existing racial codes, if not overt violence and social unrest.12 Much resistance focused on schools, and in particular, the unjust ways black students and parents were treated during periods of desegregation. The teenaged students of Riviera Beach and adult activists pushed for fair treatment and also to retain the dignity of their community institutions. Three instances of protest brought about by black high school students in

Palm Beach County between 1969 and 1972 reflected student protests across the state as well as nationwide instances of student demonstrations.13 In two separate instances,

10 United States Bureau of the Census, United States Census of Population: 1960. General Social and Economic Characteristics, Florida (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1961), 11- 209.

11 James Button, Blacks and Social Change: The Impact of the Civil Rights Movement in Southern Communities (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), 97-100.

12Pia Maarit Penders, “The Modern Civil Rights Movement in Riviera Beach, 1954-1971,” (master’s thesis, Florida Atlantic University, 1994), 28-30; 52.

13 Newspaper coverage of the school boycotts that occurred in Palm Beach County also reported boycotts that took place in Marion County, located in the north central region of the state, and in Orange County, in central Florida. 73

high school students boycotted school to protest threats that all-black high schools would be closed in the name of desegregation. Although these students utilized peaceful protest, community rallies featured the more virulent rhetoric of the Black

Power Movement. When desegregation proved to exacerbate already disparate experiences within schools, the students protested again by walking out of school, which provoked violent encounters between students, teachers, police officers, and a member of the press. In either case, the result was strikingly similar. The school board offered conciliatory efforts that eased tensions but did not address the systemic problems associated with race and education.

Between 1969 and 1972, the black high school students of Palm Beach County, with and without adult support, used boycotts and walkouts to protest threats to their schools and communities. Although often overlooked in the context of the Civil Rights

Movement, the resistance of high school students in the 1960s and 1970s had a significant impact on the way that schools viewed and treated students. Gael Graham has argued that while there was no comprehensive high school student movement there was a significant phenomenon that she calls a “rights revolution.” Graham offers that the high school students’ “rights movement” took up a wide variety of cultural issues including freedom of hairstyles and clothing as well as inclusivity for black students, faculty, and staff, and demanded more rights within the context of the school. As a result this made schools more democratic and more concerned with personal issues, including race.14 In addition, the desegregation occasionally provoked activism on the

14 Gael Graham, Young Activists: American High School Students in the Age of Protest (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois Press, 2006), 9.

part of high school students who protested closings of black high schools, and the loss of community identity and resources.15 Indeed, historians have addressed the cultural significance of black high schools. Historical studies that account for the demise of the black high school as a result of integrated high schools posit that although all neighborhoods, white and black, potentially lost their schools or school identities, the wounds felt deeper in black communities. Charles Bolton offered that African American schools held “exaggerated importance” because schools and churches were often the most important institutions within those communities by necessity.16 Accordingly, the threat of losing a historically black high school often held greater cultural value than losing a white high school, and also occurred with greater frequency. The organization of student boycotts in Riviera Beach, Florida reflected activities that high school students took part in across the nation and altered the well-known scripts of top down authority on high school campuses.17

15 Vanessa Siddle Walker, Their Highest Potential: An African American School Community in the Segregated South (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 210; Charles C. Bolton, The Hardest Deal of All: The Battle over School Integration in Mississippi, 1870-1980 (Jackson, Mississippi: 2008), 205; Charles M. Payne, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007), 205; David S. Cecelski, Along Freedom Road: Hyde County, North Carolina and the Fate of Black Schools in the South (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 216-217.

16 Bolton, The Hardest Deal of All, 205.

17 Gerald Grant, The World we Created at Hamilton High (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 34-35; 55-63; Graham, Young Activists,9; Gael Graham, “Flaunting the Freak Flag: Karr v. Schmidt and the Great Hair Debate in American High Schools, 1965-1975,” The Journal of American History 91, no. 2 (2004): 522-543; Jon Hale, “The Student as Force for Social Change: Mississippi Freedom Schools and Student Engagement, The Journal of African American History, 325-347; Dwayne C. Wright, “Black Pride Day, 1968: High School Student Activism in York, Pennsylvania,” The Journal of African American History 88, no. 2 (2003): 151-162; Gregory S. Jacobs, Getting Around Brown: Desegregation, Development, And the Columbus Public Schools (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1995), 24-25; Dionne Danns, Something Better for Our Children: Black Organization in Chicago Public Schools, 1963-1971 (New York, NY: Routledge, 2003), 74-88.

1969: Representing Kennedy High

On April 2, 1969, Jane Arpe, a writer for the local newspaper, The Palm Beach

Post, reported that of 2,676 students who attended all-black high schools in Palm Beach

County, 2,328 had abstained from class. Students from three black high schools, including John F. Kennedy High School (JFK) in Riviera Beach, stayed out of school for three days. The boycotts attracted statewide media attention and shed light on the concerns of these teenagers who hoped to preserve their schools’ identities. Arpe reported that the move was “predictable” because protesters had picketed outside a meeting held by the school board to discuss closing the all-black high schools to create desegregation. The Palm Beach County Board of Instruction, compelled by the U.S. department of Housing, Education and Welfare (HEW), had begun to formulate plans to desegregate its schools. The board struggled to prove to the HEW’s Office of Civil

Rights that it had established a plan that would satisfy the call for desegregation.18 Even with no plan presented, black students in Palm Beach County feared that the rumors of closing black high schools would prove to be true; they staged a boycott to demonstrate their belief that the move was unjust.

James Kelly, the 18-year-old president of JFK’s student government, participated in the boycott and became a public voice for his school. In an interview with The Miami

News, Kelly spoke on behalf of the students at JFK and declared that the boycotts could continue until the students “get what’s right.”19 Kelly explained the students’ desires.

18 The Palm Beach County Board of Instruction’s meeting minutes from 1969-1970 reflected the ways that the HEW intervened to bring about desegregation in the county. Members of the regional office’s Civil Rights Department visited Palm Beach county schools in October of 1969 and determined that satisfactory desegregation had not been achieved in the county.

19 “West Palm Schools Kick Out 2,000,”The Miami News, April 2, 1969, 10A.

They wanted complete assurance from Superintendent Lloyd Early that their schools would not be phased out when desegregation came to Palm Beach County. Early had indicated that he had no intentions of phasing out the schools, but had not taken a stance one way or the other. For Kelly and the other protesters who wanted some assurance, “a statement to the effect that Kennedy High would definitely not be phased out would probably end the boycott at Kennedy.”20 Students at JFK, their parents, community leaders, and even the principal recognized the value of their high schools, and were prepared to fight for them.21

Despite these strong words from Kelly, it was clear from the start that the superintendent and his administration did not approve of the student protest. They vowed to administer harsh punishments to those who missed school during the boycott without a credible excuse. After a conference with top board members, Superintendent

Early urged parents to encourage their sons and daughters “to return to school and not hinder their education and to help these young educators keep cool, and avoid hasty action based on speculation.”22 In addition, an anonymous board spokesperson informed the Palm Beach Post that continued boycotting would “force [board] members to take an increasingly hard line, with stiffer penalties likely.”23 Drawing on a 1951 school board policy that banned mass absenteeism, administrators asserted that boycotters could face grade point deductions, or even expulsion from school. John H.

20 Jane Arpe, “Student Boycotters Face Disciplining by Schools,” The Palm Beach Post, April 2, 1969, 1.

21 Jane Arpe, “Early Warns Principals to Remember he is Boss,” The Palm Beach Post, April 23, 1969, 2.

22 Arpe, “Student Boycotters Face Disciplining,” 2.

23 Ibid, 1.

McDonald, Early’s administrative assistant, indicated that the students would suffer a grade point loss for illegal absence and instructed principals to automatically suspend all students who participated in the boycotts.24 In addition, an article in The St.

Petersburg Times reported that “a spokesman for the school board” announced severe punishments for those who took part in the protests; boycotters would face automatic suspensions. A public statement released by the school board stated that mass absenteeism would be viewed by the governing body as “gross misconduct,” and authorized principals to move toward expulsion for those students involved.25 The effect of this would have devastated students, especially seniors, who, if not allowed to make up their school work, would potentially be unable to graduate. This move amplified an already tense situation because it seemed an unforgiving penalty, but did not deter students dedicated to their cause. The boycott continued.

Administrators had little sympathy for the students. Board Chairman Robert R.

Johnson expressed his disappointment in students who participated and their parents who encouraged them, and felt that the boycotts were uncalled for: “I can understand the concern, but there’s no basis of fact for the students to conduct themselves in such a way.” The crux of the conflict between Black students defending their schools and communities and the school board centered on interpretation of school board meetings.

The administration maintained that because no official claim had been made that would substantiate the fear that black high schools would be closed that the boycotts were not

24 Ibid.,1.

25State Aids Tackle Boycott of Schools,” St. Petersburg Times, April 3, 1969, 2B.

justified. The administrators portrayed the boycotters as unreasonably concerned and unjustified in their demonstration.

As the boycott continued, tensions mounted between the boycotters, the African

American communities of Palm Beach County, and school board officials. On April 2,

1969, the Palm Beach Post ran a front-page article entitled, “Student Boycotters Face

Disciplining by Schools,” and enumerated the ways that the administration would handle the students and all involved in the protest. It emphasized the use of strict punishment and pitted the students against the administration. On the second page, on the far right column, adjacent to the continued front-page article, was another article that referenced the boycott. Its title read: “Early Denounced at Rally.” It featured a demonstration that took place in the Tate Recreation Center in Riviera Beach. At least seven hundred parents, teachers, students, and other members of the community came to the spirited meeting to support the student-led boycotts protesting the school board’s lack of communication about decisions that would impact their communities most. James Kelly was in attendance and he spoke up for the students of his school: “We will not go to school until Superintendent Early gives us what we deserve.”26 Another student leader,

David Freeman, president of the student council at Roosevelt High School shouted above the crowd: “Early said he would have a [desegregation] plan in two weeks. We’re going to take as long as he takes.”27 Early was supposed to have announced a plan earlier that day but he postponed the announcement of a desegregation plan until the following week.

26 “Early Denounced at Boycott Rally,” The Palm Beach Post, April 2, 1969, 2.

27 Ibid., 2.

Also in attendance at the rally were teachers and leaders from the community who supported the students in their endeavors. Dan W. Hendricks, an instructor at Palm

Beach Junior College said to a cheering crowd: “I am proud of you [students]. You are truly wonderful. Remain united and you will win.”28 A teacher, B. Carlton of Central

Junior High School lamented that the situation for black students in Palm Beach County was unfairly represented, with particular attention paid to black history: “Black history has been subordinated by the white majority.”29 Robert Lewis, a member of the Afro

American Civil Action United believed that Early’s actions were extraordinarily misguided: “What you are doing is costing the school board $5,000 a day. Keep it up as long as you have to.”30 Lewis praised the students, including those who attended schools like the 33 out of 701 students at Kennedy. He indicated that those students served an important role in the boycott because school buses and operations would continue to run, even for only a handful of students. The financial impact of the boycott would hit administrators hard, and hopefully persuade them to move forward quicker.

And for the students involved in the protest, Lewis had a message: “Principals who say they will suspend you are lily-white racists. From now on it is going to be tit-for-tat.

Something for something and nothing for nothing. Early is an imbecile, but we are going to get what we want by whatever means necessary.”31 These accounts illustrated the disparate points of view that each side took. The administration at the county did not

28 Ibid., 2.

29 Ibid., 2.

30 Ibid., 2.

31 Ibid.

see the urgency over a plan that had not even come to fruition, while the students and community were fed up with their situation and were willing to face consequences to preserve their public community spaces. Though mainstream attention to Florida’s race relations focused on the outward appearance of harmony, the reality of life for African

Americans in Riviera Beach was anything but harmonious.

Two days into the protest, neither side appeared to relinquish its position. State officials intervened and aimed to ease tensions before they shifted from peaceful demonstrations to violent dissent. Palm Beach County was a growing industrial region in the state, and although governor Claude Kirk vowed to make education a top priority during his term, he refused to raise taxes to do so. Undoubtedly, state level politicians favored industry over education and attempted to maintain law and order and to avoid outbreaks over schools. Floyd Christian, state education commissioner, and the governor had worked to negotiate with teachers in 1968, just a year prior to these boycotts that threatened to break out throughout the state.32 During those walk outs,

Christian, a member of the Florida Education Association (FEA), had previously favored the organization, but did not support the teacher strikes. He felt they were harmful to education in the state. Christian sent state aids to assist “simply because of his interest in the problem,” and intervened in Palm Beach County and offered his help by calling local officials to assess the gravity of the situation in the southern county. The state then sent two representatives, Dan Dlange, Governor Claude Kirk’s aide on education, and

Ray Tipton, an executive assistant in Christian’s office, to West Palm Beach to attempt

32 James Cass, “Politics and Education in the Sunshine State: The Florida Story,” Theory into Practice 7, no. 2 (1968):89-95.

to resolve the boycott and to mitigate the threat of economic and political loss. In a school board meeting on April 2, Dlange delivered a message from the governor’s office, expressing that Floyd Christian had urged the governor to take an interest in the boycotts in Palm Beach County. In the statement, Dlange noted that the governor stated that although it was clear there was a problem that the law must be obeyed.

Recognizing the rift between the students and the school board, especially with

Superintendent Early, Kirk advised that he believed that students “should not dictate, but student representatives [did] have many good ideas.” The state representatives advocated that students who participated in the boycotts be allowed to return to school unpunished. Echoing the call for a collaborative solution, Floyd Christian appealed to the school board to establish dialogue with the students and parents after the boycotts ended. 33

The state officials, local school board members, and civil rights attorney Paul C.

Perkins, who represented the parents and students, met in private meetings to attempt to come to some amicable solution. After a day of negotiations the school board, along with the attorney, announced that conditions had been created under which the boycott would end. The statement said that “due to the uniqueness of the situation, and recognizing that the student protest was peaceful and sincere,” the students would return to school without harsh punishment.34 Instead, they would stay after school to make up the work missed during the boycott and to take part in “meaningful dialogue”

33 “Statement from Governor Kirk Read by Mr. Delange,” Palm Beach County Board of Instruction, Meeting Minutes, April 2, 1969, Palm Beach County Board of Instruction, West Palm Beach, Florida.

34 “Boycott is Ended at 3 Negro Schools,” St. Petersburg Times, April 7, 1969, 2B.

between the students and their school administrators, teachers, and coaches.35 The boycott ended and students returned to school, but the issue raised by over 2,000 students questioning whether the school board would close their community high schools remained unanswered. The Ocala Star Banner reported that “the school board had made no commitment to keep the schools open, but emphasized the question of whether they will remain open was still a consideration.”36 The students did not face expulsion nor the threat that they would not graduate, but the fate of their schools remained unclear. Additionally, while the boycotts ended and students returned to school, the matter was not finished for Superintendent Early, who asserted his power over local principals who had questioned his initial inclination toward harsh punishment.

A little over two weeks after the boycotts, Early called a mandatory meeting of all area principals and reminded them that he was boss: “You all know which side your bread is buttered on. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”37 While the matter of how to handle students who participated in the boycott settled, questions remained about the future of the black high schools, and the students’ standing in the county. But this instance demonstrated that Riviera Beach was indeed a hotbed of civil rights activity.

“The Second Most Difficult Desegregation Problem in the United States”

After the boycotts in the spring of 1969 questions still lingered about the fate of not only the black high schools in Palm Beach County but about the direction that the school board would take to create a desegregation plan. On April 21 the board met in a

35 Ibid., 2B.

36 “2,300 Staying After School,” Ocala Star Banner, April 7, 1969, 1.

37 Jane Arpe, “Early Warns Principals to Remember He is Boss,” The Palm Beach Post, April 23, 1969, 2.

special session to “adopt a plan for integration that will meet the local, state, and national laws, and at the same time offer exceptional programs for all youths and adults in this county.”38 In the meeting, the school board vowed that the county would be run as a unitary system and that Kennedy High School would serve grades 10-12 and would receive “special programs” to bolster its curricular offerings. Superintendent Early expressed that the city councils of both Riviera Beach and West Palm Beach had approved the new measure. Board members agreed that this plan was a good one; they displayed particular satisfaction that their efforts had produced integration, but not at the cost of high quality education.39 However, regardless of agreement from local leaders the School Board struggled throughout the summer of 1969 to come up with a plan that would satisfy the HEW. Furthermore, local attorney William Holland re-opened his court

1961 court case in light of the imperative from the federal government. It had become abundantly clear that the Palm Beach County School Board could no longer avoid desegregation.

Despite the optimistic feelings of the school board, the HEW did not agree that the plan drawn up by the school board complied with the imperative to desegregate.

Compliance officers in Washington D.C. met with the school board’s attorney, Michael

Jackson, and the Deputy Superintendent, Russell Below, and determined that while they would not outright reject the proposal, it required amendments.40 During the

38 “Special Session of the Board,” Palm Beach County Board of Instruction Meeting Minutes, April 21, 1969, Palm Beach County Board of Instruction, West Palm Beach, Florida.

39 Ibid.

40 “Attorney’s Report: Press Release re: Meeting with Officials of compliance Section of Health, Education and Welfare Department,” Palm Beach County Board of Instruction Meeting Minutes, July, 16, 1969, Palm Beach County Board of Instruction, West Palm Beach, Florida.

discussion of this meeting, Jackson reported that the Washington officials recommended that the Florida School Desegregation Consultant Center in Miami be utilized because the county had “the second most difficult desegregation problem in the

United States.”41 The school board’s proposals to the HEW consistently came back short of satisfying the demand to create a unitary system of education. The HEW recommended that the county hire the Florida Desegregation Consulting Center’s Dr.

Joe Hall from the University of Miami. Hall had presided over almost all of desegregation hearings in the counties of Florida, and prepared a plan that he claimed would satisfy the courts and the HEW. On February 1, 1970, Hall outlined the new plan to a crowd of almost 1,000 parents and students who filled the auditorium of Carver

High School.42 The plan for Palm Beach County outlined the best methods for desegregating which emphasized reorganization of the use of space in the county. He suggested that three of the four black high schools be used as junior high schools and that the county would integrate the formerly all-white schools. Thus the fears held by the black community the year prior became a tangible threat.

Reactions to this proposal that would reorganize teaching staffs, close black high schools, and utilize busing of students provoked ire from many constituents in Palm

Beach County, both black and white. The school board set up briefings to inform parents about how the desegregation plan would affect their children. In many instances tempers flared as parents expressed their outrage over the prospect of their children

41 “Discussion of Washington Meeting re: Department of Health, Education, and Welfare,” Palm Beach County Board of Instruction Meeting Minutes, July, 16, 1969, Palm Beach County Board of Instruction, West Palm Beach, Florida.

42 Tom Sawyer, “New Integration Plan Due Tonight,” The Palm Beach Post, February 4, 1960, 1.

being bused away from their neighborhoods. In the briefing that took place in Riviera

Beach at Lincoln Junior High School, the newspaper reported that more than 200 parents attended. Herman McCray, a vocal activist from Riviera Beach who repeatedly questioned the school board’s treatment of the Black population of his town, indicated his dissatisfaction and disbelief in the idea that a school must be majority white to be a good school: “We don’t need a majority of white students to make John F. Kennedy

High School a top school; just give us some equipment.”43 McCray maintained his stance that the problem with black schools was a question of fiscal support and not race.

One of the only voices of support for the plan came from the editor of the Palm

Beach Post, Gregory E. Favre who editorially supported the desegregation plan. Calling the plan “far from perfect,” Favre believed that it would succeed in appeasing government agencies that required desegregation plans. That, he argued, would allow the county to maintain some local control, even at the expense of some schools. Favre also appealed to the county to stop avoiding the call to desegregate: “there is no more running from the Supreme Court integration orders.”44 Favre maintained that the county had “exhausted its years of procrastination and appeal,” and that schools needed to be integrated to “give all children a fair crack at learning opportunities.”45 Favre clearly believed that desegregation was necessary in order to maintain law and order and to provide equal education for all children and “to provide a new climate so that young

43 “Briefings on School Plan Amid a Warning of ‘Disorder,’ The Palm Beach Post, February 11, 1970, A8.

44 Gregory E. Favre, “Plan For Desegregation,” The Palm Beach Post, February 6, 1970.

45 Ibid.

people don’t grow up with the prejudices of their parents.”46 He decried the

“grandstanding antics of some state leaders in meeting the needs of the desegregation issue,” a clear shot at Governor Claude Kirk, who infamously attempted to prevent busing in Manatee County and defied the U.S. Supreme Court’s mandate to desegregate immediately.47 Yet, the reasoned approach the editor took largely ignored and belittled the potential losses that would be felt in the black communities of Palm

Beach County, should the plan be adopted. Calling the announcement to phase out those high schools a “shock,” he nonetheless supported the measures. He chastised community members from acting out in response stating: “there is no place for rah-rah spirit if it means defeat for good, long range educational goals.”48 And as a final note,

Favre warned all of his readers to avoid “foolish boycotts,” because there could be no status quo under any desegregation plan.49

Yet the students whose schools would be eliminated did not heed the advice of

Gregory Favre. For the second year in a row, Black high school students numbering about 2,500 boycotted school to protest the action that would turn their high schools into junior high schools. Although John F. Kennedy was not scheduled to be closed as a result of Joe Hall’s desegregation plan, 95 percent of the student body there did not attend classes in solidarity with students from the three schools that would be eliminated. They agreed in a meeting at St. Paul AME Church in West Palm Beach on

46 Ibid.

47 Randy Sanders, “Rassling a Governor: Defiance, Desegregation, Claude Kirk, and the Politics of Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy,” The Florida Historical Quarterly 80, no.3 (2004): 332-359.

48 Ibid.

49 Ibid.

February 9, 1970 that they would boycott schools for ten days or until an alternative plan was made to the current desegregation plan that would eliminate their schools.

One Kennedy student, an unnamed senior described as “neatly dressed,” expressed the frustration surrounding desegregation because they had to bear the brunt of desegregation policies. He felt that white students would be able to stay in their schools, whereas blacks would not. The student, however, was willing to “meet them halfway.” 50

The well-dressed student expressed a common lamentation of students and black community members: “I’m not saying we have anything against our white soul brothers,” he said,” But why should we go all the way across town to be with them when we live across the street from Kennedy?” Further he pointed out that several white students lived within the boundaries for Kennedy High School but that they were driven “clear across town” to avoid going to school with black students. He finished, expressing frustration: “Man, they don’t want to associate with us.”51 Black students and community members of Palm Beach County were willing to allow changes but were tired of losing every battle for their education.

Two days later, the students met at the Tate Recreation center in Riviera Beach.

At the rally, some boycotters seemed to raise the stakes for protesters and administrators. Willis Williams, a senior at Kennedy high school urged students not only to boycott but to march on the school board in protest of the move. The students rallied because they lacked the support that the students who protested the year prior. At the rally, students complained the parents and people from the church did not support their

50 John Trotter, “Kennedy,” The Palm Beach Post, February 11, 1970, 4B..

51 Ibid.

efforts: “They keep saying get an education. Well, I’m going to stick my neck out. I’m a senior. Sure, I’m supposed to be getting a diploma, but what good is a diploma if I can’t get a job?”52 But students spoke directly to the significance of black high schools in their communities. Williams continued and described why the loss of Black high schools would be so great: “We are here to let parents know why we are boycotting and to get their support. We organized it ourselves and it is for us. What nobody seems to realize is that the black school is the center of the black community. If you take that away, where are we going to get recreation? What about the football games? The plays?

The school is the center of all these things.”53 These aspects of school life held cultural significance that they feared would be lost if their schools became extinct.

Ironically, the students who boycotted called for a restoration of the “freedom of choice” plans that had inhibited African American students from integrating in the past.

A group called Citizens for Freedom of Choice, which reportedly had over 400 members comprised of all white residents also clung to the notion that freedom of choice was the best option for the county. The group dispersed leaflets that urged people to send telegrams to President Nixon while he vacationed in Key Biscayne to explain their dissatisfaction over desegregation plans that required busing. They, too, wanted freedom of choice.54

52 John Leach, “Students Boycott Four Schools: Blacks Vow to March on Board,” The Palm Beach Post, February 11, 1970, 2B..

53 Ibid.

54 John Leach and Jim Quinlan, “Integration Plan Reaction—Bus Tie Up Hinted,” The Palm Beach Post, February 16, 1970, 6A..

The calls of these high school students, however, went largely unanswered and unsupported. In an interview with the Palm Beach Post, civil rights attorney William

Holland, the man responsible for the first court cases for desegregation in West Palm

Beach ten years prior, stated in no uncertain terms that he did not support the boycotts and urged others to follow suit. Holland understood the reverence the students felt toward their schools and traditions but prioritized their education in the long run over what he considered to be short sighted problems: “It will not carry you though life, but the education you receive will be with you until death, and will determine your status as you move through life. I appeal to you to place values where values should be.”55

Holland, described by the Palm Beach Post as the “patient battler of segregation,” believed that busing was the only way to desegregate schools: “I was bused eight miles past five white schools. If it was good enough to perpetuate the system, it’s good enough to destroy it.”56 Holland received his law degree from Boston University as a result of an educational provision that paid for Black students to attend college and graduate school out of state. Undoubtedly, this colored his view on the significance of

Black institutions.

But the boycotts continued and more and more voices of dissent arose toward the desegregation plan put forth by Joe Hall. He believed that stalling the plan any further would only serve to delay “the job of education:” “Too many people say ‘I’m not against integration’ and then they find some reason to object to almost any proposal

55 Jack Owen, “Return to School? Rights Attorney Urges End to Boycott,” The Palm Beach Post February 11, 1970, 7A..

56 Kent Pollock, “Holland Patient Battler of Segregation,” The Palm Beach Post, February 2, 1970, 1H.

which produces desegregation.”57 Superintendent Early, who understood that there were arguments on either side of the aisle in opposition to Hall’s plan, put the issue up for a vote on February 18, 1970. Early met with the principals of the Black high schools to discuss the desegregation plan nearby their schools. In a meeting at Palm Beach

High School Auditorium, the school board voted not to adopt Hall’s plan. With the plan rejected, the boycott ended and students returned to school without punishment, even without an alternative plan. In the months that followed, Early would work to devise a new plan that, though cumbersome, would attempt to appease the varying desires of the residents in this community.

1970-71: The Shuttle Bus Desegregation “Solution”

When school ended in 1970, Palm Beach County had still not reached a conclusion about what its educational plan for desegregation would be. William Holland had reopened his 1961 court case, and the U.S. District Court in Miami continued to go back and forth with the county to create a plan that would satisfy the HEW, if not

Holland and the other residents of the county. In late May of 1970, U.S. District Judge

Joe Eaton announced that he would delay his ruling for another month to allow time for the county to determine the details of a new approach to desegregation taken by

Superintendent Early. The new plan would allow all schools to remain open, but was logistically questionable. In fact, newspaper accounts of the dual campus desegregation plan indicated that many in Palm Beach County viewed it as a tactic to avoid creating a comprehensive desegregation plan for the district. In an article in the Palm Beach Post

57 Elvis Lane, “Dr. Joe Hall defends School Desegregation Plan,” The Palm Beach Post, February 18, 1970, 2A.

school board attorney Michael Jackson said that the dual campus plan would “throw a monkey wrench” into the deadlines imposed by the U.S. District Court in Miami for submitting a final desegregation plan.58 In essence, it would buy the county yet more time to come up with a more final plan for the schools. Despite resistance from almost all constituents in the county, the board decided to institute this extremely cumbersome approach to desegregation called the “shuttle-bus” model.

Under this plan, students would attend school on both the formerly black and white campuses, and would shuttle between the two during the day. In theory, this would appease the protesters who did not want to lose their schools and also satisfy the

HEW because it would facilitate students of all races mixing together in schools. In practice, the move eventually enhanced tensions between students, teachers, and administrators in the schools. In Riviera Beach, the student shuffle took place between

Kennedy High School, the all black school, and Riviera Beach High School, the majority white high school. Parents feared that the plan would require confusing transportation problems that would hamper their student’s experience in school.

Local media did not favor the dual campus proposal. When first announced,

Gregory Favre editorially chastised Superintendent Early for coming up with what he called a “Rube-Goldberg desegregation plan” that he equated to forced busing: “The school board ought to abandon this unworkable plan and get together with the

Desegregation Center to devise something more sensible.”59 Tom Sawyer, a local writer

58 Tom Sawyer, “Parents Ask New School, Not Busing,” The Palm Beach Post, June 4, 1970, 3A.

59 Gregory E. Favre, “Integration Process,” The Palm Beach Post, May 1, 1970, 1A. Rube Goldberg was an American cartoonist, sculptor, and artist most popular for his cartoons depicting complex machines designed to do simple tasks in indirect and convoluted ways.

for the Palm Beach Post, described the shuttle-bus solution for Riviera Beach as “a Las-

Vegas-type-proposal” that treated desegregation as a game.60 Students there would not leave their respective campus during the day except to go to certain special classes such as band or drama. Proponents of this plan argued that black schools were underfunded and therefore offered less to students not because the students, teachers, and administrators were black, but because they were small. This approach, though haphazard and difficult to maneuver, would expand the number of courses and resources available to black students in the county.61 Those who opposed the plan expressed their concern that combining schools would divest communities of school identity. School board attorney Michael Jackson admitted that the school board paid scarce attention to the issue about creating new names, school colors, team names, or songs in an effort to form a new community within the dual-campus schools.62 That would be left to the schools to determine for themselves.

In spite of the many anticipated problems associated with the dual campus system, when school first opened at the Kennedy-Riviera Beach campus in the fall of

1970, the Palm Beach Post announced that desegregation had occurred without incident. Students who attended the Kennedy-Riviera campuses attested that the problems between students in those first days were minimal.63 Barry Hayes, a senior

60 Tom Sawyer, “New Dual Campus Delay Desegregation Ruling,” The Palm Beach Post, May 22, 1970, 1B.

61 Tom Sawyer, “Testimony: 28 Towns Ban Blacks,” The Palm Beach Post, April 4, 1970, 1A.

62 Sheila Tryk, “Board to Propose a Paired Campus System,” The Palm Beach Post, June 25, 1970, 1A.

63 “Desegregation Smooth: Who Could Ask for Anything More,” The Palm Beach Post, “September 1, 1970, 1B. 93

student on the dual campus, expressed that even though people predicted racial disturbances the students “got along fine and talked.”64 The new population of Kennedy-

Riviera was almost half white and half black, representing one of the only times in the school’s history that the racial balance of the school was so equally dispersed.65

One of the first things that occurred when the school year began is that the students and faculty planned to address the issues of school identity that the school board had not accounted for. In researching this event, no official records exist about how these decisions were made. However, veteran black female biology teacher and longtime resident of Riviera Beach, Mrs. Freddie Calloway, who taught at both Kennedy

High School and Suncoast, referred to the event in an oral history interview. She explained that the student council representatives from both campuses, Kennedy and

Riviera Beach High Schools, met to discuss the school’s new identity. The report from her student revealed that although integrated, the newly combined school was loath to allow traditionally African American cultural emblems to be part of the new school.

Calloway recalled that the students agreed to call the school Suncoast, but that there was conflict over the mascot. Calloway’s students wanted the school’s mascot to be the

Rattlers, reflecting pride over African American heritage because that was the same mascot as the Historically Black College and University (HBCU) as Florida A&M

University (FAMU). The student reported to Calloway that “the higher ups,” would not

64 Ibid., 1B.

65Tryk, Sheila, “Board to Propose a Paired Campus System,” The Palm Beach Post, August 15, 1970, A9. According to the article, there were 280 Black and 293 White upperclassmen scheduled to attend Kennedy-Riviera, 157 White and 159 Black 9th graders, and in the 10th grade, grow A would have 97 White students and 91 Black, while Group B would have 83 White and 57 Black students. 94

permit it.66 Calloway’s description of the event suggested that student efforts to link the newly formed school with a historically black institution like FAMU was unacceptable and viewed as controversial. The student council, however, did retain Kennedy’s school colors, gold and green. In this way the students forged a new image that retained some semblance of school identity that was linked to the Kennedy High School.

As school continued, African American students felt that the traditions that came along with their former school went away under the dual campus organization. Sammie

Cooper, a Suncoast graduate of the class of 1972, recalled in an article for the Palm

Beach Post that the move from JFK to Suncoast angered him and his fellow classmates because they felt that they were no longer part of the process of creating the school and its traditions: “They shipped us in and told us to follow every rule and regulation.”67

Though the students requested that their principal from JFK be transferred along with students, their request fell on deaf ears. Cooper also recalled that student produced traditions built at JFK were lost when the school combined with Riviera Beach High

School. At JFK, students raised their fists while singing the alma mater, a sign of solidarity for their school. At Suncoast, the administration perceived the action with intensified meaning. “All of a sudden it had the significance of Black Power,” Cooper said, “this was a tradition we had, it didn’t have anything whatsoever to do with Black

66 Freddie Calloway, interview with Amy Martinelli, August 12, 2013, SHP 001, Samuel Proctor Oral Histor Project, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 5.

67 Jenny Voght, “Without Regard to Race or Color: Twenty Years Ago Desegregation Rocked South Florida’s Schools, Now the People who were There Remember the Fear, Friendships, Anger and Pride,” The Palm Beach Post, 1F.

Power.”68 These memories from a teacher and student who attended the dual campus suggest that beyond the veneer of peace, resentment began to mount in the black community of Riviera Beach over the changes made as a result of the dual campus system that the school board implemented.

Peace, however, did not last throughout the entire school year. Calloway recalled that problems began to occur in other schools in the county and those led to problems for Suncoast as well. “We were doing fine, I mean extremely fine,” Calloway recalled, “All of a sudden other schools in the county were having problems and somehow something happened and someone said ‘Well, how are you all managing not to have a problem in Riviera Beach?’ and the next thing we knew, there was a problem.”69 Halfway through its first year of desegregation, Suncoast became known as a racially troubled and violent school. In the last week of February in 1971, conflicts between the students and in the administration of the school escalated over two school weeks into what newspaper coverage described as a riot rather than a protest. During that same week, the school board announced that the dual campus desegregation plan would be phased out in the following school year. In doing so the formerly Black high school campuses, including Kennedy, would be turned into junior high schools.70 Thus, fears over the elimination of all-black high schools that provoked a large-scale school boycott came to fruition, amplifying the anger of black students at schools like Suncoast.

68 Ibid., 1F.

69Calloway interview, 4.

70 Tom Sawyer, “Two Campus Schools Out in Fall,” The Palm Beach Post, A1.

That violence occurred in the school is undeniable. The first hints of unrest at

Suncoast started on February 24, 1971 when 150 African American students, protesting mistreatment by faculty and administration, refused to attend afternoon classes. The students said that they had attempted to alert the white principal, Clyde Canipe, of their complaints but that they were unsuccessful. The students were unhappy that the school year book staff was all-white, that the school would not arrange a Black History Week, and the low number of black teachers in the school. Arthur King, the black principal of the south campus, and former principal at Kennedy, held an “informal rap session” to all about their issues. The students were upset because they wanted to have the attention of the supervisory principal who presided over the dual camps as a whole. Canipe responded that he tried to answer one of the complaints but that the students did not listen to him. This first incident foreshadowed what would come in the following days as anger mounted among the black students, and their concerns remained unanswered.71

Superintendent Early made two decisions after the first instances of violence at

Suncoast. First, he banned the school’s basketball team from participating in the district tournament, set to take place on Suncoast’s campus, a move that would punish black students to a higher degree than white students. Second, he would place police officers in civilian clothing on campus to maintain the safety of the faculty, staff, and students.

These changes would prove to further provoke tensions between the students and the administration because they appeared to punish the black students in a way that white students did not experience.

71 Tom Sawyer, “150 Blacks Leave School,” The Palm Beach Post, A12.

The next day, more violence erupted on Suncoast’s campus, though reports of the incidents that occurred were ambiguous. The Palm Beach Post described it as a problem between the black and white students and blamed the black student population for instigating violence on the north campus, which was mostly white. Newspaper reports and memories of the event that actually sparked the violence lack details.

However, it is clear that students began to protest when an 18-year-old black student,

Harold Stepherson, was removed from class at the request of his teacher by a police officer. The Principal, Clyde Canipe, reported that the student resisted the officer as he was taken to the dean’s office and that a girl started insisting that Stepherson was mistreated by authorities.72 A senior meeting ended at the same time and the students coming out of that meeting began to gather in protest of what they perceived as unfair treatment of Stepherson. The newspaper coverage suggests that only black students, however, were targeted by police in their brutality and that only black students participated in the protest in the first place. In an article from the Palm Beach Post, the incident was portrayed as a result of riots instigated by black students. When police arrived on in riot gear and cleared the campus with tear gas, “white students ran to the east side of the school while black students were driven by tear gas through the school’s parking lot, retreating westward towards the black neighborhood.”73 At that point, the alleged 200 or so black students moved off campus and gathered at the

72 Tom Sawyer and Rochelle Jones, “Violence in Riviera: Trouble Erupts at Suncoast High,” The Palm Beach Post, March 4, 1971, A1.

73 Ibid, A1.

Imperial Shopping Center, where approximately 40 sheriff’s deputies dispersed the crowd.

Community activist and black civic leader Herman McCray was present for the incidents that took place off campus, and he confronted one of the sheriffs about what was happening in the community and at the school. McCray accused officers of treating the black population differently than the white population, and that punishments were only doled out to the black community. The 200 white students who gathered to protest their own treatment at the school were never considered a threat to property or personhood. McCray voiced the anger that students, parents, and teachers would not.

He addressed the various slights felt as a result of the violence that had occurred the week prior: “Why don’t you come out here before these things start? Why doesn’t Lloyd

Early sit down and do something right? Why is it always one-sided? Why do you penalize the basketball team? Why do you make the black schools junior highs?

These things mount up.”74 McCray’s forceful dispute with the sheriff revealed dissidence in the community between the white authority and black people.

McCray and about 400 other black parents, community leaders, students, and citizens came out to a public meeting called by the local National Association for the

Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Riviera Beach that addressed the events that had taken place at Suncoast over the following weeks.75 Many were injured in the frays, on campus and off. Among those injured were teachers, students, a journalist, and even one infant sprayed with tear gas. The emergency room at St. Mary’s hospital,

74Charles Anderson, “Blacks Rally in Riviera,” The Palm Beach Post¸ March 4, 1971, A-12.

75 Ibid., A12.

which received all of the victims, was overwhelmed by the insurgence of student casualties, and the newspaper account of the aftermath called it a “disaster area.”76

Many of the students came in for treatment for teargas, but others suffered anxiety and panic as a result of the brutality of the events that took place in their school and in their community. In the meeting, people discussed the actions of “trigger-happy” police officers who went too far in their response to unrest at Suncoast. Parents testified on behalf of their children who had suffered at the hands of police. A female student told the crowd that a police officer had “put knots on my head by beating me with billy clubs just because I told Harold (Stepherson) he did not have to talk to them and answer any questions unless he had been arrested.”77 Much of the conversation, as reported by

The Palm Beach Post, focused on the tragic violence that occurred on Suncoast’s campus, and emphasized the sizeable distrust of authorities in Riviera Beach’s black community. One unnamed black teacher from the north campus of Suncoast spoke up, and addressed what appeared to be the crux of the problems at Suncoast: the principal. The unidentified teacher encouraged parents of black students at Suncoast to demand Clyde Canipe’s resignation: “He is too old to be principal and I doubt if he will ever change his ways. He has been teaching your children the same things he taught white people 25 years ago. Our students are not going to stand for that. Get rid of him now.”78 The public meeting articulated anger and distrust held for the authority figures that ruled over their communities and institutions.

76 Ibid, A12

77 Ibid., A12.

78 Ibid., 12-A.

100

After the incident on campus, teachers began to recount the atmosphere in the school. These discussions revealed the distrust and fear that white teachers held for many of their black students, and also fissures between black and white faculty. In a discussion with county administrators Superintendent Early and the school board

Chairman George Blanck, white teachers described their black students as fearsome and violent. One white teacher reported: “I had four or five black girls come up after me with straps and sticks. I stared at them and they threatened.”79 One teacher, Rodney

Tinson, was hospitalized with a cracked jaw suffered at the hands of a student. Other teachers reported incidents of violence and intimidation brought about by black students aimed at white teachers and students alike. The discussion that followed these incidents between teachers and school administrators established rifts between various school constituents. First, the teachers (mostly white) felt that the administration did not view them fairly, and that keeping the school open risked their safety. Despite assurance that police in plainclothes, uniformed police officers, and county staff would be stationed on campus, the teachers still felt that the administrators viewed them from an “ivory tower” and could not relate to the problems that they faced on the ground. The discussion also revealed fissures between black and white teachers. Some of the black teachers accused white teachers of treating their black students as though they were less than human. white teachers alleged black teachers of encouraging their students to become more militant, an accusation that most black teachers did not agree with.

79 Gayle McElroy and Charles Anderson, “Teacher Injured in Riviera School Unrest,” The Palm Beach Post, March 6, A1.

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The one point that all of the teachers could unite around was an observation made by the student body president who cited that the problems on campus developed as a result of differences between the entire student body and the administration. He said: “It’s nothing you can put your finger on directly. But we do know there is a problem. One side of it is black and the other is white. When nobody would listen to that problem, the students got uptight and started taking it out on each other.”80 Students generally did not identify integration between students as a problem, but rather that issues between the administration and students were to blame. Furthermore, while administrators may have found it easy to blame the violence on campus in late February on integration, Theodus Harris explained that the violence on campus was only a tactic used to force attention to these issues: “It seems the only time the older generation ever listens to what we have to say is when we get violent. You would not be here today listening to us if you were not worried about how to keep us quiet.”81 Divisions between the students and the administrators widened, and the presence of police on campus proved to provoke more ire from the already antagonized black students at Suncoast.

After the weekend, school resumed on the morning of March 1, 1971 though many students, most of them white, did not attend. After the violence that occurred on campus the previous week, about 200 white students gathered in front of the school and presented a five point resolution to school officials. The white students made accusations that the quality of education system at the school “lowered to a serious

80 Ibid, A5.

81 Charles Anderson , “Suncoast High: Both Sides Ponder the Issue,” The Palm Beach Post, March 7, 1971, C1.

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degree at Suncoast,” and argued that they felt their safety had been compromised.

Significantly, these students had the ear of principal Canipe and no police were called because of their gathering. As a result of this gathering, Canipe scheduled and then subsequently canceled a meeting with Superintendent Lloyd Early and four white students and four black students. Evidently, the white students would not agree to meet with the black students.

If the violence that occurred on Suncoast’s campus intended to provoke discussion surrounding the problems taking place within the school, then it certainly accomplished that. On March fourth, the editor of The Palm Beach Post wrote an editorial that decried racism and violence, and offered that the students of Suncoast would only suffer more as a consequence of this provocation. However, the editorial offered that while violence would only “play into the hands of those who would seek to use their violent defiance to continue to exploit them,” he did agree that the violence on campus had stirred up attention from authorities: “The “man” has gotten the message:

Young people are restless and hurt and frustrated and they are asking questions and reacting when they do not receive answers.”82 Public exposure of the complicated situation at Suncoast demonstrated that something had to be done to appease the frustrated community of Riviera Beach.

The “man,” presumably Superintendent Early, did get the message. The violence and unrest would not cease if something was not done to remedy the disrupted situation at Suncoast. He, along with Riviera Beach City Manager Robert Baldwin, appointed an

82 Gregory E. Favre, “Violence of Violence,” The Palm Beach Post, March 4, 1971.

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eight-person steering committee charged with restoring peace to Suncoast High

School.83 The committee recommended a long list of changes to shift the school into a more peaceful place. The committee’s recommendations were attuned to the concerns of students who cited miscommunication between students and administrators as a perennial problem, and suggested that the problems be fixed from within the school.

The recommendations that the committee made suggested that more frequent and meaningful interactions between the students and administrators would go a long way in preventing violence in the future. If the students felt they had a voice, then they might not feel the need for attracting attention in any other way. In addition, the committee recommended that Principal Canipe be removed from his position, and transferred elsewhere because the school needed somebody who could work with the students. In fact, when the steering committee voted to approve the recommendation that they would give to the superintendent, their vote proved ambivalent. Half of the committee abstained from voting and the four who did vote came to a three to one decision to remove Canipe.

The steering committee also pointed to a problem that most in the black community had already cited: the problems with the police. In a “rap” session between parents and school officials, parents expressed their dissatisfaction with the way that their children had been treated in the melee at Suncoast. Their indictment of police brutality brought upon their children and not white children, pointed to systemic

83 The committee included Riviera Beach City Council Chairman Monty Murphy, guidance counselor at a community college, Jesse Ferguson, an employee of the Community Action Council, Mrs. Gloria Harris, reverend Thomas Dekle, Rev. Arthur Evans, Vernon Coolidge and Mark Martin, businessmen, and Mrs. Earlene Weston, a teacher at Suncoast. Rochelle Jones, “Board Told: Move Canipe,” The Palm Beach Post, March 5, 1971, A6.

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problems of prejudice that would not be fixed simply by removing the principal.

Sustained police presence on campus seemed particularly harsh and unnecessarily punitive toward black students who felt the police were there to punish them, rather than protect them. In another “rap” session between the black students of Riviera Beach, the principal of the north campus, Arthur King, informed students that police would remain on school grounds, cautioning, “I know you’re not going to like this.”84 A student called out from the crowd: “Another Raiford!” The comment referred to another state institution that had experienced violence as a result of bad conditions in Florida: the Raiford State

Prison.85 The black students of Riviera Beach who attended Suncoast High School felt increasingly isolated from the administration and increasingly penalized within the school’s walls. These were the costs of desegregation.

Throughout the weeks that violence at Suncoast remained front-page news, numerous “rap” sessions and community meetings were held by various constituents, some bi-racial and others segregated. In each of these meetings, many issues came up that demonstrated the dire need for meaningful dialogue and change within the school itself, and within its surrounding community. One significant call was to remove Clyde

Canipe as principal of Suncoast High School. Of all the demands and suggestions, this was the only one specifically addressed. On March 12, 1971, Canipe announced that he would retire early as a result of all the problems he faced at Suncoast during the first year of desegregation.86 Canipe admitted that he had not planned to retire that year,

84Tom Sawyer and Rochelle Jones, “Violence in Riviera: Trouble Erupts at Suncoast High,” A1.

85 Gregory E. Favre, “State Budget Message,” The Palm Beach Post, March 4, 1971, A14.

86 Tom Sawyer, “Suncoast Principal to Retire,” The Palm Beach Post, March 12, 1971, A1.

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but that if leaving the school would improve the conditions there then he would do so.

Still, he maintained that desegregation, not his leadership, was the root of the problem for the school: “The problem with Suncoast and many areas is integration. The staff and I have been trying to make integration work since the first black student came to

Riviera Beach High School campus voluntarily several years ago.”87 While there is no doubt that removing Canipe as principal was a good idea for Suncoast, the action did not address the many concerns of the community that would continue the fight for equality long after his retirement.

The history of the struggles over desegregation that took place in Riviera Beach between 1969 and 1971 depict Palm Beach County as a difficult environment for the black population. Far from more notorious locations in the Deep South, Palm Beach

County was described as the “second most difficult desegregation cases in the country” by the HEW. This story, and the recognition that Florida, traditionally categorized moderate state in regard to race relations actually encountered major difficulties. It highlights that the moderate desire for law and order inhibited progress in the black community’s struggle for equality. When state officials intervened during the first school boycott in the county, the agreement reached emphasized the need to maintain order, not to protect black institutions.

The first year that Suncoast existed as a dual campus also disrupts the image of

Florida as an exception within the South because racial tension finally mounted so much that the youth of Riviera Beach felt they had no choice but to use violence to be

87 James Quinlan, “Canipe: Retirement Announcement ‘Premature,’” The Palm Beach Post, March 16, 1971, D1.

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heard. The police action that took place after students became antagonistic revealed that race and power were just as inherently related in South Florida as they were in

Mississippi. Blacks felt inordinately punished by institutions like schools and law enforcement. For example, when 150 black students left Suncoast because their complaints were not heard by the white administration, the news sparked major concern from the standpoint of the media and law enforcement. Newspapers jumped on the racial headlines and police were sent in immediately. When only mere days after 200 white students gathered in front of the school to present their demands, no police became involved, and the media paid scarce attention to the incident. This suggests that racism is not so much a regional issue as a systemic and pervasive problem.

Whether or not the newspapers or white administration used overt racist rhetoric is not so important as the lived experiences of the people in black communities. It was clear through these actions of students and community members that black institutions were revered, and losing them was a painful transition.

This time period in Palm Beach County’s history also reflects the larger history of the high school “rights movement” described by Gael Graham and others. Student protests in Riviera Beach and West Palm Beach did not belong to part of a larger movement, but they did demonstrate the ways that authority and power were shifting in schools throughout the nation. These protests ultimately did pave the way for students to have more control in schools as a result of this time period, a theme that will continue in the next chapter. While the actions of the Palm Beach County administration often undermined the efforts of black students, they also demanded and received attention.

However, these instances also indicate that while the high school students’ “rights

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movement” opened up communication for students with their school’s administration, and that they had the potential to change some things, the onus of control ultimately lay with the authorities. County concerns repeatedly and continuously negated the demands and wishes of communities of color who worked persistently to claim their value

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CHAPTER 4 SUNCOAST FROM UNITARY STATUS TO VOLUNTARY DESEGREGATION

The early 1970s were a time of racial turbulence for Palm Beach County, the state of Florida, and the entire United States. Federal initiatives demanded desegregation but left the planning and implementation to often-reluctant local authorities. Throughout the 1970s, the U.S. Supreme Court defined and re-defined stipulations for what constituted desegregation in schools. In 1971, the Court addressed the use of attendance zones as a means to preserve racially divided schools and authorized busing to decrease racial isolation in Swann vs. Mecklenburg Board of

Education.1 In Palm Beach County, the U.S. District Judge Joe Eaton ruled that the school system had achieved “unitary status” by embracing a desegregation plan that required efficient use of space and a three to one ratio of white to black students in its schools. 2 In effect, these two imperatives, combined with the Court’s decision in the

Swann case, led the Palm Beach County School Board to implement plans that undermined its black citizens. First, the county combined the dual campuses spearheaded during its first year of desegregation, and as a result, closed the historically black high schools in the county. In Riviera Beach, John F. Kennedy High

School became a junior high school and all of its students attended Suncoast High

School located on the formerly all white campus of Riviera Beach High School. Second, as the county’s population changed dramatically between 1970 and 1980, the school

1 Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402. U.S. 1 (1971).

2 “Final Order and Judgment, William M. Holland, Jr. etc. et al., vs. The Board of Public Instruction of Palm Beach County, Florida et al., School Board Minutes of Palm Beach County, Florida, July 11, 1973, Book 43, 46-48.

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board utilized busing as a means to maintain the mandated racial balance in schools.3

As the population grew overall, the racial composition of Palm Beach County became more disparate as whites moved into newly developed suburbs. As such, Suncoast became susceptible to re-segregation by the early 1980s.

In 1973, Suncoast had a population of 28 percent black students and 72 percent white, which was almost exactly the preferred racial composition determined by the U.S.

District Court that declared it “unitary.” Desegregation experts Gary Orfield and David

Thronson have called into question the validity of the declaration of unitary status as a satisfactory determination of meaningful desegregation. They contended that unitary status had “very little to do with whether the district has actually provided equal education to minority youths for a long enough time to overcome the cumulative impact of generations of unequal opportunity.”4 In Palm Beach County this appeared to be true because by the early 1980s only two percent of Suncoast’s students would be white.5

Historian Lise Steinhaur noted the black population of Palm Beach County found ways to “adapt realistically to the pain of losing its black schools and authority figures” after desegregation.6 The study of Suncoast from 1973-1989 is a story of local conflict

3 From 1970-1980, the population of Palm Beach County grew by 68%. Table 3. Population of Counties: Urban and Rural Residences 1970-1980, Florida, 11-3, U.S. Census Bureau, 1980.

4 Gary Orfield and David Thronson, “Dismantling Desegregation: Uncertain Gains, Unexpected Costs,” Emory Law Journal 42, no. 759 (1993): 760.

5 Stephanie Desmon, “Where the Magnet Experiment Worked,” The Palm Beach Post, July 19, 1998; 4A; Viola Geinger, “U.S. Agency Finds Bias in Schools: Investigation Prompted by Suncoast complaints,” The Palm Beach Post, November 14, 1989, 1A.

6 Lise M. Steinhauer, “Wait Has Always Mean “Never”: The Long Road to School Desegregation in Palm Beach County,” in Irvin D.S. Winsboro, Old South, New South, or Down South? Florida and the Modern Civil Rights Movement (Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Press: 2009), 171.

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between a community that struggled to forge an identity for its school and a county that struggled to accommodate a burgeoning and wealthy population’s desires. In the 1980s, communities across the state of Florida began to face the problems of white flight and racial isolation in schools and began to embrace a controversial “compromise” for desegregation.7 This new approach would utilize magnet schools, federally sanctioned in 1975 as a method of desegregation, to bring white students to majority black neighborhood schools.8

Magnet schools promised to encourage desegregation. Public schools would adopt highly valued academic curricula, and white parents would send their students to schools they previously would never dare.9 As historian Diane Ravitch explained, the notion of school choice, previously thought of as a way for whites to avoid desegregation, became a popular way to encourage voluntary desegregation in the

1980s.10 The story of Suncoast’s transition from a community school to a magnet school demonstrates that while these schools may address the problem of white flight, they are often built upon a foundation of discrimination against minority populations.

Riviera Beach Becomes Charger Country, 1973-1978

When school began in 1973 under the new desegregation plan in Palm Beach

County many changes were afoot. After five tumultuous years as superintendent, Lloyd

7 Regan Garner, “A School Without a Name: Desegregation of Eastside High School 1970-1987,” University of Florida Journal of Law and Public Policy, 16,(2005), 235-236.

8 Morgan v. Kerrigan, 530 F.2d 531 (1st Cir. 1976).

9 Lauri Steel and Roger Levine, Educational Innovation in Multiracial Contexts: The Growth of Magnet Schools in American Education (Palo Alto, CA: American Institutes for Research, 1994), 6-7.

10 Diane Ravitch, The Death and Life of the Great American School System (New York: Basic Books, 2010), 116.

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Early resigned from the post infamously stating upon his exit that the school board had too much power in the district.11 Also, Palm Beach County elected Daniel Hendrix to the school board. Hendrix, a teacher at Palm Beach Junior College and the first African

American to sit on the board, had been vocal in his support of student protests of school closings in years before.12 But this gain in black leadership did not extend to Suncoast.

Student protests at Suncoast had begun in response to the outdated, “lily-white” leadership of principal Clyde Canipe. Indeed, central to the problems that black students had at Suncoast related to the white principal’s lack of leadership. The students who protested felt unheard and disrespected by Canipe and underrepresented by school policies—the transition to a school with mostly white leadership was difficult to say the least. This resulted in Canipe’s eventual early retirement from school administration altogether. What Suncoast needed, it seemed, was a leader who would unite students, teachers, and the administration.

Determining who would replace Canipe, however, came with its own quiet controversy. When Suncoast was under fire for racial problems and riots within the community assistant principal Arthur King was appointed principal of Suncoast. King, a black administrator who had previously been principal at Kennedy, was known for facilitating understanding between students and easing tensions within the school. He lived in Riviera Beach and had made his career there as a successful and dedicated school administrator. King seemed the obvious choice to take over Suncoast after its first year of upheaval. When the school board appointed him principal of Suncoast there

11 Elliot Kleinberg, “Roll Call for Palm Beach School Chiefs,” The Palm Beach Post, August 20, 2014, 3B..

12 John M. Purnell, “Hendrix Elected School Board Chairman,” The Palm Beach Post, November 19, 1975, D2. 112

was no indication that the position was temporary. Still, during the summer of 1971, the district announced that King would not be principal at Suncoast but would instead be demoted and sent to take the position as principal of the newly formed Kennedy Junior

High School. The Palm Beach Post described the typically loquacious administrator as unusually silent about the issue. When asked about the move he only said: “No comment. I really have no comment.”13 An unnamed friend of King added: “It’s hard to get a man to comment about his career when it is going backward.”14 Indeed, the article went on to describe King’s 28 years of work in Palm Beach County, and reported that he had not worked in a junior high school since 1958.

Though the move may have been a surprise to King—he received neither prior warning nor explanation, the demotion followed a common pattern in many parts of the

South.15 Historian Michael Fultz’s study of the fate of black educators after Brown noted that as desegregation plans increased displacement demotion became standard practice. Fultz explained: “schools might ostensibly have to be “mixed,” at least to a degree, but by firm resolve they would still remain symbolically “white,” supervised and staffed by white faculties.”16 In the case of King, this held true. In Florida, as in other regions of the South, African American administrators were demoted and removed from positions of power at an alarming rate with little to no explanation. In Florida, the

13 Jim Quinlan, “The Principal’s Mum: Talkative King Quiet about Transfer,” The Palm Beach Post, June 25, 1971, D1.

14 Ibid.

15 Michael Fultz, “The Displacement of Black Educators Post-Brown: An Overview and Analysis,” History of Education Quarterly 44, no.1 (2004): 11-45; Linda C. Tillman, “African American Principals and the Legacy of Brown,” Review of Research on Education 28, no. 2 (2004):101-146.

16 Fultz,“The Displacement of Black Educators,” 23.

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situation was even more precarious. In a study of black principals after Brown, Linda C.

Tillman found that the all-white makeup of Florida school boards and the control of white superintendents contributed to this trend. The Journal of Negro Education also paid attention to this particular side effect of Brown. In 1974, Everett Abney published a study that indicated that the number of black principals in the state of Florida was dropping at rapidly and called desegregation “a tragic phenomenon.”17 Abney cited that while it did seem that Florida districts provided employment for displaced black principals like King, that these demotions and dismissals would have a negative impact on the principals’ self-esteem and further entrench feelings of inferiority.18 In another investigation into the displacement of black principals in Florida, The Journal of Negro

Education reported that by 1971, many principals of formerly all black high schools had been removed from their positions. Considering these conditions, it is no wonder that the normally verbose Arthur King had ‘no comment’ about his demotion.

King’s usurper was Martin Gold, a white man who had previously been the principal of Glades Central High School in the isolated town of Belle Glade, far to the west of most of Palm Beach County’s urban civilization.19 Unlike King, Gold had no prior ties to Riviera Beach but came from a part of the county that was highly segregated, both geographically and racially. During the six years that Gold worked there Suncoast’s reputation changed. Whereas newspapers had previously described it as a racially

17 Everett E. Abney, “The Status of Florida’s Black School Principals,” The Journal of Negro Education 43, no. 1 (1974): 8.

18 Ibid.

19 Quinlen, “The Principal’s Mum,” 2D.

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divisive campus that posed problems for the county, Suncoast quickly became just another school under white leadership with a white majority of students. In fact, aside from the usual attention that most high schools received that reported sports scores,

Suncoast rarely garnered local media attention. When it did, the attention was generally positive or neutral. In fact, what makes Gold’s tenure as principal stand out is the emphasis on community involvement and trust between the administration and students, which had previously not existed. In 1973, the school board named Suncoast a “Community School,” which meant that the doors of the school remained open until 10 pm every school day for Adult Education and activities in the community. Described in the 1973 yearbook as “quite a success,” this move brought Suncoast closer to the people of Riviera Beach as well. It became a welcoming place not only for students but also for the people in the neighborhood. The change also denoted a rare moment of cohesion between the county school board and the people of Suncoast.

Throughout his tenure as principal, yearbook depictions continuously supported

Gold for his openness and availability to students. Often using his name for inspiration to describe the principal’s worth, yearbooks called him “Good as Gold,” or “Solid

Gold!”20 Reports in the yearbook emphasized that Gold was available to students, and that he made time to work with the community. Unlike Canipe, students seemed to believe that Gold viewed himself as somewhat of an equal to them. In the 1973-1974

Reflections yearbook, Gold was presented this way: “Gold’s office is not an ‘Ivory

20 Reflections, Suncoast High School, Riviera Beach, Florida, Vol. 2, 1974; Reflections, Suncoast High School, Riviera Beach Florida, Vol. 4, 1976.

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Tower’ where no one dared to tread.”21 Gold evidently relished in working with students.

He even took opportunities to teach classes on occasion to stay in touch with what was going on in the classrooms. Gold’s approach to leadership of the school appeared far from dogmatic. In one passage in the yearbook, students pointed out that he was available to parents, teachers, and students when conflicts arose he did not rule with an iron fist. This approach to conflict even came out in newspaper reports. In his first year,

Gold had to intervene between teachers and students because of some lingering issues of prejudice. Gold described one such scenario and explained his rational and egalitarian approach: “We called in the teacher and the student and they sat down and they talked it out with each other. Finally, they began to get a different insight into each other’s ideas.”22 Gold’s use of mutual respect between students, teachers, and himself as a leadership tactic seemed to ease tensions. Though this instance focused on conflict within the school the emphasis on the article was on Gold’s effective leadership style. In fact, the article’s intent was to demonstrate how well desegregation was unfolding at Suncoast.

Suncoast’s efforts at facilitating ways to bring students and teachers together outside of the classroom became part of the newspaper narrative about the school as well. One of the most effective ways of accomplishing this was through the creation of a common goal: physical comfort. The campus, built in 1955, was outdated by the 1970s and no issue raised concern so much the lack of air conditioning throughout the

21 Reflections, 1974, 150-151.

22 “Veto of Busing to be Appealed,” The Palm Beach Post, February 25, 1972, C3.

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facilities. In the sometimes swelteringly hot South Florida climate, this was a problem that the entire Suncoast community could rally around. Thus, the “Beat the Heat

Committee” formed to find various ways to raise money for the school to purchase air conditioners room by room. “Beat the Heat” utilized people from all facets of school life to participate in fundraising activities that ranged from student-faculty productions, booths at the school carnival, and fundraisers that solicited money outside of grocery stores. The 1975 yearbook depicted the collective efforts that it took to make “Beat the

Heat” a success. The committee created events that involved the community like “Trick or Treat for Beat the Heat” and the “Sweetheart Dance” on Valentine’s Day—and the proceeds of these events funded air conditioners classroom by classroom. One of the most collaborative of these events was the student-faculty theatrical productions put on as part of “Beat the Heat.” In 1973, the music director chose “Gypsy” as that year’s musical. An article in the Palm Beach Post reported on the show and promoted

Suncoast’s shows as a “hodge-podge” of students and faculty working together to make

“one of the best high school musical productions in the area.”23 In the article, writer Nory

Roggen explained that the play included as many people as possible and from as many ranks within the school as possible. This new image of a united Suncoast was one of the only times that Suncoast gained any positive attention from local media.

Although Suncoast remained out of the headlines for controversy during most of

Gold’s tenure he could not escape one instance that provoked student dissent. In

September of 1977, just at the beginning of the school year, Gold transferred a female

23 Norv Roggen, “Faculty, Students United for ‘Gypsy,” Features Big Cast Suncoast High Play,” The Palm Beach Post, October 24, 1973, N2.

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dean named Shirley Burgess to Palm Beach Gardens High School. The school board projected that Suncoast would have fewer students in the following year and so the cutback was necessary. Originally, Gold transferred another dean, Kelly Williams, who was male. Gold had made his decision based on seniority, and Burgess had the least seniority despite working a decade at Suncoast. As a result, Williams returned to

Suncoast and Burgess was moved. The students’ complaints about this change were two fold: first, the junior class president charged that the transfer was illegal because all schools required a female dean. Second, the Palm Beach Post reported Burgess was not as strict as Williams. In response, approximately 1,000 students protested the decision before school by marching on the football field. A newspaper report in the Palm

Beach Post featured two large photos of the demonstration. Students filled the field and even climbed the football goal posts during the raucous protest. Unlike protests in the past, however, police and teachers merely looked on—there were neither arrests nor suspensions. School began at 8:45 A.M. as usual.24 This protest was not about race— the dean in question was a white woman and students from all ethnic backgrounds protested her dismissal. Thus, the media portrayed this as merely an event wherein high school students supported their dean, not as a riot or threat to society.

Students, teachers, and parents also attended a school board meeting to urge the board to overturn their decision. During the meeting, the junior class president Treva

Engle argued with the board to return Burgess to the school because she was “like a mother” to the students. Citing that it was unfair for Suncoast to lose its one female

24 Edgar Sanchez, “Students Protest Dean’s Move,” The Palm Beach Post, September 16, 1977, C1.

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dean, Engle pleaded: “Please give her back to us.”25 Burgess also asked the board to reconsider their decision with an emotional appeal and with tears in her eyes stated: “I gave ten years of my life at Suncoast.”26 The school board discussed the issue in that meeting. One board member suggested that the concerns of the students and community were really rooted more in popularity than in legitimate concerns for the students of Suncoast. To this, the crowd responded, “No! No! No!” After appeals from

Suncoast faculty and students were heard, the school board swiftly decided to honor their request and reinstated Burgess as dean of Suncoast. Palm Beach Post editor,

Thomas A. Kelly called the decision a “triumph for reason,” calling for the school board of Palm Beach County to reevaluate policies that merely considered numbers instead of people.27

The incident of the dean’s transfer and the protest and public support for Burgess stand in stark contrast to public protest over Suncoast merely six years prior. Even though 1,000 students protested by shirking their first period classes but there were no negative consequences for this action. When 2,500 black students protested an issue as dire as losing their entire school system, the state intervened. In this case, the school board swiftly sided with protesters and remedied the situation, whereas black protesters’ demands that their schools be maintained had been all but ignored. In fact, those students who participated in walkouts and protests over unfairness toward black students faced at best chastisement and at worst expulsion from school. In essence,

25 Edgar Sanchez, “Dean’s Transfer Overturned,” The Palm Beach Post, September 22, 1977, C1.

26 Ibid.

27 Thomas A. Kelly, “Editorial: A Triumph for Reason,” The Palm Beach Post, September 23, 1977, A18.

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Suncoast was not viewed as a den of violence when its halls were filled with white students. Instead, the students’ concerns were heard and the ruling was overturned.

When Martin Gold served as principal, Suncoast became a revered institution within

Riviera Beach and enjoyed full support of the county. The newspaper rarely mentioned the school, except to praise its sports teams and theater department. And when one major incident of controversy occurred, the demonstration was not questioned—the media coverage was neutral.

The dean’s transfer incident of 1977 happened because of a mistake made by

Martin Gold. He left Suncoast the next year. Although his integrity as an administrator could be called into question for instigating such upheaval for his school, Gold was not demoted. Instead, Gold left Suncoast and was promoted to become an administrator within the district. This last act proved that, indeed, he was “valuable, as his name implie[d].”28

A Decade of Decline, 1978-1989

While Martin Gold’s tenure as Principal at Suncoast can be viewed as a golden age for the school, its sharp decline after his departure reveals that regard for Suncoast was, in fact, skin deep. Two trends influenced Suncoast’s descent in the 1970s and

1980s: population shifts and the introduction of statewide assessments. When Gold left in 1978 the county’s population was expanding and moving away from coastal communities and toward the suburban developments. Throughout the 1980s, suburban housing developments in Palm Beach County expanded westward, pulling the new

28 Reflections, Suncoast High School, Riviera Beach, Florida, 1977, 162.

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residents away from coastal and urban areas like Riviera Beach. When they did, land developers used schools as a way to entice people to move into the newly developed communities that had previously been completely untouched land. One such community was called Wellington. It was located far west of the coastline where most people lived at the time, and even though there was very little development there the Palm Beach

County School Board vowed its support for Wellington’s future. In a school board meeting in July of 1978, board members discussed the new development and agreed to foster its growth through the creation of schools to serve its population.29 In a pamphlet advertising the new community included in school board meeting minutes, Wellington investors depicted the new suburb as idyllic and prominently advertised the new schools that would be built there. Selling the community appeared to hinge upon selling the promise of excellent schools.30 In addition, Tom Mills took over as superintendent of schools and also pledged allegiance to the new developments in the county. During his stay, the population of Palm Beach County increased substantially and Mills pushed for funding to create new schools through a $317 million school construction bond.31 But critics of Mills cited that he limited his vision for educational growth in the county with an eye directed only on areas of new suburban growth and neglected coastal urban areas, such as Riviera Beach. As the county expanded westward, it placed its priorities on

29 “Discussion of Wellington Development,” School Board Minutes of Palm Beach County, Florida, July 26, 1978, Book 54, 1-3.

30 “Wellington Development: Attachment,” School Board Minutes of Palm Beach County, August 2, 1978, Book 54.

31 Ibid.

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providing newly developed communities like Wellington with their own schools. This came at the expense of a coastal, urban school like Suncoast.

In addition, the educational landscape in Florida began to change with the introduction of new statewide testing standards. Historian Scott Baker’s research about the origins of the accountability movement links state tests to aversion for desegregation.32 Baker asserted that Southern governors promoted the use of state tests and exit exams as a new requirement for high school matriculation. Student performance on these exams, Minimum Competency Tests (MCT), could inhibit students from graduating and also established new standards for school performance.

African American students generally performed lower on MCTs than their white counterparts. Florida was one of the first states to implement the state standards in

1976, and although they faced controversy for discrimination against black students, their significance remained intact.33 As schools like Suncoast became more segregated, often their test scores reflected that the schools were not high performers. Lower test scores essentially became a justification for allowing schools to resegregate, and this influenced Suncoast’s fate as a community school greatly.

Suncoast: “The Closest Thing to an Inner City School in the South,”1984-1989

The results of these changes for Palm Beach County were devastating to the county’s urban schools. After just over a decade, Palm Beach County’s schools had

32 Scott Baker, “Desegregation, Minimum Competency Testing, and the Origins of Accountability: North Carolina and the Nation,” History of Education Quarterly 55, no. 1 (February 2015), 35.

33 John Robert Warren and Rachael B. Kulick, “Modeling States’ Enactment of High School Exit Exam Policies,” Social Forces 86, no. 1 (September 2007): 216-217; Debra P. v. Turlington, 1979; Robert C. Serow and James J. Davies, “Resources and Outcomes of Minimum Competency Testing as Measures of Equality of Educational Opportunity,” American educational Research Journal 19, no. 4 (1982): 529.

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almost entirely resegregated. Ironically, schools in wealthy and mostly white suburban areas were overcrowded whereas urban schools like Suncoast faced a major decrease in their enrollment rates. Early in 1984, the school board announced it would schedule a series of hearings to aid a special task force on race to review the district’s eleven-year- old desegregation plan in response to claims that their policies were discriminatory.34

Central to these conversations was the role that Riviera Beach’s large black population played in supplying the rest of the county’s schools with a racially balanced student body. The Riviera Beach City Council feared that the diminished number of students who attended Suncoast would decrease the viability of the school and also the city. The council crafted a resolution intended to urge the superintendent to pay attention to the increasingly dire enrollment problem at Suncoast for fear that the school would close. In addition, the city manager of Riviera Beach, whose son attended

Suncoast, created a proposal to allow students who were bused outside of their neighborhood to aid predominantly white schools with desegregation to request to attend their neighborhood school if it was under enrolled and they lived in close proximity.35 Herman McCray, the father of two Riviera Beach public school children and a long time local activist complained the school board denied Rivera Beach by busing its students to surrounding white communities: “We’re a community that provides a lot of black kids to a lot of schools. There’s just not enough of us to go around.”36 The

34 Herald Staff, “Hearings Set on Schools’ Integration,” The Miami Herald, January 26,1984, 1A.

35 Ellyn Ferguson, “City Worries Over School Enrollment,” The Miami Herald, September, 8, 1984, 5B..

36 Mike Wilson, “Racial Panel Hears Requests for Balance,” The Miami Herald, February 15, 1984, 4B.

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parents wanted community schools with a fair racial balance and limited busing—a seemingly difficult task in the growing county.

Superintendent Mills’ response to the request that Riviera Beach be given a fair chance at a community school reflected a divide between the administrator and the community. While the Riviera Beach City Council and parents of Suncoast students believed that the so-called problems with the school came about as a result of negligence by the school board, Mills blamed the school itself. He cited that many black students chose to leave predominantly black schools like Suncoast and that this reflected a “deeper problem,” there.37 Instead of changing the current system of busing,

Mills proposed that the school itself needed to change so that students would want to attend. Indeed, in the spring of 1984, plans to bring magnet schools to Palm Beach

County began to surface. In that year, the district spent $10,000 to send a committee to study magnet schools in Dallas, Texas, Indianapolis, Indiana, and Tampa, Florida. Mills said that this was “definitely the direction that the district was going.”38 Suncoast, he thought, could introduce specialized academic programs to entice whites back to the formerly all white campus and make it one of the best schools in the county. But the people of Riviera Beach did not want or need the best school—they simply wanted “a good standard high school.”39

37 Ferguson , “City Worries Over School Enrollment,” 5B.

38 Amy Dunn, “’Magnet’ School to Draw Whites,” The Miami Herald, March 29, 1984, 7B..

39 Ibid. The Riviera Beach City Council chairman Gerald Adams promoted a sentiment, echoed by Herman McCray. Riviera Beach didn’t need anything special it simply needed a school with the full support of its county.

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Suncoast Gets a “Spiritual Facelift”—Fredeva Nelson, 1984-1987

As a result of these public hearings, Mills vowed that the school district would

“take a hard look” at Suncoast by examining its curriculum.40 He added that the school board had made some efforts to improve the school by hiring a new principal there:

Fredeva Nelson, a long-time resident of Riviera Beach who spent most of her career working in its community. Nelson began her career as an English teacher at Lincoln Jr.

High School and then in 1965 she became a media specialist in the old Kennedy High

School library. She then moved on to become a member of the North Area Staff for the school board as a “Community Human Relations Consultant” for eleven years. In 1983, she was the Assistant Principal at John F. Kennedy Jr. High School before becoming the principal at Suncoast.41 Clearly, Nelson had deep community roots that would help her to facilitate a new positive environment, which by that time was badly needed.

During her first year as principal, Nelson allowed the school to become part of

Superintendent Mills’ plan to discourage drug sales on high school campuses. Called

“Operation Charger,” the sting placed an undercover police officer posed as a student looking to buy marijuana from students at Suncoast. The undercover cop arrested ten students who sold him small bags of marijuana. The officer said that the students appeared to be mostly interested in the money. Because many of the students from

Riviera Beach came from low-income homes the temptation to sell was great. Patricia

Pleasant, a parent of a Suncoast student said that all of the students arrested were poor and black and that most of them came from single-parent homes. She further argued

40 Ibid.

41 Reflections, Suncoast High School Yearbook, 1985, 18.

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that it did not make sense to target those students because “it’s the white kids that have the money, that have access to (marijuana) in order to buy it.”42 Superintendent Tom

Mills said that the investigation was not meant to single out Suncoast High School or to make an example of the black students. At the same time, no other school hosted an undercover operation of its kind, and in an article in The Miami Herald, Mills stated: “We are saying to anyone who wants to sell drugs on our campuses that we will catch up with you…This is an example of what will happen.”43 While Mills and the school board tacitly admitted that there were other schools that may have issues of drug selling on campus, the only school to undergo an investigation wherein students were arrested happened at Suncoast.

As the school became more populated by black students it “suffered” from white flight, the school’s image became more and more tarnished. Inherently racist rhetoric in newspaper portrayals contributed to this stigmatized vision of Suncoast. white students who left the school “fled” as though it would harm them to stay there.44 Media attention surrounding “Operation Charger,” sank Suncoast’s reputation. It became known as a

“ghetto school,” that suffered from white flight—a “plague” that caused Suncoast be become sick.45 Nelson worked solely and earnestly to reverse the image of Suncoast from a “ghetto school” to an urban community center. As principal, Nelson tried many

42 Mike Wilson and Jeff Leen, “Mother Says Her Son Denies Selling Drugs,” The Miami Herald, November 28, 1984, 1PB.

43 Jeff Leen, “Police Infiltrate School, Arrest 10 on Drug Charges,” The Miami Herald, November 27, 1984, 1PB.

44 Jean Duball, “Committee Says Whites Fleeing County Schools,” The Palm Beach Post, February 15, 1984, B2.

45 ‘White Flight’ Plaguing Riviera School,” The Palm Beach Post, November 4, 1985, A1.

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tactics to instill a sense of pride in her students and from the community to support the school. The 1985 yearbook made it evident that this was desperately needed because the students were painfully aware of how the outside world viewed them. The 1985-

1986 yearbook featured multiple newspaper articles and a letter from a former student that acknowledged the various ways that the students and administration were attempting to give the school a “spiritual facelift.”46 The yearbook dedicated four pages to demonstrate the changes that the administration and staff at Suncoast had implemented to revise the school’s tarnished image. One of the articles included quoted

Nelson describe Suncoast as “the closest thing to an inner city school in the South,” lamenting that enhancing school spirit should be difficult in a building that was old and drab, and with sharply decreased enrollment.47 An editorial from the The Palm Beach

Post on November 12, 1985, entitled “Preserve Suncoast High School,” addressed the many reasons that Suncoast ought to remain a community school. It pointed especially to the significance that they school had in the African American community in particular.

But the “pressures” the district faced in other parts of the county would be difficult to overcome. The editorial went on to frankly address the issue of race, explaining the

“sincere belief by many others that it is impossible to maintain a desegregated school in a black neighborhood because of white flight.”48 The problem with Suncoast in the public view was abundantly clear: it had become a too black, and this made it too dangerous in the minds of most white parents.

46 “School’s Spiritual Facelift,” Reflections, Suncoast High School Yearbook, 1986, 78.

47 Ibid.

48 “Preserve Suncoast High School,” The Palm Beach Post, November 12, 1985, A14.

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One of the ways that Suncoast received a boost was through financial backing that allowed them to make improvements in both the physical quality of the school and its academic resources. First, the school received $297,000 for a physical renovation that included lowering ceilings, changing carpets, and improved light installations.49 An article in the Palm Beach Post featured in the 1986 yearbook explained the “unexpected effect” that the renovations had on students’ learning. “It’s easier to think,” one student explained.50 The article went on to explain that the renovations would help to combat the school’s image as an inner city school by making students and teachers feel more jovial and comfortable in their work environment. Suncoast was also selected as one of only forty schools in the nation to receive a grant from the Xerox Corporation that would enhance the technological capability of the school. As part of the grant, Xerox donated computers valued at $250,000. The grant aimed to narrow the computer literacy gap between inner city and affluent schools.51 Superintendent Mills cited that more affluent schools had already added computers over the years through parent donations and community fundraisers, something the Suncoast community could not do.52 The computers, however, could not be used at the discretion of the school. Indeed, a representative from Xerox explained that the computers could not be used for vocational training, and that the grant recipients would be required to check in with the company about their use.

49 Ibid.

50 “Suncoast is Getting a Facelift,” Reflections, Suncoast High School Yearbook, Riviera Beach, Florida, 1986, 60.

51 Ellyn Ferguson, “Suncoast Gets Computers,” The Miami Herald, May 30, 1984, 1PB.

52 Ibid.

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In addition to the physical changes made to Suncoast, Nelson also brought in speakers intended to inspire and help the students in their quest to find a new image.

To increase the notoriety of academics the school hosted a special breakfast that honored students who performed well in the classroom. The breakfast featured speaker

Willie Gary, the first black man to open a law firm in Martin County, who spoke to the group of students about overcoming obstacles. The breakfast, intended to encourage students to do well in their classes, was held in the school cafeteria where all the students could see inside even if they could not attend.53 Suncoast also worked hard to alter the image of the school as a drug haven. “Operation Charger” had met mixed reviews when it was revealed in 1984. An editorial from the Palm Beach Post featured in the school yearbook expressed that although Suncoast was clearly not the only school in the county to have problems with drugs on campus, they were the only school with the “real guts to let us know they care about their students, and are doing something to encourage them to get straight.”54 On the adjacent page, the yearbook featured an article about “Teenage Health Awareness Day, ” a special program designed to address prevention of problems prevalent amongst high school aged students. These included drug and alcohol use, sexual assault, and recognizing the signs of suicide. The program utilized guest lecturers and videos to help students to open up about their own experiences with the problems presented.

53 Greg Schwem, “Students Urged to Aim High,” The Palm Beach Post, November 21, 1985, B-9.

54 “Hats Off to Suncoast High,” Reflections, Suncoast High School Yearbook, Riviera Beach, Florida, 1986, 61.

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In another attempt to change the image of Suncoast and especially its students, the yearbook presented an article published in the Palm Beach Post that featured “The

Young Lords,” nine black male students who represented the possibility that students on the wrong path could get straight. These nine students had previously been on the wrong track, skipped class, and had considered dropping out of school altogether.

Nelson and Suncoast’s occupational specialist Ron Leonard met at the beginning of the year to identify students who were in danger of dropping out. Many of the students that they identified were athletic super stars “whose success on the playing field was overshadowed by their failure in the classroom.”55 Nelson and Leonard explained to the students they identified that they were there to help them. The pair asked the students to form a group that would help them individually, but also foster a more positive environment school wide.

The purpose of the Young Lords was to provide the rest of the student body, and also the public, with role models that could inspire change. By taking students who had previously been isolated by negative attention and turning them into school leaders, principal Nelson hoped she could do the same for the entire school. The group gained notoriety from other students when they sponsored a speech by the Deputy Assistant

U.S. Secretary of State Clarence Hodges. At the event, members came onto the stage and introduced themselves to the student body. Notably, each member dressed in sport coats and ties. Nelson stated: “People could not believe these guys were wearing jackets and ties. They are used to going around with their shirttails out and no socks.

55 “Young Lords Brush Up Motivation, Attempt to Better School Image,” Reflections, Suncoast High School Yearbook, Riviera Beach, Florida, 1986, 78.

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Our goal was just to have everyone in socks.”56 The Young Lords, however, also were expected to increase their grade point average and to change the activities that they participated in on and off campus. Known as “former drug addicts,” the students in the

Young Lords worked to change their persona, and cited that it was unfair to portray them this way. A member of the group was quoted in the Palm Beach Post and stated:

“We are Young Lords and we’re here to set an example.”57 Nelson believed that instituting a plan like the Young Lords would help Suncoast change its public image and also inspire her students to better their own lives.

Despite Nelson’s ardent endeavor to transform Suncoast’s image, the school’s reputation for inferiority remained intact. Under enrollment in the school made it impossible for Suncoast to provide advanced classes for those students who wanted them. Nelson was removed from the school at the end of 1987. Her attempts to improve the self-esteem of the students did little to address concerns of school board administration and parents. The most pressing issues on their minds had to do with low enrollment and abysmal test scores. The students at Suncoast performed terribly on state tests, garnering the worst scores in the county. Students began to leave the school in favor of more academically secure schools. After a long history in Riviera

Beach and in Palm Beach County, the school board demoted Nelson from principal of her own community’s high school to become the attendance specialist tracking truancy.

Her salary dropped more than $20,000 down to $36,131. Nelson filed a charge with the

56 Ibid.

57 Ibid.

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Equal Opportunity Commission because she believed that the reason she had been demoted did not have to do with her performance as a principal, but the fact that the was a black woman. Indeed, Nelson had done many things to attempt to change the school’s suffering image, but that was not enough to protect her job.58

Discipline and Direction—Terry Andrews, 1987-1989

In Nelson’s stead, the school district chose Terry Andrews, a white male teacher.

Andrews was known for his “no nonsense” approach to education and discipline.

Superintendent Mills believed that Andrews would help improve the school’s image as

“a low achiever.”59 When Andrews arrived on campus, his methods became synonymous with authoritarianism. The 1988 yearbook welcomed Andrews by reflecting on the many changes subjected on Suncoast citing that Andrews had “stricter discipline,” which demanded that students set “higher standards for themselves.” 60 His addition intended to turn the school around from its negative image. In some ways he achieved that goal and in other ways undermined. While Andrews was principal, the school became, in essence, a locked down campus where security roamed freely and students did not. When other schools in the county became known for drug problems,

Suncoast became known for its security. Andrews concluded that these changes were the result of his amped up discipline style: “We’re real pleased with what we’ve done.

[We have] supervision, high visibility, and the security officers.”61 With his strict

58 Viola Gienger, “Principal’s Transfer Ruled Not Discriminatory,” Palm Beach Post, April 6, 1989, 4B.

59 Carol Marbin, “Employee Sues School Board: Ex-Suncoast Principal Claims Sex, Race Bias,” The Palm Beach Post, June 22, 1989, 5B.

60 Reflections, Suncoast High School Yearbook, Riviera Beach, Florida, 1988, 2.

61 “More Drug Cases Found in Schools in South County,” The Palm Beach Post, June 17, 1988, 5B.

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discipline and high level security standards, Andrews’ brought a clear message that

Suncoast needed an overhaul.

In some ways, students seemed to welcome this turnaround approach to the school. An article in the Sun Sentinel featured quotes from students at Suncoast during the middle of Andrews’ first term there. The students’ reflected a variety of opinions; some felt that the changes were needed. One student noted, “compared to last year, it’s more organized, more controlled, and security-wise, it’s safer. The campus is cleaner and we just don’t have unidentified people wandering around.”62 Some others felt that the rules made the school feel like a prison. In the same article, another student added that he felt the rules were too strict: “His rules sometimes are like two bars just clanging against each other.”63 Andrews’ approach may have been questionable to some, but his intention was clear: he was there to turn around a school that was failing academically and especially to improve the school’s performance on the state’s MCT. In this respect,

Andrews was quite successful. By the end of the 1988-1989 school year, Suncoast students had risen from the very bottom scoring school to the top. During that year, teachers had a singular goal for their students: to improve test scores. Teachers devoted nearly all of class time to test preparation and students took practice tests every week that they were in school. Students who received detention were also given practice tests.64 Andrews’ methods of discipline and supervision worked in some respects, but did not turn the school around completely.

62 Jill Miller, “Students React to Get Tough Principals Terry Andrews Cliff Durden,” Sun Sentinel, March 20, 1988, 4E.

63 Ibid.

64 Michelle Martin, “Suncoast Reverses is Top in Student Scores: Literacy Tests Scores,” Sun Sentinel, May 13, 1989. 133

Despite the Cinderella story that Andrews delivered, Suncoast’s larger problems continued throughout the two years he worked there. While test scores went up, enrollment continued to go plummet. A lack of students also translated to less availability of advanced classes. In 1987, a survey of Palm Beach County high schools and middle schools showed that smaller schools, like Suncoast, were unable to provide their students with honors and advanced placement classes that other schools in the county could. Advanced classes were not only in standard academic courses but also in foreign languages, music, and art.65 Parents of students at Suncoast brought their concerns to the school board. They asked that students from overcrowded schools be sent to Suncoast so that it might remain a community school. Suncoast operated at only

57 percent capacity with 650 students while schools like Palm Beach Gardens and

Jupiter were over capacity. One parent of a Suncoast student stated that although the school had done some work toward improving conditions, the board still did not help the overall problem of enrollment: “They’ve improved the discipline and that’s it. They keep allowing the enrollment to decline. They still have failed to do anything to remedy the situation.”66 One article described parent’s anger and sympathized: “Parents of

65Lori Crouch, “Size Prevents Schools From Offering Classes,” The Sun Sentinel, July 6, 1987, 1B. Suncoast offered 4 AP courses and 28 honors courses, compared with Palm Beach Gardens High School which had 6 AP courses and 47 honors courses and Jupiter, which had 6 AP courses and 33 honors courses. In fact, Suncoast did not have the least resources on the list. Pahokee High School in Belle Glade, a rural area far west of most of Palm Beach’s population fared far worse with only 1 advanced course available.

66 Arden Moore, “Board Stands Ground on Busing, Boundary Decision at Suncoast,” Sun Sentinel, May 5, 1988, 7B.

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Suncoast High Students could compare themselves to Sisyphus, the legendary Greek

King condemned to roll a huge rock up a steep hill for eternity.”67

The Quest to Save Suncoast, 1987-1989

In the spring of 1987, Cathy Garvey, a parent from Lake Park, Florida, a white suburb located just south of Riviera Beach organized a move to improve the conditions at her children’s schools. She, along with other parents from Lake Park, hired a civil rights lawyer from West Palm Beach, James K. Green, to press their complaints with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) in Atlanta. The parents sent more than 100 letters to important elected officials including President Ronald

Reagan, Education Secretary William Bennett, U.S. Representative Tom Lewis, and

U.S. Senators Bob Graham and Lawton Chiles.68 The letters accused the Palm Beach

County School Board of neglecting Suncoast High School and John F. Kennedy Jr.

High School in Riviera Beach. They explained that their children did not receive a high quality of education because the district used policies to determine school placement that had allowed enrollment to dwindle. The schools, they said, had become resegregated and argued that the high population of low income minority students contributed to that trend. What started as a campaign to enhance facilities and academic standards at two schools turned into a full-scale federal investigation of the school district of Palm Beach County. The investigation shed light on the disparate circumstances of the district’s schools and incited the school board to act.

67 Lori Crouch, “Boundary Decisions Anger Parents—Racial Balance,” Sun Sentinel, November 18, 1987, 1B.

68 Bartholomew Sullivan, “U.S. Panel Probes Schools In Palm Beach County,” The Palm Beach Post, June 13, 1987, 2B.

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In response, the school board outlined six options to desegregate the district that included busing, changing attendance boundaries, and transforming Suncoast into a magnet school. But any discussion of bringing white students to Suncoast ignited rage from parents whose children would be impacted by the decision. In something of a desperate moment, Superintendent Mills outlined a plan decried for its blatant racism.

He suggested that Suncoast become 98% black and allowing the suburban high school that would be built in Wellington to become 98% white. Mills seemed inclined to acquiesce to what he called “the reality of the situation.” He believed that by allowing two instances of extreme segregation the rest of the county could be racially balanced, though he ignored the obvious racism inherent in the suggestion. For Mills, his proposal was vested in the rhetoric of simple logic: “The problem is 50/50 doesn’t work. History shows us that when the black population starts getting over 30 percent, the white population leaves. The white flight has already occurred (at Suncoast). What I’m just trying to do is maintain good racial balance in other schools.”69 Mills’ proposal also exonerated the school board for its contribution to the problem of white flight at

Suncoast, and made his dedication to schools other than Suncoast clear. By casting the blame onto “history” it seemed natural that white flight would occur.

Cathy Harvey, the parent who initiated the investigation into the county, stated her frustration: “He is saying he is willing to do nothing for the schools in Riviera Beach.

That’s what he’s saying. And he really doesn’t care one bit what happens to the black students there.”70 Furthermore, five of the seven school board members said that they

69 Lori Crouch, “Boundary Proposals Blasted at Meeting at Suncoast High,” The Sun Sentinel, October 20, 1987, 7B.

70 Fawn Germer, “Mills: Make Suncoast 98% Black,” The Miami Herald, October 15, 1987, 1PB. 136

would not object to making Wellington white and Suncoast black, though they were more interested in other proposals. But the plan faced “swift and almost universal condemnation,” not only from parents but from the federal government as well. The U.S.

Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, who had yet to release the report of their investigation, said that they would delay releasing their report until Mills went ahead with the option. Deliberately segregating schools would make the district subject to civil rights adjudication.71

Before the school board would vote on how to remedy inequities at Suncoast, they held four public hearings to hear suggestions about how to proceed. Parents, infuriated by the option that would make Wellington a white school and Suncoast a black school in order to improve racial balance throughout the county, created options and presented them to the school board. Suggestions came from community groups who represented the mostly white suburban developments, school administrators, and the NAACP. The school board and the community groups all included a suggestion to close Suncoast altogether, but the school board promoted the transition of Suncoast into a magnet school. Neither of these groups suggested changing the school boundaries to include more students at Suncoast who lived in the area. The NAACP, however, suggested expanding school boundaries for Suncoast and its feeder schools, spending more money on Suncoast to bring it up to standard, and eliminating over population of other high schools.72 Though there was substantial variety between the

71 Fawn Germer, “Segregated School Proposal Decried,” The Miami Herald, October 16, 1987, 1A.

72 Angie Francalancia, “Board Listening for Right Recipe on Suncoast,” The Palm Beach Post, November 9, 1987, 1-A and 6-A.

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different options, one thing was clear—the school board was not ready to force white parents to bus their students into Suncoast, even though they had bussed black students from Riviera Beach for two decades.

Ultimately, after weeks of debate and conversation from the community, the school board decided to convert Suncoast into a magnet school. The decision was made deep in the night, just after one in the morning on November 17, 1987.73

Overnight, the school board had pulled any sense of authority away from angry parents who felt their community had been betrayed. One parent stated: “We were promised that Suncoast would be the first priority this year, and they did nothing.”74 An editorial in the Sun Sentinel indicated that the school board lacked the courage to make “tough decisions” that addressed Suncoast’s major problems. Instead, the editorial called the decision to leave the school essentially as it was for the time being and to eventually make it into a magnet school “something of a sop.”75 The editorial further castigated the school board, citing that although it would not bus white students from Jupiter to

Suncoast despite overcrowded conditions, it would bus 300 black students from majority black schools to provide racial balance there.76 Regardless of these complaints, the all- powerful school board in Palm Beach County demonstrated its will against the community. School board chairman Arthur Anderson, the only black member said that the decision was a “copout” because the board would not risk facing the backlash of

73 School Board Meeting Minutes of the Palm Beach County School Board, Book 87, November 17, 1987.

74 Crouch,“Boundary Decisions Anger Parents,” 1B . 75 “Board Must Find Courage to Make Tough Decisions Needed at Suncoast, Sun Sentinel, November 22, 1987, 4D.

76 Ibid.

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white parents by sending their students into predominantly black schools and neighborhoods.77 Dr. Joseph Orr, area Superintendent of Schools, crystallized the meeting: “The racism was there in the discussions [about busing]. The issue has very seldom been the length of the bus ride. It is what is at the end of the bus ride.”78 The result of the meeting was clear. The board would not send white students to Suncoast by force; it would instead attempt to tempt them with accelerated curriculum. These decisions drew negative reactions from essentially all of the groups affected, and people from Riviera Beach as well as white communities vowed retaliation through the ballot box.79 Dissent over the decision to make Suncoast a magnet school came from the belief that the move would not actually alter the racial composition at the school.

Essentially, no one believed that white suburban parents would send their kids to

Suncoast, no matter what kind of special programs existed there.

In 1988, parents revved up the discussion over boundaries again, insisting that if more students had to attend Suncoast the school would naturally improve. Parents believed that their school needed boundary changes and feared the loss of the school as a community commodity because of the belief that their students would not fit the profile for the highly academic programs that would be offered if the school became a magnet. Riviera City Council members and residents asked that students who lived within the boundaries without a ‘C’ grade point average to be allowed to continue to attend their school. About half of the students currently at Suncoast had less than a ‘C’

77 Fawn Germer, “Suncoast Racial Imbalance Remains School Board Closes North Shore High But Stalls on Busing Plan,” The Miami Herald, November 19, 1987, 1PB.

78 Ibid.

79 Fawn Germer, “Voter Threats Don’t Fret Board Members,” The Miami Herald, November 22, 1987, 1PB. 139

average and about 75 percent of the students came from low-income homes. Parents asked the school board to guarantee to upgrade Suncoast whether or not the school became a magnet. Although the board promised that it would do everything they could to maintain the community aspect of the school, it did not provide specific information as to how this would happen. There was an apparent fear from residents that the school being proposed for Suncoast was not built with their students in mind.80

The major concern for the school board appeared to be convincing populations who had shunned Suncoast since it became desegregated in 1971 to embrace the school. Without some form of busing, there would be no way to increase the population size of Suncoast which was needed to make improvements to the school and also to meet the district’s racial composition standards. Newspaper accounts of prejudices surrounding the school explained that white parents’ beliefs about Suncoast were unfounded. Among the rumors that spread about Suncoast were accounts that the school was dirty, unsafe, and that the security measures in the school made students feel like they were in prison.81 In an editorial, writer Don Horine addressed these rumors as “misconceptions,” drawn by people who had never been to the school to make judgments of their own. He said that the issues at Suncoast were no different than at any other school and that “the days when students could wander the hallways at will and leave campus at lunch are over almost everywhere.”82 A white parent, and president of the Suncoast Parents’ Advisory Board, supported the school by pointing out

80 Lori Crouch, “Suncoast Boundary Debated, “Sun Sentinel, April 17, 1988, 3B.

81 Don Horine, “Misconceptions Cloud Suncoast Issue,” The Palm Beach Post, November 16, 1987, 1F.

82 Ibid., 1F.

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that Suncoast was no different than any other school filled with teenagers: “Two boys getting into a fistfight is not campus violence. It’s a fact of life; boys get into fights and, these days, girls do too.”83 The fights that occurred at Suncoast were exaggerated in the media. A Suncoast junior, Kallem Lee reported that he was afraid to attend to

Suncoast before he went there because of all that he had heard about it, but that his fears were unfounded. “I want to know why they make such a big deal about us,” he said, “It’s always Suncoast, like we’re a ghetto. It’s just a school.”84 The public image of

Suncoast made parents and administrators self-conscious about their school, and students feel marginalized. But, most importantly to the district, it made the school unmarketable to wealthy residents.

In reality, Suncoast was no more violent than any other school in the district. In fact, a report conducted by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement of crimes on high school campuses in 1987 indicated that between 1984-1987, Suncoast had substantially less crime reported on campus than many other schools in the district. This included Palm Beach Gardens High School, where many parents sent their children instead of Suncoast. (Table 4-1) Despite this fact—that Suncoast was truly no more dangerous, and potentially less dangerous than many other schools in the district—it topped the list of requests for transfers. Whereas Palm Beach Gardens High School

83 Lynda R. Page, “Suncoast ‘Just a School Like Anyplace Else’—Insiders Say Reputation Undeserved, Others Insist Violence is Rampant,” The Palm Beach Post, January 26, 1987, 1A.

84Ibid.

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received 18 requests for transfer, Suncoast received 130.85 But these efforts did little to convince white parents that they should send their children to Suncoast.

Planning for Change: Making Suncoast a Magnet School of Distinction

In the 1989-1990 school year, Palm Beach County schools would begin to take part in the national trend toward the “big business” of college preparatory curriculum.

One newspaper article cited that the IB program was gaining popularity across the state of Florida. Indeed, Suncoast would become the 8th school in the state to use the curriculum as part of their magnet school strategy and the 161st in the nation.

But questions lingered as to whether or not the draw of the curriculum would be enough to overcome Suncoast’s extremely negative reputation. Cathy Harvey was skeptical:

“What can they offer? It might have worked six years ago. Maybe it would have worked then. You talk to anybody in the count about Suncoast and they say ‘No, not my kid.”86

Nationwide, debates from magnet school experts ranged from positive to detrimental. Christine Rossell, a lead advocate for magnet schools at Boston University believed that the plans worked well because they utilized voluntary desegregation rather than forced desegregation. Another group, the Chicago-based “Designs for Change” believed that although magnet schools could bring white students in to previously black schools, they ultimately harmed “at-risk” students because they pulled resources away from all other schools and drew the best students to one school. Magnet schools had

85 Florida Department of Law Enforcement, “Crimes Reported on High School Campuses,” The Palm Beach Post, January 26, A-4. Transfer requests since September of 1987 to January 1987 were: Jupiter High School: 21 North Shore: 65 Palm Beach Gardens: 18 J.I. Leonard: 41 Lake Worth: 34 Suncoast: 130.

86 Lori Crouch, “Pre-College Curriculum Gains County Approval to Join Nationwide Trend by Adding Preparatory Magnet Programs, “Sun Sentinel, June 27, 1988, 1B.

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been part of larger urban school systems but had clearly had mixed results. Suncoast based its recruitment strategy on exclusiveness—a highly academic curriculum to draw the top students.87

The developers of Suncoast described the ways that the magnet school would become a school of distinction: by attracting new students and increasing funding. First, the school’s bad reputation was considered an almost insurmountable obstacle, so the school board had to do promote the revised Suncoast in order to appeal to a certain group of students and parents. Public schools, traditionally, do not require advertisement because students are assigned to them, but a magnet school in a black neighborhood certainly did. The district made Barbara McQuinn and David Samore charge of converting Suncoast into a magnet school. McQuinn had previously worked as a district curriculum specialist and Samore was an award winning teacher and graduate of an IB program in Iowa.88 An article in the Sun Sentinel described the search in this way: “Suncoast High School Officials are searching for a few Einsteins, computer wizards, and a lot of motivated students.”89 To do so, McQuinn went to private schools, public schools, and community meeting halls to find students willing to enroll in one of the magnet programs.

McQuinn and Samore were tasked to “locate and recruit nearly 1,000 super- talented, super-motivated, super-smart students” to fill the Riviera Beach magnet

87 Ibid.

88 Arden Moore, “Educators Seek 1,000 Super Kids: Recruiters Say Magnet Programs will be Demanding, Fulfilling,” The Sun Sentinel, February 5, 1989, 3B.

89 Ibid.

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school.90 Although there were four tracks, the sales pitch really only focused on the

International Baccalaureate. Samore was an IB alumnus and a self described

“thoroughly untalented, hard-working physicist,” who understood “what it is to fail something.” McQuinn described her childhood as abusive and that she spent much of her time in institutions so education simply was not a priority for her until teachers intervened: “Some teachers saw something in me and didn’t let me give up.” McQuinn, a former curriculum specialist for the district was in charge of the conversion of

Suncoast from a community school to a “school of choice,” and both she and Samore used their backgrounds to recruit students by explaining that if they could do it, the students could do it as well. Yet, the district directed this sales pitch for the highly valued IB program to a particular demographic. Samore and McQuinn focused on finding the top students in the county. This sales pitch did not go to those in the neighborhood. The black students from Riviera Beach were considered for the lower tracks, but not IB.

The school district also boasted remodeling and restructuring of the school which would come at the hefty price tag of $5.5 million to upgrade facilities, including an expansion of the media center, a foreign language lab, a new science wing, two additional computer rooms, and “other state of the art capital improvements.”91 To do so, the school district needed funding, including substantial outside help. So the district hired Mary Helen Arbogast as a consultant for $20,000 to write a grant proposal for the

Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MASP), a grant program that would provide the

90 Ibid.

91 School Board of Palm Beach County Presents Program Integration at Suncoast High School, 1989.

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bulk of the money necessary to convert the school.92 The timing was right for Palm

Beach County’s entrance into the world of magnet schools because the MSAP grant, which had lost funding temporarily, was reauthorized in 1984 and between 1985 and

1991, more than $739 million was invested in magnet schools used for the purpose of desegregation.93 The grant could be used for many things including planning and promoting the schools, books and other materials, and compensation for teachers. One of the conditions required for receiving the grant was that the Office of Civil Rights had to approve a countywide desegregation plan or else the application could not be considered for funding.94 This was almost the case for Suncoast high school, because the representative for the OCR who oversaw the investigation of the Palm Beach

County School district did not believe that the district had provided adequate proof that they were committed to desegregation. But because of a rule that said that if the OCR did not complete their review before the field reviewers selected awardees, Palm Beach

County received $3.4 million for the 1989-1991 school years, and Suncoast could come into fruition.95 With the funding in place, the school board began the process of converting Suncoast Community High School into what would become a nationally renowned magnet school.

92 Viola Geinger, “School District to Get $3.4 Million for Magnet Program,” The Palm Beach Post, July 20, 1989, 3B.

93 Steel and Levine, Educational Innovation in Multiracial Contexts, 45..

94 United States General Accounting Office, Briefing Report to the Chairman, Committee on Labor and Human Resources, U.S. Senate, “Magnet Schools: Information on the Grant Award Process,” Washington, D.C., 1988, 11.

95 Ibid.11. 145

Students, parents, teachers, and principals in Riviera Beach were not strangers to hardship and hypocrisy. 1980s. Between 1973 and 1989, the black community of

Riviera Beach suffered through the loss of their beloved high school not once, but twice, to desegregation: first through the physical closure of John F. Kennedy High School, and then again through the conversion of Suncoast to a magnet school. In both instances, a powerful school board determined the fate of an entire county and its priorities demonstrated where its values lay: funding and academic prowess. After many years of struggle, the school board effectively took the fate of Suncoast out of the hands of its community and turned it over to a compromising idea.

Considering Florida’s so-called moderate history of race relations, Suncoast’s transformation from a community school that served a black minority population into a highly respected magnet school that primarily served wealthy, white students is hardly surprising. Far from innovative, Palm Beach County’s decision to transition its minority schools into schools of choice reflects its “Down South” heritage in a state that hosts the

“ghost of Jim Crow” in its educational decision-making. In this instance, the school board presented Suncoast’s conversion as a compromise between two extreme positions—both black and white. But the school board’s regard for Suncoast as a community school demonstrated that the white majority leadership did not value its place in the neighborhood. Instead, its actions throughout the 1970s and 1980s contributed to its physical and educational decline but placed the blame for these results squarely on Riviera Beach’s disenfranchised population. Throughout its troubled history, and regardless of hardships, the students and parents who continued to attend

Suncoast consistently asked for the same thing: a good community school.

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Table 4-1. Crimes Reported on High School Campuses, 1984-1986 High School Names 1984 1985 1986 Atlantic 39 91 46 Boca Raton 23 28 30 Forest Hill 31 23 17 Glades Central 26 18 21 J.I. Leonard 85 56 24 Jupiter 21 16 21 Lake Worth 59 75 42 North Shore 64 103 42 Pahokee Jr./Sr. 12 14 20 Palm Beach Gardens 71 71 32 Santaluces 41 45 22 Spanish River 84 60 43 Suncoast 23 27 26 Twin Lakes 117 95 117 Florida Department of Law Enforcement, “Crimes Reported on High School Campuses,” The Palm Beach Post, January 26, 1987, A-F.

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CHAPTER 5 THE MAGNET SCHOOL THAT “WORKED”: THE DOUBLE EDGE OF SUNCOAST’S SUCCESS, 1989-2000

The room is hushed as a hand reaches into a barrel and selects the first lottery winner. Squeals of delight greet the announcement. The lucky couple’s prize isn’t dollars, though. It’s their child’s new school. So goes the fantasy of Palm Beach County school officials. The success of magnet programs that begin Monday could make it come true, they say. —Jodie Mailander The Palm Beach Post1

Educational reform in late twentieth century America continued to grapple with disparities between students’ experiences in public schools. But that aspect of school life would be overshadowed by new priorities aimed at enhancing the reputation of

American education globally. The momentum of the civil rights movement that directed federal education reform toward equality of education stalled in the 1980s; by the end of the century those priorities shifted to academic excellence.2 Historians of education have addressed this national shift in education policies and have observed the increasing trend toward privatization through vouchers and charter school systems.3

1 Jodi Mailander, "Magnet School Test: Segregation or its Solution?" The Palm Beach Post, August 27, 1989, 1A.

2 Adam R. Nelson, The Elusive Ideal: Equal Educational Opportunity and the Federal Role in Boston’s Public Schools, 1950-1985 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005), 27-29.

3 For histories of change in educational policy in the late-twentieth century see: Maris A. Vinovkis, From A Nation at Risk to No Child Left Behind: National Education Goals and the Creation of Federal Education Policy (New York: Teachers College Press, 2009), 47; Michael Casserly, “Uncle Sam and the Nation’s Great City Schools: Reflections on a Rocky Relationship,” in eds. Frederick M. Hess and Andrew P. Kelly, Carrots, Sticks, and the Bully Pulpit: Lessons From a Half-Century of Federal Efforts to Improve America’s Schools, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2011), 211; Paul E. Peterson, “The New Politics of Choice” in eds. Diane Ravitch and Maris A. Vinovskis Learning From the Past: What History Teaches us about School Reform, (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 15.

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These accounts give little weight to the gravity of magnet schools as a link between desegregation policies and school choice.

Magnet schools—public schools with specialized curricula—became a popular way to encourage “voluntary desegregation” starting in the 1980s.4 Magnet schools tend to be located in high poverty and minority neighborhoods and aim to attract white students to those areas. Erica Frankenberg and Genevieve Sigel-Hawley describe magnet schools as the “forgotten choice” in today’s landscape of school choice. They argue that although magnet schools originally intended to decrease racial isolation in urban public schools, their goals now align with academic achievement. Between 1981 and 2007, the number of magnet schools across the United States rose from 1,019 to

2,400, enrolling 1.2 million students per year. In addition, 3,300 public schools with magnet programs enrolled approximately 3.1 million students in 2007.5 Magnet schools are the largest set of choice based schools in the nation; they enroll twice as many students as the rapidly growing charter school sector.6

While lauded for their ability to produce schools of academic excellence and to create schools with balanced racial compositions, magnet schools have also faced

4 Diane Ravitch, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education. (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2010), 116; Lauri Steel and Roger Levine, Educational Innovation in Multiracial Contexts: The Growth of Magnet Schools in American Education, (Palo Alto, CA: American Institute for Research, 1994), 6-7.

5 Christine H. Rossell “Magnet Schools: No Longer Famous, but still Intact,” Educationnext 5, no. 2 (2005), 13; Sarah Grady, Stacey Bielick, and Susan Aud, “Trends in the Use of School Choice: 1993 to 2007: Statistical Analysis Report,” National Center for Education Statistics Institute of Education Science, (April 2010), 25.:

6 Erika Frankenberg and Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, The Forgotten Choice? Rethinking Magnet Schools in a Changing Landscape: A Report to Magnet Schools of America (The Civil Rights Project, 2005), 15- 16..

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criticism. Christine H. Rossell’s educational policy research suggested that the “carrot and stick” approach to desegregation often produced mixed results. Indeed, they could facilitate desegregation campus-wide but that within classrooms students of color often felt racially isolated. In addition, magnet schools can produce conditions within schools that stratify students both racially and socioeconomically. Further, schools that promised

“voluntary busing” could equate to “forced busing.”7 Because of their quantifiable successes, however, magnet schools are still viewed as a sound way to produce desegregation and produce academic excellence. In fact, in the last decade renowned desegregation scholar Gary Orfield endorsed magnet schools as a sound way to combat re-segregation in schools.8

The state of Florida is provides an excellent backdrop from which to view the introduction of magnet schools as a desegregation tool. Magnet schools in Florida first showed up in Dade County, the largest and most urban county in the state, and gradually became a mainstay of the state’s education systems. In 1983, three high schools in Florida used magnet programs to desegregate cities where the white population refused to integrate. These three high schools introduced the International

Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Program (DP) to encourage white parents to voluntarily send their children to schools in high minority neighborhoods. IB had developed in 1963 by a team of educators at the International Schools of Geneva who aimed to create an

7 Rossell, The Carrot or the Stick, 45-47; Rossell “Magnet Schools: No Longer Famous, but still Intact,” 25.

8 Orfield wrote the forward for the report that advocates the use of magnet schools for desegregation purposes. Drawing on his own children’s experiences and the racial balance of magnet schools, Orfield believes that the U.S. school system should redouble their efforts to foster magnet schools: Frankenberg and Siegel-Hawley, The Forgotten Choice?, xi.

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internationally transferrable high school diploma for sons and daughters of diplomats.9

IB subsequently became a salient part of the American educational experience and has seen a dramatic rise in popularity. From 1999 to 2009, the number of schools in the

U.S. with IB programs skyrocketed from 268 to 1,090.10 From 2013 to 2015, Florida has gone from 130 IB schools to 184 statewide, and consistently awards more IB diplomas than any other state in the nation.11

Regan Garner’s study of Eastside High School in Gainesville, Florida, revealed the tensions that came about as a result of the decision to implement IB. There, the IB program was a “program within a school” (PWS) rather than a “dedicated magnet.”12

This meant that some students attended the school for the IB program while the rest of the student population was assigned to the school. The students who attended the IB program at Eastside felt socially and academically separated from those who did not participate in that curriculum. PWS magnets are more popular than dedicated magnets because they are easier to implement, but critics find that interaction between the resident students and the magnet students create the dynamic of a “school within a school.” The same literature insinuates that “dedicated magnet” schools somehow

9 A.D.C. Peterson, The International Baccalaureate: An Experiment in International Education, (1972).

10 Tristan Bunnell, “The International Baccalaureate in the United States: From Relative Inactivity to Imbalance,” The Educational Forum 75, no.1 (2011): 66-79.

11 “The Florida League of International Baccalaureate Schools Fosters Excellence in International Education,” Florida International Baccalaureate Schools, last updated April 29, 2015, URL: http://www.flibs.org/

12 Regan Garner, “A School Without a Name: Desegregation of Eastside High school, 1970-1987,” University of Florida Journal of Law and Public Policy,16 (2005), 233.

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combat this outcome because all students participate in the magnet part of the school.13

In this chapter, I examine Suncoast High School as a “dedicated magnet” school—one that relieved the school from district boundaries so that all students may apply to participate in one of the magnet programs.

School officials in Palm Beach County implemented four diverse curricula at

Suncoast, and all students participated in the magnet program. This distinction supposedly set Suncoast apart from PWS magnet schools that created divisions between students. This chapter chronicles its first decade as a magnet school and reveals the double-edge of Suncoast’s transformation and perception as a magnet school that worked. Using oral histories of former students and newspaper reports of the school, this chapter questions the means by which Suncoast became one of the best schools in the nation. It demonstrates that the students who attended Suncoast and participated in the IB program felt an enormous amount of pride, admiration, and dedication to their alma mater. Yet beyond the many successes and accolades,

Suncoast students’ social and academic interactions were severely limited because of their curricular categorization. It also demonstrates that resources for the magnet programs varied vastly and that the operation of a school without boundaries allowed wealthy and mostly white students to be bused voluntarily but perpetuated enforced busing patterns that had existed since the 1970s for the black residents of Riviera

Beach. For the residents of Riviera Beach, the changes at Suncoast only signified more of the same sad history wherein their desires for quality education close to home were categorically denied. The “dedicated magnet” program, then, must be questioned as a

13 Rossell, The Carrot or the Stick, 45-47; Garner, “School without a Name,” 241.

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preferred practice for desegregation because it not only may produce a “school within a school,” but may serve as a stark reminder of the disparities between students.

Creating the New Suncoast—A School of Excellence

In the 1988-1989 school year, Suncoast’s last year as a standard community high school, Principal Terry Andrews used discipline and streamlined education to improve the school’s abysmal reputation. After just two years, Suncoast’s test scores rose from last in the county to first.14 Despite some gains, the district’s leaders decided to utilize magnet programs at Suncoast. Andrews then resigned. He was in the business of turning failing schools around through regulation and single-mindedness on improving test scores but did not consider himself a principal for a highly academic magnet school.

In order to accomplish this transition, Suncoast would undergo a complete overhaul.

These changes related to staff and administration, curriculum, and facility upgrades and purported to make it a leader in school excellence for all of Palm Beach County.

Because Andrews would not continue as principal, the school board needed to hire someone new. Significantly, this task focused more on appealing to white parents outside of its home city than retaining residents. The district hoped that the new

Suncoast would pull students from predominantly white suburbs and even out of private schools. To do this required that the traditionally shunned school become irresistible to parents who viewed Suncoast as unsafe. The district held a nationwide hiring search to find a principal who could handle the dual tasks of operating a highly academic magnet school and also change Suncoast’s abysmal image. Ironically, the woman who could

14 Belinda Brockman, “Suncoast Outshines Other County Schools on Skills Test,” The Palm Beach Post, May 13, 1989, 1A.

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become the new principal of Suncoast was local. Kay Carnes was a native Floridian who had worked in neighboring Dillard High School, a performing arts magnet school in

Dade County, as assistant principal.15 Carnes and her husband moved into Wellington, one of the suburban communities that had fought to keep students from Riviera Beach out of its own schools. Carnes was a slight, blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman who could easily pass as a suburban housewife. Because she looked like many of the parents to whom the board sought to appeal, she represented a picture-perfect symbol of the changes that would take place at Suncoast. If a white Wellington woman could manage running Suncoast, then surely it would be safe for white students. Before she took the job, Carnes recalled meeting with Superintendent Tom Mills to ensure that she was

“tough enough” for the job.16 Carnes served as a visual representation that combated the image that Suncoast was an unsafe school for white students.

The summer prior to re-opening Suncoast underwent drastic physical modifications. When Carnes arrived on campus she described its condition as

“deplorable.” In particular, the boys’ locker room was in a state of disrepair. The doors of bathrooms stalls were removed so students had no privacy, and the water fountain did not function. When Carnes brought administrators from the district to tour the facilities they were shocked by what they saw—a physical emblem of the neglect Suncoast had endured since the mid-1970s. Carnes brought the Assistant Superintendent of

15 There are no records of this hiring process. Almost all records relating to Suncoast have reportedly been lost. This information comes from an interview that I conducted with Cay Karnes and is from her memory only.

16 Kay Carnes, interview with Amy Martinelli, September 10, 2013, SHP, Samuel Proctor Oral History Project, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 10. .

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Instruction Dr. Joe Orr to see it, and he too was stunned. Orr had never been to any areas of the school besides the offices, and when he saw the facilities he “turned white.”17 Orr was African American. That tour prompted the district to send crews out to do renovations that should have been addressed a decade prior but that were required to deliver on the promise that Suncoast could attract white parents. The district also began major renovations to the facilities that included an updated and expanded library, state-of-the art laboratories equipped with extravagant research equipment, and a brand new computer lab.18 Changes that residents of Riviera Beach had requested for decades would finally be addressed because of the need to entice students from outside the community.

The principal modification that took place at Suncoast, however, had little to do with the facilities. An enhanced academic curriculum would elevate the status of the beleaguered institution. As a “dedicated magnet,” all students would be required to enroll in one of the four tracks. The approach that Suncoast took in this undertaking was to provide curricula that would appeal to and accommodate a wide range of student abilities. To do this, Suncoast offered four curricular tracks to students with varying admissions requirements and curricular offerings: International Baccalaureate (IB),

Math, Science, Engineering (MSE), High Technology (HT), and Traditional Academic

Program (TAP). (Table 5-1). The curricula varied in rigor but intended to create a campus-wide culture that prioritized academic excellence above all else.

17 Ibid.

18 Viola Gienger, "Suncoast Renovations Get Started," The Palm Beach Post, June 26, 1989, 2B.

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The school board released an informational packet that described the “Unique

Characteristics” of the four tracks, which ranged from highly academic to highly discipline based. The major draw for the new school, without any doubt, was the highly touted IB program.19 Ernest Brown, the current band instructor who began working at

Suncoast in 1988, recalled that IB was the “calling card” of the school: “there’s IB and then there’s everybody else.”20 The curriculum placed students in specialized classes together for the entirety of high school with little interaction with other students. Table 5-

2 shows the curricular expectations of each program and highlights that students would primarily attend courses with other students in their track. During the first two years, pre-

IB students would take almost all of their academic coursework with other students destined for IB status. Once they made it to the IB status in their junior year, these students would only take classes together. Thus the only time that those students would interact with the students from other programs would be during their elective courses in music, performing arts, etc. According to the school board’s description: “Students earning the IB Diploma are awarded advanced standing at prestigious universities around the world and automatic admission to any university in the Florida State

University System.”21 For IB, the county hoped to attract a particular type of student that would succeed in what it considered a curriculum that afforded its recipients with

19 Peterson, The International Baccalaureate, 1-11.

20 Ernest Brown, interview with Amy Martinelli, September 6, 2013 SHP-005, Samuel Proctor Oral History Project, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 6..

21 The School Board of Palm Beach County In Its Continuing Efforts to Reach for Excellence Presents the International Baccalaureate Program at Suncoast Community High School, (West Palm Beach, FL: School District of Palm Beach County, 1989).

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prestige.22 Of all the programs that the school brought to the county, IB was the crown jewel, and only the finest students would be able to complete the rigorous program.

The Mathematics, Science, Engineering Program (MSE), drew inspiration from the Bronx High School of Science in New York, a school that has invoked faith in a system of choice.23 This school utilized a four-year pre-university program designed to meet the needs of highly talented students. The program boasted “college-level courses not offered elsewhere in district schools,” research experiences, summer camp opportunities in oceanography and space engineering and the opportunity to earn college credit. Both the IB and MSE programs required strict admissions guidelines.

Students who wished to participate in this program needed high grade point averages, high performance on the SAT, teacher recommendations, and writing samples. MSE students’ curricular choices also limited in-class interactions because their coursework placed them in classes together and occasionally with IB students. Both IB students and

MSE students’ school schedules were pre-destined, and MSE students had little room for anything other than their prescribed curriculum. The organization of the school created an environment of institutionalized separation.

High Technology (HT) students took advanced computer programming courses in addition to other non-technical courses required for graduation. Some of the computer courses were available to all Suncoast students, but to be part of the advanced courses

22 Ibid.

23 In his recommendation of choice in American schools James L. Coleman compared the top performing students in suburban high schools like New Trier in Chicago to those at Bronx High School where students competed for a spot. He demonstrated that their top performers were more diverse than those suburban schools and used this example as a reference to advocate for school choice as a conduit to provide more equal educational opportunities to more minority students. James S. Coleman, “Some Points on Choice in Education,” Sociology of Education,” 65 no. 4, 1992, 260. 157

a student had to qualify for the magnet program. The admissions requirement was lower than IB and MSE but still required teacher recommendations and participation in summer enrichment programs. The Traditional Academic Program (TAP) essentially consisted of the standard coursework for students in any high school across the district.

But where TAP did not emphasize highly academic coursework, it did boast another goal: behavior and citizenship. The TAP program stressed “personal responsibility, citizenship, and leadership. Reading, writing, speaking, listening, problem solving, study skills, and creating thinking skills.”24 TAP required a strict dress code, a code of student conduct, and an expectation of high academic commitment. All students accepted into

Suncoast would technically be part of the TAP program, but those who were not accepted into one of the other specialized curricula would essentially receive an education akin to any other high school. The difference between students at Suncoast in the TAP program and any other student in the district was the set of standards that required a high GPA and impeccable discipline in order to remain in the school. Barbara

McQuinn, the magnet specialist hired by the county to promote Suncoast, described the student who would be in the TAP program as serious about education. “A student can have a C average but still be serious about learning,” she explained.25 Because

Suncoast had not provided advanced courses, TAP ensured current students a place within a highly academic environment.

24 The School Board of Palm Beach County in its Continuing Efforts to Reach for Excellence Presents the International Baccalaureate Program..

25 Arden Moore, “Sales Pitch Seeks Students for Suncoast, “The Sun Sentinel, March 1, 1989, 3B.

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These curricular tracks set Suncoast apart from many other magnet schools that implemented one special program into an otherwise regular school. County officials went to great lengths to present the new Suncoast as unified through the TAP program; all of the students at Suncoast would be held to the same standards in the all- encompassing program.26 The school district was quick to point out that students who were not enrolled in any of the academic programs could take courses in any of the other programs in an effort to reduce racial isolation. The explanation of “Program

Integration at Suncoast Community High School,” defined how this cross-over could work. A student in TAP, for example, who had “exceptionally strong mathematics skills,” could qualify to enroll in courses in the MSE program. A student with “outstanding

English skills” could potentially qualify to enroll in IB courses.”27 Through program integration, the county presented its plan to avoid isolation on its magnet campus.

The TAP program intended to bind Suncoast students through elements of the school experience that took place outside of the classroom content. All students were required to adhere to a strict dress code, a code of student conduct, and high academic standards with the intention of producing a distinctive culture in the school. The district justified the strict dress code as a way to encourage a “business-like atmosphere.” It claimed this importance on vague claims of research that correlated “a distinct

26 The School Board of Palm Beach County in its Continuing Efforts to Reach for Excellence presents the Traditional Academic Program (TAP) at Suncoast Community High School, (West Palm Beach, FL: The School Board of Palm Beach County,1989).

27 Program Integration at Suncoast Community High School, (West Palm Beach, FL: The School Board of Palm Beach County, 1989).

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relationship between a students’ attire and their classroom behavior.”28 On its face, the restrictions on attire and behavior seemed like a detail—just one way to unite the student body. However, their implementation proved paramount to a students’ success and a crucial element that divided Suncoast with the rest of the county’s public schools.29 Students who did not adhere to the dress code by teachers or administrators faced severe punishments. If a student missed class time because of these referrals, he or she would receive an unexcused absence. Students who violated the conduct code,

“exhibited consistent misbehavior or lack of attendance,” or most importantly, sold drugs on campus, would be subject to “swift and appropriate disciplinary action.”30 Students who did not uphold the rigorous standards of the TAP program would not be welcome at

Suncoast.

These tenets of student conduct, dress code, and academic requirements contributed to fears that the magnet school would not serve its home population well. In fact, these facets reportedly “scared off” about 150 of Suncoast’s former students, all of whom would be sent away to overcrowded high schools.31 The 350 students who did stay in the first year were allowed in without having to adhere to the strict admissions policy, but only had one year to prove that they could live up to the high standards of the new magnet school or else they too would not be allowed at Suncoast. Because

28 Dress Code: Suncoast Community High School TAP Magnet Program, School, (West Palm Beach, FL: The School Board of Palm Beach County,1989).

29 Ibid.

30 Conduct Code: Suncoast Community High School TAP Magnet Program, (West Palm Beach, FL: The School Board of Palm Beach County, 1989).

31 Mailander, “Magnet School Test: Segregation or its Solution?”, 1A.

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Suncoast’s magnet school required all students to apply for admission and sign a contract that held them responsible for their academic and behavioral performance, all students were subject to transfer. Essentially, this meant that those students who did not live up to the new norms would be disciplined, possibly face expulsion, or be transferred to his or her school board assigned school. All schools in the county would have to face disciplinary problems but the new organization of Suncoast as a magnet school meant that the administration could transfer its problem students to other schools.32 Furthermore, because school personnel had sole discretion over student discipline, students were subject to their approval or disapproval.

Finally, teachers would also participate in a form of TAP designed to make the teachers the best in the county: the Teachers as Advisors Program. Teachers would serve as TAP advisors to a group of students who were randomly assigned but in the same grade level. The teacher would advise the same student throughout his or her four years in high school, and there would be time built in for advisors to connect with parents. Teachers as advisors addressed academic, personal and career/college issues with students. Like the students who lived in Riviera Beach, teachers also had to apply to retain their jobs. The application process was informal; the teachers who were already there were asked to submit a letter stating their intention to stay at the school.

Some of the teachers chose to leave because they did not believe that the magnet program would work or they wanted to work in a different type of environment. But to

Kay Carnes, the issue of teacher selection was of utmost importance because the

32 The School Board of Palm Beach County In Its Continuing Efforts to Reach for Excellence Presents the International Baccalaureate Program at Suncoast Community High School.

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expectations for the teachers would be as high as they were for the students. “If you read between the lines,” she explained, “it would say this is not going to be a union shop, they’re going to be held to higher expectations.”33 Carnes retained some of the original teaching staff but boasted of the higher quality teachers who she was able to hire as well. In its first year, Suncoast acquired teachers who shed their high-powered careers in medicine and law to teach the promising young high school students.34

The transformation of the administration, faculty, curriculum, and facilities all aimed to convince white parents to send their children to a school that so many had shunned. The district’s leaders hoped that the dramatic alterations to Suncoast would be enough to entice white parents to send their children to the uncharted territory of

Riviera Beach. Success in this endeavor was not guaranteed. The editor of the Palm

Beach Post agreed that the promise of enhanced curriculum for the top students and

“the chance to begin college as a sophomore” could induce students to attend schools outside of their neighborhoods. He questioned, however, whether it would be “enough to draw white students to Riviera Beach’s Suncoast High School, which is overwhelmingly black?” 35 As the summer ended and a new school year began, this question weighed heavy on the minds of Palm Beach County school officials who had promised to devote significant funding to bring the magnet programs to the county.

33 Carnes, interview, 23.

34 Lori Crouch and Arden Moore, "County Education Goes International--Many Programs Acquaint Youngsters with Foreign Languages, Art, Cultures," The Sun Sentinel, December 31, 1989, 11.

35 Don Horine, "Suncoast's Magnet Looking Attractive," The Palm Beach Post, May 1, 1989, 1F.

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While county administrators focused on attracting new students to Suncoast, the residents of Riviera Beach faced a different set of concerns. Parents of black students feared that placing magnet programs like Suncoast in their neighborhoods would displace those students who did want to be part of the specialized school. Further, the students at Suncoast who were accustomed to a small school that held a mere 666 students would be forced to adjust to overcrowded schools with over 2,000 students.

Monty Greene, president of the parent advisory council at Suncoast felt the reorganization of the school “demoralized” the black students in Riviera Beach because they felt they might no longer belong in their school. In addition, parents feared that their neighborhood schools would be overrun by the area’s best students in light of strict admissions policies. Riviera Beach parents and students alike feared that the new

Suncoast was created with them in mind. At Suncoast, all students needed to maintain a C average in their classes. This organization was something that national magnet school experts warned would produce elitism that could create “islands of white students” in predominantly black neighborhoods. Meanwhile, black students from

Riviera would be sent to regular schools miles away from home. Going into its first year, it was clear that the county administration and the residents of Riviera Beach viewed the new Suncoast from drastically different perspectives.36 When the school opened in the fall of 1989, all eyes were on Suncoast, and its failure or success was the school board’s utmost priority.

36 Mailander, “Magnet School Test: Segregation or its Solution?” 1A.

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1989-1993: Suncoast’s New Class of Student

From the outside, Suncoast’s administration did everything in its power to ensure the public that the district’s choice to create a magnet school would work. After a summer of fast-paced changes of facilities, staff, and training, the real test of the magnet school experiment began when Suncoast opened its doors to new students.

Would Suncoast’s new organization succeed in bringing an entirely new set of students to its classrooms? From the standpoint of the school board, the experiment seemed to be working. Although in its first year Suncoast’s enrollment remained predominantly black, the new students who did come there began to spin a new story about their new school. Stories of parents like Phyllis Stein, a white parent who had moved her family out of Riviera Beach to avoid sending her children to Suncoast before it became a magnet school and who claimed she “never, ever imagined [her] daughter going there,” raved about the new curricula. Stein’s younger son also hoped to go to Suncoast but worried that there might be a waiting list or even a lottery for him to get in by the time he was in high school.37

It was true that the school was succeeding in bringing new students to Riviera

Beach. In fact, by 1990, the school’s racial composition of 90 percent black reduced to

62 percent.38 It was clear that white—and largely wealthy—parents were interested in sending their students there. In the first year Suncoast drew 12 percent of its students

37 Viola Gienger, "Magnet Programs, New Spirit Revitalize Shunned Suncoast," The Palm Beach Post, February 11, 1990, 1B.

38 Viola Gienger, "NAACP Fears New Form of Segregation," The Palm Beach Post, October 12, 1990, 1B.

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from private schools.39 Demand to get into Suncoast rose substantially after only one year; more than 900 students applied for 402 ninth grade positions in the fall of 1990.40

Stories like the Stein’s, and the dramatic increase of white faces at Suncoast, confirmed that the school could convince white parents to overcome their reservations about a school set in a largely black neighborhood. In this section, I draw mostly from oral histories of the first class of new Suncoast students to better understand how students experienced the magnet program. These first students, who Principal Carnes called

“pioneers,” were integral in shaping its new academic culture, and their varying viewpoints reveal the complexity of Suncoast’s so-called success.

The major question on the public’s mind was whether Suncoast’s new programs would be enough to draw students from across the district. And if so, what kind of student would it attract? Adam Friedlander was a Jewish, white student who chose to come to Suncoast from Palm Beach Gardens. He described the process of deciding to go as dramatic. He said that “for weeks” his parents and his friends’ parents would meet together in their homes to determine whether or not they would take a chance on the new school despite its undesirable location. After tense weeks of deliberation,

Friedlander and his friends “made a pact” to go to the new school together as an “all or nothing decision.”41 For his parents, the decision came from a perspective that balanced the promise of the IB program with the “fear of being bused into, not just a prominently

39 Viola Gienger, "Private Students Going Public--District's Magnet Programs Bringing Dozens into School System," The Palm Beach Post, September 22, 1990, 1B.

40 Tim O'Meilia, "Magnet Programs a Big Draw--Applicants Outnumber Special School Openings," The Palm Beach Post, July 5, 1990, 1B.

41 Adam Friedlander, interview with Amy Martinelli, August 13, 2014, SHP 003, Samuel Proctor Oral History Project, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 5. 165

black school but an inner-city black school.” For Friedlander, who had spent his time in junior high school as a “nerdish” student whose “idea of a Friday or Saturday night was going downtown to a coffee shop, sitting around smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee and pretending we were beatniks,” the notion of an academically inclined high school appealed to him. Friedlander did not connect the goal of desegregation in his school experience; instead, he focused on his “genuine enthusiasm” for a new school environment specially designed with students like him in mind. Friedlander’s decision to attend Suncoast had little to do with desegregation, but a chance for a geeky teenager like him to be in an environment where he could be himself and thrive.

Friedlander decided to attend Suncoast for the IB program along with friends he had grown up with in Palm Beach Gardens. When they arrived on campus, Friedlander recalled that he had no awareness of the racial and political conflict that had brought him there. Instead, he focused on his own experience, which were exhilarating and full of excitement. He did recall, however, that classes were segregated racially, socioeconomically, and culturally. These divisions continued outside of the classroom as well, and the divisions between students were no more apparent than in the lunchroom.

Friedlander would sit in the cafeteria with the same friends he’d known since he was seven years old, and the students from Riviera Beach would do the same.42 Socially,

Friedlander described his experience at Suncoast and in his everyday life as “exactly what you would predict.” He spent his time with other white, Jewish kids from Palm

Beach Gardens, and although he did socialize outside of school with other white students from West Palm Beach and Jupiter, he did not recall spending time with

42 Ibid. 8.

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students who lived in Riviera Beach. In school he spent most of his time with white students because the IB program was mostly white. In fact, Friedlander described only one time when the school came together as an entire class for the Homecoming parade and festivities. Homecoming had played an important role for the Riviera Beach community prior to becoming a magnet school, and in the first year it actually served to bring the students together as one class. Friedlander recalled building a float to represent the freshman class and that he and his classmates “worked our butts off and that’s when we got to know each other very well.”43 The only social experiences where students interacted with people from other cultural and racial identities as one school unit occurred outside of classrooms in extracurricular activities. The greatest social cohesion came through a tradition that was completely outside of the magnet curriculum.

The local media focused on the intention of the school’s draw to bring in white students, but African American students whose parents had previously avoided the school also saw the appeal. Tai Few, an African American student from a middle class family had planned to attend a predominantly white school in West Palm Beach. But when his parents heard about the IB program’s promise to provide an accelerated curriculum, they told him “oh no, no, no, no, you are going to Suncoast.”44 Few’s family moved from West Palm Beach to Lake Park, a suburb just north of Riviera Beach to be closer to the school that their son would attend. Similarly, Riviera Beach resident, Mitch

43 Ibid. 10.

44 Tai Few, interview with Amy Martinelli, September 11, 2013, SHP 007, Samuel Proctor Oral History Project, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 17..

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Mason, who was slated to go to another school in the district, was convinced to attend

Suncoast because of the encouragement of his guidance counselor in junior high school. Prior to the school’s transformation Mason was “iffy” about going to a school he described as “rough—in a tough neighborhood—great sports, great basketball, great football, but at the same time going there was going to be pretty tough.”45 Students of color and white students alike viewed Suncoast as a great risk.

Being Black at Suncoast

The local division of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored

People (NAACP) had concerns about Suncoast’s ability to alter the problems that black students felt nationwide in regard to access to high quality education. Maurice Hall, the president of the West Palm Beach NAACP branch, worried that although Suncoast purportedly increased opportunities for all of its students, those advantages did not extend to the black neighborhood kids.46 The racial composition of the various programs at Suncoast supported that premonition. Suncoast was required to report its student demographics to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) to exhibit that desegregation happened because of the magnet school. By the end of the

1990 school year the overall racial composition changed dramatically, but in the classrooms students were still highly separated by race. Of the 31 students who took IB

World History only two were black and 50 of the 56 students in regular World History classes were black. One hundred eighteen of the students in IB Biology were white

45 Mitchell Mason, interview with Amy Martinelli, September 22, 2013, SHP 006, Samuel Proctor Oral History Project, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 10-11.

46 Gienger, "NAACP Fears New Form of Segregation," 1B.

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compared to 21 black students. In the regular Biology courses, 60 of the 64 students were black.47 This news validated parents’ and black leaders’ concerns that their students were not represented in the highly celebrated and academic programs.

For the few African American students who did participate in the IB program, the experience was like “being in two different worlds.” When the school opened in 1989, it was still a predominantly black high school. But IB students of color Tai Few and Patrice

Cover recalled that the interactions that they had on a day-to-day basis were with the small group of their peers. In the IB classrooms, students of color often felt as though they represented their race: “When you’re in a class and you’re the only, or one of few, black students in the class and the issues of race came up you would have to be the voice of the entire culture.”48 In that respect, students of color did not only bear the burden of succeeding in a challenging high school program, they had to challenge misperceptions about black people in general.

Suncoast’s students of color came from various cultural backgrounds, and those differences contributed to how they experienced Suncoast. Patrice Cover recalled that most of the black IB students identified as Caribbean descent rather than African

American. Indeed, Caribbean students viewed the experiment at Suncoast differently than those from an African American background. Caribbean students and their parents did not have the same “skepticism about whether it was the right fit for their kids.”49

47 Ibid.

48 Patrice Cover, interview with Amy Martinelli, September 9, 2013, SHP 004, Samuel Proctor Oral History Project, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 3.

49 Few interview, 5.

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Instead, Cover recalled that her parents faced similar questions as white parents about their decision to send their daughter to Suncoast: “Why would you send your daughter to that school in that neighborhood?”50 But her parents were mostly concerned about academics and therefore were “not fazed” at all by the neighborhood or the students.

Cover congregated with students who were like her: intellectually, racially, and culturally. Tai Few’s experience of Suncoast was unique from Cover’s. He felt that the

African American parents viewed the new school with suspicion and “thought that maybe it was a setup—that the black kids weren’t going to be as productive, they weren’t going to achieve on the same level, so why put their kids through that?”51 As one of the only African American students in the IB program, Few felt perpetually torn between two cultures.

In the first years, the student body was mostly comprised of students who participated in the elite IB program and the TAP program, and those students were divided along the color line. Essentially, the only distinction between TAP and other high school programs was its adherence to strict dress code and disciplinary rules. Within

Suncoast, however, the academic and social experiences of the black students in IB and TAP were completely different. Academically, the courses that TAP students took were basic compared to the pre-collegiate curriculum of IB. Few described the difference between IB and TAP as “the difference between buying a Kia versus buying a

German luxury automobile; it’s radically different.”52 But while TAP was not as

50 Cover interview, 6.

51 Few interview, 8.

52 Ibid. 7. 170

intellectually rich as IB, culturally, it provided an environment where the African

American students felt supported. Few felt that the students in the TAP program benefited from a “community ethos” produced by deep social connections between students and teachers. He recalled Biology teacher Freddie Calloway, who had “been at

Suncoast so long she had taught students who had brothers and sisters who went to

Suncoast.” 53 Because of these cultural and social connections, the students in the TAP program experienced a “built in kind of support network” that he did not encounter in his

IB classes. The TAP students’ social lives at Suncoast reflected their home lives: “They went from their black home to their black churches,” he recalled, and they “lived in

Riviera Beach or other all-black communities.”54 In the TAP program, students did not encounter diversity, but they had a supportive community ethos that drew from “black- oriented” culture. Few found that he had a lot in common with his IB counterparts, academically, but for cultural enrichment he had to go outside of the curriculum. Thus, he existed in two worlds but didn’t belong to either. The IB curriculum did not include any African American authors, for example, in its literature courses. Few’s parents supplemented his education by exposing him to African American writers and historical figures and he sought community support in the lunchroom, when students mingled freely.

In addition to the “cultural rift,” there was also “an economic rift” that was

“probably just as startling and just as real and probably more felt, or probably just as felt

53 Ibid. 6.

54 Ibid. 20.

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as the racial element.”55 The white students who attended Suncoast were not only different because of the color of their skin but because of the relatively privileged economic background of their families. Few recalled that his peers in the IB program came from wealthy suburbs and their parents were doctors and lawyers and had access to extra-curricular advantages. Many of the students who participated in IB had academic tutors and enrichment programs. They took SAT preparation courses, and these aspects of school life were foreign to him, “It’s not just access to pay, but the access to know these things existed.”56 Students like Few felt that his experience at

Suncoast had given him many opportunities and would be the first to tell you that without the school he would not have succeeded or gone to the elite northern university he attended afterward—but the experience of balancing his home life and the two school lives felt “schizophrenic.”

Although Tai Few and Patrice Cover perceived social aspects of Suncoast differently because of their backgrounds, their common racial identity made their experiences similar. For both, there was a sense that “you have to represent all of black

America because future kids trying to get into the program are depending on you doing well.”57 Cover reported that she was asked to be a student ambassador for several student organizations to “show the diversity of the school.”58 In class, both Cover and

Few recalled that they felt a “shared struggle” to represent their race or culture, and that

55 Ibid. 20.

56 Ibid. 21.

57 Ibid. 21.

58 Cover interview, 5.

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created pressure that was difficult to handle. In one particular class unique to IB, Critical

Thinking, Cover remembered that tension in regard to race came up regularly in class discussions. One conflict arose between Jewish students and black students. Jewish students in the class expressed that the black students “were making a big to do about race relations and they didn’t understand why.”59 The IB curriculum encouraged these kinds of conversations and dialogue, and while Cover saw the value of leaning about different perspectives, the need to “represent an entire race of people that’s very diverse when you’re fifteen,” felt extremely difficult.60 Being black and in the IB program presented myriad challenges to those first students. The African American and

Caribbean American students who took IB classes tended to cloister together because of a shared racial identity that they needed to defend inside the classroom.

Students at Suncoast were undeniably segregated in the classroom. The curricular separation of the magnet programs in the first years reflected the social lives of students as well. In essence, students at Suncoast continued to spend their time with students whose lives were reflective of their own and this contributed to what sociologists describe as “friendship segregation.”61 Students integrated in instances such as homecoming but generally remained segregated along curricular tracks, and even within those tracks to some extent. Patrice Cover, a Caribbean American, spent most of her time with other students like her. Adam Friedlander, a white, Jewish

59 Ibid. 10.

60 Ibid.

61 James Moody, “Race, Integration, and Friendship Segregation in America,” American Journal of Sociology 107 no. 3, (2001):697-716.

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student, spent most of his time inside and outside of the classroom with students like him. Mitch Mason, a Riviera Beach native, spent most of his time with his African

American peers in the TAP program. Tai Few, an African American male in the IB program, represented an anomaly because while he felt culturally drawn to the African

American community within Suncoast, he felt intellectually drawn to other students in the IB program. Ultimately, Suncoast’s students were segregated by perceived academic ability and interest, and those divisions maintained extreme racial segregation inside and outside of the classroom.

The Students Who Got Shipped Out

Despite the excitement surrounding Suncoast’s successes, even after just one year the black community of Riviera Beach began to lament the consequences of losing its school to the new boundary-defiant organization of Suncoast. Theo Harris, a 1971 graduate of Suncoast and occupational therapist at the school, stated that although many of the neighborhood students were initially scared off they later “clamored to get in again after leaving.”62 Gerald Adams, a resident of Riviera Beach, wrote an opinion piece in the Palm Beach Post viewed Suncoast’s newly formulated image as a highly selective and competitive school as just one more way that the black community of

Riviera Beach had been shunned for years. He argued that the black parents had long complained about Suncoast, but those concerns were never taken seriously by district leaders. Furthermore, the magnet program there only intensified claims of just how bad

Suncoast had gotten before anything was done to fix it. The millions of dollars put into making Suncoast a magnet program served to highlight that the school board was “only

62 Gienger, “Magnet Programs, New Spirit Revitalize Shunned Suncoast,” 1B.

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willing to commit money if the number of white students is significant.”63 The Office of

Civil Rights (OCR) released a report in February of 1990 that corroborated the story of community members in Riviera Beach. The report found that the school board had consistently “marched to the tune of white parents while ignoring the voices of blacks” and allowed re-segregation at Suncoast.64 It was clear that the new formation of

Suncoast did not meet the expectations of a community perpetually ignored by the school board.

The special design of Suncoast allowed for the school to select its student population. Because all Suncoast students participated in the magnet program, school officials had the extraordinary power to turn away students, even mid-year. Principal

Carnes described the process as one with many remedial steps. A student who had been cited for behavioral or academic shortcomings would be notified that he or she was in danger of being sent away from Suncoast through the use of an “exit letter.”

Carnes and the administration would hold conferences to discuss the “exit letters,” and she would ask the students to write a letter that described why they thought they were being exited and their commitment to change. Carnes recalled her interactions with students and parents in these meetings as a way to determine a student’s investment into the school’s culture. “A student would complain, ‘I didn’t do ba ba ba ba ba ba,’” she recalled, “And I’d read it and I’d go, ‘So surprised that you really didn’t understand, you

63 Gerald Adams, "Blacks Have Borne the Burden of Desegregation Too Long," The Palm Beach Post, February 11, 1990, 4E.

64 Viola Gienger, "Bias in School Outlined: Report Cites Board for Racial Policies," The Palm Beach Post, February 14, 1990, 1A.

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know, this is your chance to say what your commitment is for the future.’” 65 She recalled that sometimes she would explain to a parent that their son or daughter had demonstrated that he or she did not really want to be at Suncoast. If a high school student at Suncoast could not explain their plan to change, they would be told to leave.

To belong at Suncoast, students and teachers alike had to demonstrate a strong desire to participate in to the school culture that clearly defined its expectations for behavior and academic accomplishment. Carnes stated that there were at least 40 students per year who would receive that letter.

Some former students remembered that process differently. In 1990, after

Suncoast’s first semester as a magnet school, the administration called the students into an assembly with little explanation—a regular occurrence in the school. But this one was different. This assembly was the first version of the “exit letter” and it was done in a public, dramatic, and traumatic way. Mitch Mason described the fear and relief of surviving the day when “a lot of those guys got shipped out of there.”66 As the assembly continued, the school’s administrators explained that because the students were in a magnet school, they had to keep their grades up. They began to call students names and divided students up. Some students could return to class but others were asked to stay. When Mason left the gym, he recalled that there were students everywhere; he compared the scene to a pep rally, except no one quite understood yet what was happening. Then, busses appeared lined up outside of the school, and Mason saw some of his friends board those busses. “And so they’re on the busses, they got the

65 Carnes Interview, 9.

66 Mason Interview, 8.

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windows down, we’re waving like, “ah you’re on the bus!”67 Later, the students learned that the busses had taken the rejected students to different schools. They were no longer permitted to be students at Suncoast. Students like Mitch Mason, a Riviera

Beach native, remained in contact with the students who were “shipped out” in that first year. They felt “bitter” about the school; the process of being publicly expelled was a humiliating and even traumatic experience. Not only were they called out in front of the entire student body, but they were sent away immediately. Students like Mason viewed the mass expulsion as a warning. He felt that he had “dodged a bullet,” which motivated him to view academics more seriously. He was henceforth aware that he could be next.

For the students who attended and did well at Suncoast the school represented the best that the county had to offer. Students who were black and white credit the school for their adult successes. Tai Few left Suncoast to attend Boston University and said that without Suncoast, “there would be no Boston University.”68 Friedlander, now a physician, said that his years at Suncoast were more difficult than college. They taught him how to work hard and to be disciplined. Mason, who went on to become the

Chaplain of the University of North Carolina’s athletic department, said that the new culture at Suncoast taught him to view academics as highly as sports. There is no doubt that those who went to Suncoast and stayed found the experience remarkably beneficial throughout their lives. What remained in question was in what ways the new school would influence the community.

67 Ibid.

68 Few Interview, 15.

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The Price of Elitism, 1993-2000

After the first class of seniors graduated from Suncoast, many in the district were quick to conclude that the school had succeeded because it brought students from across the district into the once shunned school. During the first years of the Suncoast magnet program, however, the ramifications of the boundary-less, opt-in magnet school caused new troubles for other schools in the district and perpetuated perennial problems experienced by Riviera Beach residents. Because not all students could enroll in Suncoast, and because demand to attend the school skyrocketed in the years after its opening, its population influenced other areas in the district. Suncoast could boast about its racial makeup and claim that 39 percent of its students were black, which satisfied the federal desegregation order from 1971 that schools be 30 percent black, seventy percent white. However, only 18 percent of the students who attended the school came from Riviera Beach.69Those students who did not apply or who could not make it into the school were shipped off to either Palm Beach Gardens High School or

Jupiter High School—the very schools that the county sent black students to in the decades preceding to establish better racial ratios there. At the same time that

Suncoast’s reputation for academic excellence grew, so too did tensions across Palm

Beach County.

The city of Riviera Beach was the first to experience the downside of making

Suncoast a magnet school. Clearly, many of its student population were “shipped off” to schools across the district. But those students who chose to stay faced hardships that

69 William Howard, “School Boundary Plans Inspire Passionate Speeches,” The Palm Beach Post, February 16, 1994, 1B.

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made attending the increasingly prestigious school difficult. In 1992, the school district discontinued bus service to students who lived in neighborhoods that spanned Riviera

Beach: National Village, Timber Pines, and Broadmoor. Without the bus route, which had operated for ten years prior, students in Riviera Beach neighborhoods who did get into Suncoast would have to walk two miles to school along Blue Heron Boulevard, a busy main street in Riviera Beach. The walk, parents felt, would be unduly treacherous for their students because it was partially unpaved and highly populated.70

The school board insisted that the new bus route followed state policy and that the route had changed because of strict adherence to the law of the land.71 Parents from

Riviera Beach, however, viewed this as a way to limit their children’s access to the new prestigious school. Muriel Clark, for instance, lamented that her son had worked hard to prepare for the entrance exam to attend Suncoast High School. He attended Saturday classes and took full honors courses and even attended a six-week summer program to prepare for the difficult coursework. But it was in the summer program that Clark was informed that the bus would no longer serve the students, like her son, in those neighborhoods of Riviera Beach. Clark viewed this action as a slight to the residents who were promised by the school board that Suncoast would remain open to the community and that efforts would be made to allow access to its magnet programs.

Without transportation children from Riviera Beach would have to leave home early in the morning to make it to school at 7:25 a.m. on time and would have to walk along a

70 Opinion, “Bureaucrats Miss the Bus,” The Palm Beach Post, July 10, 1992, 20A.

71 Ibid.

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dangerous road to do so. Clark summarized the feeling of disappointment: “Our children deserve much better.”72 Skepticism over the new magnet school was evidently justifiable to students who were cut off from the basic need of safe transport to a school less than two miles from their homes.

Representatives from an organization of civic and church groups called People

Engaged in Active Community Efforts (PEACE) called attention to perceived discrimination against black students at Suncoast High School. Presented in the Palm

Beach Post as an “irate group of parents,” PEACE believed that the African American community of students at Suncoast suffered in various ways because of the school’s administration.73 Princess Wells, the chairperson of the group’s education committee, explained that they had unsuccessfully attempted to meet with Principal Carnes for two months prior. They wanted to question the administration about unfair suspensions of black students and preferential treatment of white students in small classes with excellent teachers. In addition, the group wanted to know why predominantly black sports teams like the football and basketball teams didn’t receive financial support in the ways that smaller, predominantly white teams did. Carnes later admitted that the sports teams that had thrived at Suncoast before the conversion had suffered, but claimed that it was not a result of discrimination. She offered no explanation but maintained that she had worked hard for all of her students.74

72 Muriel Clark, “No Bus to Suncoast is Honor Students’ Reward?” The Palm Beach Post, August 12, 1992, 7A.

73 Sonja Isger, “Irate Group of Parents Claims Discrimination at Suncoast High,” The Palm Beach Post, March 17, 1993, 3B.

74 Ibid.

180

Suncoast’s ability to draw privileged white students from wealthy white suburbs also impacted schools outside of Riviera Beach. The Palm Beach Post aptly described feelings about Suncoast as one that “grates on both Gardens High parents and people from the predominantly black neighborhood around Suncoast.”75 People from Palm

Beach Gardens believed that Suncoast had affected their school negatively in two ways: a brain drain and an influx of black students from Riviera Beach. In 1993, the

Palm Beach Post reported that parents from nearby Palm Beach Gardens felt that their children’s school had been negatively impacted by the Suncoast magnet school.

Because Suncoast would not allow students who achieved lower than a 2.0 GPA attend, Palm Beach Gardens experienced a change in academic as well as racial demographics.76 In 1994, Palm Beach Gardens parents addressed declining grade point averages and over crowded conditions at their children’s school. They showed that 65 percent of the school’s freshman and half of the school’s sophomore class had below C averages and that almost 300 students in the Gardens district attended

Suncoast.77 A Gardens city council member, Lina Monroe, claimed that Suncoast’s success came at the cost of her community’s high school. In effect, she described Palm

Beach Gardens as “a sick school” due to the changing enrollments. The very same

“plague” that had ruined Suncoast in years past had infected Gardens High School as well—a growing black student population and a new form of white flight. Parents asked that something be done to promote equity between Suncoast and other schools in the

75 Larry Kaplow, “Boundaries Rekindle Old Issues,” The Palm Beach Post, December 17, 1993, 1C.

76 Ibid.

77 William Howard, “Meetings Fail to Fix Gardens, Suncoast Rift,” The Palm Beach Post, January 27, 1994, 1B.

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district, especially Palm Beach Gardens High School. Munroe proposed that 72 students from Riviera Beach be allowed to attend Suncoast regardless of their grade point averages. This would give the people from Riviera Beach more access to their neighborhood school and relieve Gardens as well. Parents from Gardens suggested that Suncoast share the wealth of students by shifting the Math, Science, and

Engineering program to Gardens to attract some of the high performing students back to their school. 78

These requests provoked the ire of the new students and parents at Suncoast who perceived the school as theirs with little recognition that the magnet program had stripped Riviera Beach of a high school. The president of Suncoast’s freshman class collected 156 signatures that opposed implementing any boundaries for the school.

People who attended Suncoast believed that if students were granted admission without passing the rigorous tests, then the school would lose the prestige it had gained during its first four years. Michael Noto, the chairman of Suncoast’s School Advisory Council noted that the district needed the school to be as excellent as it could be: “I am curious why, in the face of all the perceived loss of credibility in the school system, you would take the one sure good thing you’ve done at Suncoast and dismantle it.”79 Noto, whose family lived in Wellington, a suburb far west of Riviera Beach, became a representative voice in defense of Suncoast’s magnet programs. He argued that Suncoast’s gains outweighed the problems felt elsewhere. Newspaper reports cited that there were black parents in favor of maintaining Suncoast as it was. But the issues facing the African

78 Ibid., 1B..

79 Ibid.

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American residents of Riviera Beach, whose students were bused away from their homes and otherwise denied access to the prestigious magnet programs, differed from the black representatives who supported no change. Patrick Cover, father of Patrice

Cover, spoke up on behalf of the programs at Suncoast. He explained that as a black father of two black students in Suncoast’s IB program he had never experienced the problems that people from the activist group PEACE had described.80 Cover, a Palm

Beach Gardens resident, could not relate to the plight of those who had lived in Riviera

Beach and who had lost their neighborhood school because of perceived lack of ability of its students.

The conflict between Palm Beach Gardens and Suncoast High Schools reignited feelings of neglect and dismay felt by Riviera Beach’s residents. A parent echoed a heartbreaking, yet consistent refrain that asked: “Where can our children go? Nobody wants them.”81 Representatives from PEACE criticized Suncoast because of its exclusionary practices that kept their students out or underserved. They complained about busing students from Riviera Beach out of their neighborhood and about programs promised but not delivered to community students to succeed like extra tutoring. They did not, however, feel that the magnet programs were necessarily the problem. Rather they wanted more neighborhood students to be prepared to reap the benefits of the magnet and to receive support for those who needed it. Aleem Fakir, chief organizer for PEACE, described the injustice of Suncoast: “Since it’s one of the

80 Viola Gienger, “Parents Jump to Defend Suncoast High Program,” The Palm Beach Post, June 6, 1993, 7B.

81 Ibid.

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best schools now in the county and it’s got magnet programs it seems now blacks have to be in the minority in that school, whereas before it had that it was OK for it to be all black.”82 Residents of Riviera Beach did not want to take away from the successes of

Suncoast; they simply wanted their children to have the opportunity to be part of them.

In response to what Kay Carnes referred to as “all of this hullaballoo with

Gardens,” the district struck a deal with parents and planned to increase access for

Riviera Beach residents to attend the school.83 Carnes recalled that after the public disputes with Palm Beach Gardens High School, the district sent her a list of students who lived within the boundaries of Suncoast. She would then mail them a letter and an application to come to Suncoast. The letter informed students that they were eligible to attend Suncoast and “just because they lived there didn’t mean they didn’t already qualify for IB or MSE.”84 Those students from the residential boundary area would then receive special signification on their applications; Carnes would write “0828384” on the top of those applications and, according to her, those students would receive priority in admissions. She did this “so when it came in we knew that was a kid we really had to look at.”85 If the student who applied was “full time exceptional,” meaning that he or she needed special education outside of the curricula offered at Suncoast, Carnes would set up a meeting with the parents and “counsel them” by explaining that their children needed services that Suncoast did not provide.

82 Ibid.

83 Carnes Interview, 10; Larry Kaplow, "Suncoast Access Plan Goes to School Board," The Palm Beach Post, March 23, 1994, 1B.

84 Carnes Interview, 12.

85 Ibid.

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Remarkably, Suncoast’s reputation as a shunned school completely changed in a relatively small amount of time. Demand and competition for the school rose substantially over the years, and Suncoast became a model for the entire county of

Palm Beach. After just one year of using magnet schools to facilitate desegregation, the district committed to spending $12.8 million to bring in more magnet programs to more schools.86 But biases surrounding Riviera Beach as a community remained intact, making the push for new magnet programs there a difficult one. In 1995, the district planned to turn John F. Kennedy Middle School into a magnet feeder school for

Suncoast by placing a pre-IB curriculum there. But the integration coordinator for Palm

Beach County schools found that parents from outside of Riviera Beach still hesitated to send their students to school there because of a perception that it would not be a safe environment for their children.87

Suncoast became one of the most, if not the most, highly revered high schools in all of Palm Beach County in a matter of years. News of events at the school no longer focused on violence and failing test scores. Instead, the school became known for its advanced teachers and students alike. In 1995 David E. Williams, a math teacher at

Suncoast, was awarded the “coveted” William Dwyer Award for Excellence in Palm

Beach County.88 Students from Suncoast became known as the most academically advanced students in the district. There was also evidence that the students who stayed at Suncoast who came from Riviera Beach highly benefitted from that reputation. In

86 Viola Gienger, "Schools Pay $12.8 million for Integration," The Palm Beach Post, December 17, 1990, 1B.

87 Opinion, "Top Schools, No Waiting," The Palm Beach Post, July 8, 1995, 22A.

88 Lynette Holloway, "Teacher Makes Learning Fun," The Palm Beach Post, April 20, 1990, 2B.

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1990 student Mavalyn Drummond was selected for the Shell Century III Leadership

Award at Suncoast High School, a competition for a $10,000 college scholarship.

Drummond, a Riviera Beach resident, was selected based on her community service and academic record. She became a representation of the positive attributes of the magnet school. Drummond was quoted affirming that students like her could succeed:

“Many black kids say they don’t have much of a chance to get into college. I understand why they feel this way. But if they study hard and maintain good grades…they can make it.”89 These successes were ones that Suncoast officials touted as evidence that the new experiment in education was working.

The culture of academic achievement took hold at Suncoast quickly. Before becoming a magnet school, the only positive claim that Suncoast had was its athletic program. To be sure, in the first year of the new formation of the school, concerns from the community arose surrounding the viability of the athletic programs. In 1989, for example, the basketball team was considered the best team in the state of Florida and hoped to win the state championship. During the first year, the entire team decided to remain at Suncoast. One player felt that the changes in curriculum would not impact their ability to remain an athletic powerhouse. He assured the press that “We’re all coming back, and there’s no doubt we’re definitely going to win state.”90 The student’s premonition became reality, and in 1990, the team became state champions. Winning the state basketball championship also served as social glue between the new white

89 Joe Sullivan, "People to Watch," The Palm Beach Post, November 19, 1990, 3E.

90 Scott Rosenberg, "Suncoast Could Become Magnet for Mediocrity," The Palm Beach Post, March 12, 1989, 10C.

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students and the black students from Riviera Beach. It gave each group something to rally around.91

But it did not take long for Suncoast’s claims to fame to shift to produce academic rather than athletic powerhouses. Near the end of the first decade at Suncoast, the proof that the school could turn around its negative image as a bad school seemed abundant. Two students there scored a perfect 1600 on their SAT test, and the school was named a Blue Ribbon School along with 166 other schools in the nation.92 Principal

Carnes said that they received the honor because the to the award committee "it's all about school improvement." Suncoast had changed significantly from when Carnes first began as principal. By the end of the decade, Suncoast’s reputation as an exemplary school led the district to use the magnet school model as a way to amplify its academic influence and eradicate the need to enforce desegregation. By 1998 the magnet model had proliferated across the district with varied success. There were waiting lists for most of the magnet programs in the county, especially Suncoast.93

Yet, the common problem of access to students in Riviera Beach remained deep into the 1990s. In 1998, a report from the National Coalition of Advocates for Students, a Boston based nonprofit group, pointed out that poor and minority students received

91 Friedlander Interview, 10-11.

92 Stephanie Desmon, "One Perfect SAT Score Inspires Another," The Palm Beach Post, June 3, 1998, 1A; Stephanie Desmon, "Suncoast is Honored as Blue Ribbon School," The Palm Beach Post, May 23, 1998, 3B. Schools have been awarded with the status of “Blue Ribbon Schools” since 1982 by the United States Department of Education. The award is given to schools that create “safe and welcoming schools where students master challenging content.” “National Blue Ribbon Schools Program,” U.S. Department of Education, Office of Communications and Outreach Homepage, last modified April 23, 2015, http://www2.ed.gov/programs/nclbbrs/index.html

93 Stephanie Desmon, "School Magnet Programs Draw Record Applicants," The Palm Beach Post, May 9, 1998, 1B.

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imbalanced education in US schools. By that time 39 percent of Suncoast’s students were black but few took part in the difficult courses at Suncoast. Only five percent of the total number of African Americans participated in the computer science program and nine percent in the math science engineering program. Although in general terms the school was a great success, Riviera Beach residents still felt jilted by the school system as a result of Suncoast’s transformation. Bettye Dawson, a black member of the district’s Compliance Monitoring Committee complained about the discrepancy: "The way I see things happening is that our schools have been upgraded, but once you've upgraded them you say, 'Now you can't go there."94 After decades of struggle to provide a good community school for the children of Riviera Beach, parents felt resigned to the fact that the school board would continue to systematically deny their needs.

As a magnet school, Suncoast became less affiliated with the community and instead existed as an isolated island that happened to be placed inside its boundaries.

Traditions like homecoming, that provided a form of true cohesion to the Suncoast class, eventually became part of Suncoast’s memory. As Suncoast drew its population from farther reaches of Palm Beach County, it became more concerned with serving only the best students. Fewer students from Riviera Beach attended and its ability to provide a “community ethos” to African American students deteriorated. This case provides an example of how a magnet school may be officially desegregated, but can still deprive the most disadvantaged students in significant ways.

94 Stephanie Desmon, "Where the Magnet Experiment Worked," The Palm Beach Post, July 19, 1998, 10A.

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From the perspective of the residents of Riviera Beach, the school became a constant reminder of the district’s failure to address their students. The students who attended Suncoast but were not part of the IB program routinely felt that they did not experience the spoils of the highly touted magnet school. Those who could not attend, those who were “shipped off,” were deprived of an exemplary education that was just outside their doorstep, but still beyond their reach. The implementation of Suncoast as a model for desegregation served the students who attended the elite school but not the surrounding community.

This case provokes serious questions about the intentions of desegregation in general, but specifically about the validity of using a magnet program as a sound method of achieving racial balance. Although magnet schools have escaped major scrutiny, this dissertation demonstrates that this should not be the case. The magnet school allowed for Riviera Beach to have a world-class high school, but the students that the county sought to send there mostly lived in secluded suburbs. In light of this case that perpetuated discrimination, then, what is the goal of desegregation? For the people of Riviera Beach who demanded better for their students for decades, desegregation ought to have represented a fair chance for their children to have a good education. Instead, desegregation became one more way that their students were pushed aside and shifted around to appease federal oversight. Rather than investing into the community, the district effectively took the school out of the people’s hands—a move that solidified longstanding divisions. For school officials in Palm Beach County, desegregation did not require providing for all students equally. Instead, the county was mostly concerned with creating racial balance even at the expense of student morale

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and achievement. By prioritizing racial balance over educational equality of opportunity, the county was able to maintain its “Down South” tradition that constructed the brick wall against desegregation in the 1950s and 1960s. By shifting the focus of the conversation about Suncoast from equality to student ability, Suncoast could justify its paltry admission of Riviera Beach residents.

The implementation of magnet schools like Suncoast limit access to communities and essentially become publicly funded private schools. They perpetuate discrimination within school boundaries and also displace students from their neighborhood schools.

Essentially, school choice only applies to those who actually have a choice. In the case of Suncoast, the students from Riviera Beach often had no choice at all. Magnet schools have been construed as a way to promote “voluntary desegregation.” The case of Suncoast negates that claim because only some of its students have a choice in which school they attend. When Suncoast first opened as a magnet school, it did house many of the students who had previously attended it as a community school. But demand for its high technology and advanced curricula eventually attracted more and more students from outside of Riviera Beach. This chapter has shown that those students who lived in Riviera Beach, far from being recruited to Suncoast, were met with subtle and overt methods that eventually pushed most of them out. Further, because the school is a magnet school, it could justify leaving students out if they did not fit into the specific culture of the school. Suncoast’s overwhelming reception in Palm Beach

County illuminated school officials educational priorities, which had historically and repeatedly favored financially advantaged, mostly white students.

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Table 5-1. Admission Requirements for Magnet Tracks at Suncoast Magnet Tracks Admission Requirements International Baccalaureate (IB) Pre-IB: -3.0 cumulative grade point average in middle/junior high school - score at or above 85th percentile on the SAT or equivalent - 4 academic/1 guidance teacher recommendation - Sample essay - Motivation as demonstrated by excellent attendance/exemplary conduct IB: -successful completion of pre-IB

Mathematics, Science, - 3.0 GPA for previous academic year Engineering (MSE) - 3.5 GPA in mathematics for the previous year -composite score of Stanine 8 or 9 on SAT or equivalent - minimum score of 420 on math portion of Scholastic Aptitude Test (OR) minimum of 400 with composite score of 1000 (or higher) on combined mathematics and verbal portions -positive teacher recommendations - score of 85% or above on district-developed Algebra II and geometry exams -written intent of commitment to program High Technology (HT) Grade 10: - 2.5 GPA in MSE or Pre-IB program -Favorable teacher recommendations - completion of summer enrichment course in computer science - previous participation in programming contests Grade 11: - 2.5 GPA in MSE or Pre-IB program in grades 9-10 - successful completion of Calculus I and Physics Honors -successful completion of all Group #1 computer courses Traditional Academic Program -entering grade 9,10,11, or 12 (TAP) - 2.0 GPA in middle/junior high (current Suncoast students can apply regardless of GPA) - interest and commitment The School Board of Palm Beach County In Its Continuing Efforts to Reach for Excellence Presents the Magnet Programs at Suncoast Community High School, (West Palm Beach, FL: School District of Palm Beach County, 1989).

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Table 5-2. Sample Four-Year Plan According to Curriculum Coursework Per IB MSE HT TAP Grade Level Language Arts 9th: English I 9th: English I 9th:--- 9th: English 9 Honors 10th:English II 10th:--- 10th:English 10 10th: PIB English II 11th: English III 11th:--- 11th: English 11 11th: IB English III 12:English IV 12:--- 12: English 12 12th: IB English IV Mathematics 9th:Earth Science 9th: Math Studies 9th:--- 9th:Math Honors 10th: AP Calculus I 10th:--- 10th: Math 10th: Geometry 11th: Calculus II 11th:--- 11th: Math Honors or Algebra 12th: 12:--- 12: None II Honors Economics/Practical Required 11th: IB Math Arts Studies 12th: IB Math Studies or IB Mathematics

Science 9th:Earth Science 9th: PIB Biology 9th:--- 9th: Earth Science Honors 10th: Physics Honors 10th:--- 10th: Biology 10th: PIB Biology or PIB Chemistry 11th---: 11th: Science 11th: IB Biology, 11th: Chemistry AP 12th:--- 12th: None Chemistry, or 12th: Theory of Required Physics Probability/Statistics 12: IB Biology, Chemistry, or Physics

Social Studies 9th: American 9th:American 9th:--- 9th:American Government/Health Government 10th:--- Government/Life 10th: PIB World 10th: World History 11th---: Management History 11th: American 12th:--- Skills 11th: IB American History 10th: World History 12th: History 12th: IB History of Economics/Practical 11th: American the Americas Arts History 12th : None Required

Magnet Specialty 9th: --- 9th: Research and 9th: Fortran/ 9th: --- 10th: Inquiry Skills Design Pascal 10th: --- 11th: Theory of 10th: Oceanography 10th: AP 11th:--- Knowledge (Six Week Summer Computer 12th: --- 12th : Theory of Camp) Science Knowledge 11th: Topics in 11th: Assembly Mechanical/Chemical & System Engineering Programming 12th: Theory of 12th: Advanced Probability/Topics in Programming Electrical Engineering

Program Integration at Suncoast, (West Palm Beach, Florida: School Board of Palm Beach County1989).

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CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION: THE LASTING IMPACT OF SUNCOAST HIGH SCHOOL’S MAGNET CONVERSION

Controversy over Suncoast High School remains a prominent topic of dialogue between the Palm Beach County school board and active members of Riviera Beach’s community. In the midst of collecting data for this research at the school board, the people who worked in the office of information began to chatter about why I was there.

When the office manager learned of my research, she came into the small, secluded room where I sat sifting through three decades of school board minutes to tell me that something of interest had just happened in a board workshop. She directed me to the school board’s website, where all meetings can now be found on video, because a school board member had invoked Suncoast’s history and magnet school development.

What I found crystallized two highly contrasting stories that both described the school.

The video showed a workshop held on February 6, 2013 to discuss expansion of an already robust system of magnet schools the county enjoyed. Since 1989, Palm

Beach County has exploded with magnet schools. As of 2015 there are 24 high schools,

33 middle schools, and 43 elementary schools that host magnet programs.1 Out of the

100 schools that have magnet programs, 14 percent feature International Baccalaureate as their major program, a source of pride for the school board.2 It is clear that magnet

1 “High School Choice Programs,” The School District of Palm Beach County, accessed April 28, 2015, http://www.palmbeachschools.org/choiceprograms/high.asp ; “Middle School Programs,” The School District of Palm Beach County, accessed April 28, 2015, http://www.palmbeachschools.org/choiceprograms/middle.asp ; “Elementary School Choice Programs,” The School District of Palm Beach County, accessed April 28, 2015, http://www.palmbeachschools.org/choiceprograms/elementary.asp

2 “International Baccalaureate Programs,” The School District of Palm Beach County, , accessed April 28, 2015, http://www.palmbeachschools.org/choiceprograms/ib-programs.asp 193

schools have become a matter of fact and Suncoast is the prototype for educational and racial success. In the workshop, Dr. Joseph Lee, the Assistant Superintendent, detailed a proposal for $12 million from the Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MSAP) and cited Suncoast in his presentation. He noted that since 1989, when Suncoast became a magnet school, the county had garnered significant financial backing from this grant program sponsored by the United States Department of Education. The school board previously applied for and received MSAP grants four separate times and was awarded a total of $36.8 million: the foundation upon which a voluntary desegregation strategy thrived.3 He attributed much of Suncoast’s success to this substantial award. This narrative about Suncoast came as no surprise, as it is highly lauded across the county, state, and even the nation for its outstanding academic record. But I soon realized that this was not what the office manager had wanted me to see.

When the presentation ended, Debra Robinson, a school board member and resident of Riviera Beach, voiced the lone word of caution. Robinson, clearly conflicted, explained that she would approve of the grant application but took issue with the invocation of Suncoast as the holy grail of school choice. The discussion of magnet schools gave her “flashbacks” to the impact of Suncoast High School’s transformation on her community—for those who attended and those who did not. In contrast with the presentation done in the workshop, her depiction of Suncoast highlighted its shortcomings especially in regard to local residents. Robinson’s sons who had

3 Joseph Lee, “Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MSAP) Grant,” Palm Beach County School Board Workshop, February 6, 2013, http://www.palmbeach.k12.fl.us/agenda/Workshop%2002-06- 13%20at%202pm%20on%20Wednesday,%20February%2006,%202013/8E864F72-0C95-4959-8672- 49B3B2DC2524.pdf

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graduated from Suncoast in the early 2000s felt that the esteemed International

Baccalaureate program in particular was elitist and primarily oriented toward white students of privilege. She also voiced concerns about the ramifications that magnet schools had already taken on their residential communities. Robinson’s chief source of discomfort was the process of student selection that forcibly sent residents out of their neighborhood to go to school. In her estimation, Suncoast operated in a fashion that left the community behind. At the end of her comments, Robinson requested information about the racial composition of students at Suncoast and also across Riviera Beach to demonstrate this problem. The results indicated that although the elementary and middle schools that served the city were nearly all black, only eight percent of

Suncoast’s students were black.4 This disparity demonstrated Suncoast’s inability to serve its home population.

These two vastly different opinions about Suncoast represent the crux of this dissertation. The Palm Beach County School Board tried to find a middle ground that would satisfy various constituents including white parents and national standards of desegregation, and the decision to make Suncoast a magnet school reflects that. The result pleased parents in white majority suburban neighborhoods because their children could remain in their neighborhood schools or apply for magnet schools. In 2012,

Suncoast was 44 percent white, eight percent black, 17 percent Latino, and nine percent “other.”5 Indeed, the county saw a dramatic increase in its overall non-white

4 “Additional Information—MSAP Grant Proposal,” School District of Palm Beach County, last modified February 6, 2013, http://www.palmbeach.k12.fl.us/agenda/Wednesday,%20February%2013,%202013%20Special%20Meeti ng%2002-13-13%20following%20Workshop%20-%20at%20Norton%20Museum/33A89FE1-F6A2-41AA- BC48-F5B42A4F401C.pdf

5 Ibid. 195

population, including an explosion of black and Latino people. The county’s Latino demographic grew 78 percent between 2000 and 2010, reflecting a trend of population growth in that demographic across the state.6 As the county has become more ethnically diverse, Suncoast has welcomed more groups of people, especially Asian

American and Latino students. The school is, by all accounts, ethnically diverse. But because Suncoast selects its students from an elite pool, it has essentially left the high school aged teenagers who live in Riviera Beach without a readily accessible school to call their own. Importantly, the introduction of Suncoast into the Palm Beach County

School system altered the way that the school district approached educating its students while dealing with desegregation.

This dissertation exposes the ramifications of that decision as overly punitive to residents who live in high minority neighborhoods. The historical analysis of Suncoast

High School’s transformation from a shunned school to an award winning magnet school provides a case for discussing the unacknowledged consequences of voluntary desegregation. This dissertation has sought to present a counter-narrative about

Suncoast that questions its greatness—for Palm Beach County and especially for the residents of Riviera Beach. Since becoming a magnet school in 1989, Suncoast High

School’s mythology of greatness has continued to grow in Palm Beach County and across the nation. What began as an experiment—an expensive gamble—has ostensibly paid off for Palm Beach County’s school board. From the perspective of the school board, their efforts at creating the Suncoast that exists today saved the school

6 George Bennett, “Black, Hispanic Populations Lead Palm Beach County’s 16.7% growth to 1.3 M Census Says,” Palm Beach Post, April 15, 2011, 1A.

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from low performance. This dissertation complicates that image by providing context about the often-disenfranchised black residents of Riviera Beach who, nonetheless, were and continue to be active in their pursuit of equal education for their children. It seeks to explain the history of Suncoast in light of decades of conflict between the school board and an active and engaged community. Throughout, this dissertation has considered the costs of desegregating schools by turning them into magnet schools.

These specialized schools ought not to be viewed as a panacea for education. Their implementation can exacerbate rather than mitigate racial isolation within schools and they do not necessarily address the needs of communities that experience high levels of poverty. In Palm Beach County, Suncoast has served as a model for its school system because of the awards that its students, teachers, and administration receive. But doing so has come at the expense of community schools, and disproportionately low-income students of color.

“The Powerful Pull of Suncoast High School” challenges the perception of poor and racial minority communities as largely to blame if their schools are low performing.

It accounts for the ways that the Palm Beach County school board consistently subverted calls for equality from the black population of Riviera Beach. In the late

1960s- early 1970s it did this by ignoring the voices of young activists who hoped to preserve their all-black high school, John F. Kennedy High School. Throughout the

1970s and 1980s, the county ushered the construction of new schools in suburban neighborhoods, which attracted middle-class whites and blacks out of urbanized Riviera

Beach. In doing so, the county deprived Suncoast of a robust student body, and that neglect allowed the facilities and overall performance to deteriorate. In the late 1980s

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and into the 1990s, the county rejected calls for equality of educational opportunity for

Suncoast by placing a highly competitive magnet school in its place leaving most residents little choice but to send their children to schools outside of their neighborhoods. Through this examination it is possible to view the conversion of

Suncoast not as heroic, but as the final blow to community education for Riviera Beach high school students. Moreover, this analysis demands greater scrutiny over the way that local, state, and federal reforms impact poor black communities. Cities like Riviera

Beach did not develop into pockets of neglect by accident. Rather, they represent the result of decades of policies that created and reinforced negative stereotypes against them. If these communities are ever to receive justice for the many harms inflicted upon them by systematic racism, it is necessary to take an honest and difficult look at that system.

Local Problem – National Significance

This dissertation has examined three sets of questions about the national, state, and local environments that allowed for Suncoast to become the school that it is today.

From the national perspective I asked: In what ways did federal involvement contribute to Palm Beach County’s decision making for desegregation? From the state level I asked: Who in the state of Florida supported the use of magnet schools as a tool for desegregation and why? Finally, from the local perspective I asked several questions:

What conditions made Suncoast High School a site for the implementation of a magnet school? Whose interests did the decision serve? Who did not support the decision and why? To answer these questions I utilized newspapers, school board minutes, Suncoast

High School yearbooks, and oral histories.

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Desegregation in Palm Beach County came about only as a result of imposition.

Prior to 1969, Palm Beach County’s schools, much like the rest of Florida, remained racially segregated. Pressure to desegregate increased after the Brown decision when local lawyer William Holland brought the school district to court because his son was denied placement in a local elementary school. Despite this effort, in the decade after

Brown the county followed Miami’s lead and used token integration to demonstrate minimal efforts toward desegregation. It was not until the 1964 Civil Rights Act sanctioned the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) to investigate desegregation throughout the south and the north that federal involvement had more influence over desegregation in the district. This led to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1969 ruling in Alexander v. Holmes that compelled school systems to create desegregation plans subject to approval by the HEW. Palm Beach County’s initial desegregation plan came about as the result of bitter debates between representatives of the local black and white communities and the school board. This dissertation shows that the school board needed to satisfy the HEW but also worked diligently to maintain the satisfaction of the white parents. Ultimately, the county used a program that would produce the ratios of black to white students required to be federally viable, but did so at the expense of black high schools. The first instance of desegregation in the county created an environment that positioned black education as inferior to white education.

The federal government influenced desegregation in Palm Beach County once more in the late 1980s. This time, however, it did so because local residents called on the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) to address Suncoast’s decline. In 1985, the school had become almost entirely black. This happened because

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of suburbanization but also because the district bused black students from Riviera

Beach to schools across the county to satisfy a requirement from the 1969 Alexander vs. Holmes U.S. Supreme Court case that defined desegregation in schools at 30 percent black 70 percent white. The OCR’s initial investigation of Suncoast led to a widespread probe into the entire county where schools had re-segregated. As this dissertation has demonstrated, both white parents and black families refused to send their children to Suncoast because the school had garnered such a bad reputation. The local debates that surrounded the decision ultimately to make Suncoast a magnet school highlighted that without outside force from the federal government, county officials would have been satisfied to allow it to fade away.

Another way to view federal leverage is through funding. The federal government’s financial influence on the magnet programs at Suncoast cannot be overestimated. Suncoast’s transformation required a complete overhaul of the facilities, faculty, and most importantly, students. Without the MSAP grant’s initial funding of $3.4 million it is questionable whether Suncoast would have accomplished its transformation.

Since then, Suncoast has created a private foundation to support the ever-popular school’s growth. The Suncoast High School Foundation created partnerships with businesses, parents, and alumni to augment the financial burden of special programs like IB and also provide preparatory courses for the SAT.7 Without outside resources, magnet schools may not thrive as Suncoast has.

7 “Please Get Involved with the Suncoast High School Foundation: We Rely on Your Generosity,” The Suncoast High School Foundation Homepage, accessed May 6, 2015, http://www.suncoastfoundation.org/

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Overall, this dissertation demonstrates that the federal government played a vital role in decision making about desegregation in Palm Beach County because the school board had to react to its demands. Furthermore, the barometer that the government used to determine the efficacy of the county’s desegregation programs overly emphasized racial balance in schools rather than equality of educational opportunity.

Requirements to reach ratios of students in in Palm Beach County’s schools, the African

American population lost its historic, neighborhood schools and were sent to white dominated schools that were often unwelcoming. In each instance of desegregation in

Riviera Beach, the black community lost more than it gained. In fact, by the end of the

1990s, African Americans in Riviera Beach had grown weary of federal oversight and the persistent appeasement of the white dominated suburban parents. The history of

Suncoast High School leaves the question of where poor minority students fit in the public school environment unanswered.

The second question asked who in the state of Florida supported the use of magnet schools to desegregate. In Florida, magnet schools have become a prominent component of education, especially IB schools. The state context had a major influence on local decisions about desegregation that eventually supported this turn. Immediately after Brown, the state of Florida avoided desegregation by adopting a “freedom of choice” plan that allowed for limited numbers of black students to attend majority white schools. Indeed, Florida supported subtle resistance to Brown.8 Furthermore, Florida was one of the first states to initiate a minimum competency test (MCT) as a

8 Amy C. Martinelli, “A Moderate Calm? Florida’s Struggle Over School Desegregation after Brown, 1955- 1961” (master’s thesis, University of Florida, 2007), 10-12.

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requirement for passing high school. Historian of education Scott Baker contended that

New South leaders used MCTs “as a politically expedient and palatable alternative to the task of providing educational opportunity to all students on equal terms as the Court held in Brown.”9 In essence, MCTs facilitated a system of education that required students to pass a test in order to graduate, which intensified the significance of student and school performance to county administrators. Florida began requiring MCTs in

1976, which contributed to the decline that took place at Suncoast in the late 1970s and early 1980s.10 In Florida, a Federal District Court temporarily suspended enforcement of diploma denial because previous segregation patterns diminished the chances of the state’s African American students to perform successfully on its MCTs.11 By 1983, however, Judge George C. Carr, who presided over Debra P. v Turlington in 1979, ruled that although the MCTs did bear the vestiges of discrimination toward black students, they produced standards that motivated students to create a scholarly environment in schools.12 In Palm Beach County, Suncoast’s abysmal performance on the state’s MCT in the 1980s contributed to the school’s reputation as low performing. The decline of

Suncoast occurred as the state of Florida increased the significance of MCTs, and as

Suncoast’s test scores deteriorated, so too did its reputation. Baker’s connection

9 Scott Baker, “Desegregation, Minimum Competency Testing, and the Origins of Accountability: North Carolina and the Nation,” History of Education Quarterly 55, no. 1 (February 2015), 35.

10 John Robert Warren and Rachael B. Kulick, “Modeling States’ Enactment of High School Exit Exam Policies,” Social Forces 86, no. 1 (September 2007): 216-217.

11 Debra P. v. Turlington, 1979; Robert C. Serow and James J. Davies, “Resources and Outcomes of Minimum Competency Testing as Measures of Equality of Educational Opportunity,” American Educational Research Journal, 19, no. 4 (Winter 1982): 529.

12 Baker, “Desegregation, Minimum Competency Testing, and the Origins of Accountability,” 54-55.

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between MCTs and accountability is certainly present in Palm Beach County, where educational administrators exhibited more concern over test outcomes than educational equality.

When school officials researched magnet programs to craft Suncoast they sought to find models of the best magnet programs in the country. Representatives from the county traveled to three cities in Florida, St. Petersburg, Gainesville, and

Jacksonville, where the International Baccalaureate program had been used to desegregate schools in 1983. Historian Regan Garner’s study of Eastside High School in Gainesville found that the implementation of the IB program there was not successful in the long run because it created an environment of a school-within-a-school and increased racial isolation.13 But the curriculum’s incredible power to pull white students to a black school convinced Palm Beach of its effectiveness. The county also looked into a magnet school in nearby St. Lucie County that provided a model for the

Traditional Academic Program (TAP) intended to cater to the residents of Riviera

Beach. The state context was important because of its drive to enhance academic standards and continuous aversion to desegregation. Magnet schools like Suncoast allowed counties in Palm Beach County to enhance their academic status under the guise of desegregation.

The final line of questions considered Suncoast’s local context. First, this dissertation has shown that Suncoast became a site for a magnet school because local white parents complained to the federal government about its extreme decline. As Palm

Beach County grew, suburban communities cropped up outside of coastal communities

13 Regan Garner, “School Without a Name: Desegregation of Eastside High School, 1970-1987,” University of Florida Journal of Law and Public Policy 16 (2005): 243. 203

like Riviera Beach. The school board invested in these communities by promising new schools for the people who moved there, and as the population shifted out of Riviera

Beach, white students left the school. Also, black residents of Riviera Beach were bused outside of their city to maintain racial quotas in suburban schools. Local newspaper portrayals of Suncoast focused on its negative attributes and blamed the community for its demise rather than the neglect the school suffered at the hands of the school board. To the county, pressure from the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) required a response to reports of the deterioration of Suncoast. Indeed, Suncoast was chosen as the site for a competitive magnet school because of its location in Riviera Beach where the high concentration of African American students made it highly likely to receive

MSAP funding.

The answer to whose interests the decision to implement the magnet school at

Suncoast served is complex. It is clear that the students who came to Suncoast for the

IB program felt that they benefited from an educational environment that supported academic success. Suncoast transformed its old reputation as low performing and dangerous to extremely high performing virtually overnight. It is less clear whether the needs of the Riviera Beach residents were met through this decision. When the school first became a magnet school, it was filled with students from the surrounding neighborhood. But over time the application process made access highly selective. Dr.

Debra Robinson took issue with this aspect of Suncoast because it required that all parents and students understand the application process and selection. In the first year, students who could not live up to the high academic and disciplinary standards were publicly “shipped off” to other schools that they did not choose. This case brings up

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questions about who gets to choose when school choice becomes an acceptable method of desegregation. The case of Suncoast suggests that people who have privileged financial and educational backgrounds will always have a choice in education, but those with less usually do not. Through the years, the percentage of African

American students at Suncoast has been low, especially compared to the other schools in Riviera Beach, which are almost entirely black.

One of the only black IB students at Suncoast from 1989-1993, Tai Few, recalled feeling conflicted about where he fit in. Few felt that his academic inclinations were more readily met by spending time with the brainy IB students. However, the African

American students who comprised the majority of the regular school program experienced a supportive black environment and culture. To make up for this gap, Few looked outside of the school to make up for what the prestigious IB program did not provide: space for African American perspectives. This aspect of Suncoast is crucial to understanding the problematic nature of implementing magnet schools within high minority, low socioeconomic neighborhoods. The Magnet Schools Assistance Program

(MSAP) only awards grants to programs placed in this type of school but does not stipulate that the home population’s cultural needs be acknowledged. The community ethos that Few felt he did not have in his IB classes could be important for all students, not just African Americans. This study suggests that although administrative demands preferred the advanced curriculum, many students could benefit from education that is culturally relevant. Far too often, American educational practices dismiss African

American cultural and educational institutions as irrelevant. This dissertation aligns with education researchers who value culturally relevant pedagogy to promote educational

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equality and that view black communities as valuable resources.14 By changing

Suncoast into a magnet school officials promised a world class education. To do this, the school abandoned its culturally relevant environment and replaced it with one that suited the changing landscape of accountability reform. In doing so, the school missed out on an opportunity to make use of the vital lessons that could be gleaned from an

African American community context.

The local context is vital to this dissertation. This investigation revealed that although largely disenfranchised, Riviera Beach residents continued to value their schools. Indeed, Suncoast did not decline as a result of residential neglect but because of decades of undermining state and local decisions. In fact, this dissertation is filled with examples of individuals and groups who organized, protested, and fought for their school. These included both adults and high school students. By considering these local activists in light of the constraints they faced, this dissertation can reclaim value for a community viewed from the outside as inherently flawed. This point is particularly poignant in light of the recently renewed national discourse about communities similar to

Riviera Beach. Throughout the time that I have embarked upon this project instances of racial oppression have become part of the media landscape in light of multiple deaths at the hands of police officers in extremely racially divided cities across America. The deaths of Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, and recently Freddie Gray

(among others) have sparked demonstrations calling for justice. Interlaced are arguments that unfair treatment of African American communities has a long,

14 Gloria Swindler Boutte and Edward L. Hill, “African American Communities: Implications for Culturally Relevant Teaching,” The New Educator, 2, (2006):311.

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government sponsored history. In high poverty and minority cities across the nation, issues related to unfair housing, labor, and educational practices are coming to the fore.

The evolving language surrounding these protests is highly relevant as well.

Mainstream media has defined uprisings that result in any violence as riots, while many on the ground insist they are signs of revolution. Social media has had a great impact on the multiple perspectives from which we can observe and participate these conversations about institutionalized racism. A riot is a senseless act of violence conducted by a mob. A revolution is a coordinated and calculated effort toward justice and equality. The history of Suncoast addresses these issues of national concern.

During this time of what the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has call

#BlackSpring on social media, it is necessary to take stock of the many atrocities incurred upon cities like West Baltimore, Ferguson, Missouri, and Riviera Beach,

Florida.15 Understanding that Suncoast declined at the hands of school officials rather than black parents and students is necessary to remedy carefully constructed systems of discrimination.

Scholarly Implications

This dissertation provides a case study of a community high school embroiled in conflicts over desegregation for decades. It is one of the first detailed explorations of the consequences of voluntary desegregation.16 “The Powerful Pull of Suncoast High

15 S. Wooten, “ACLU: ‘The Black Spring Has Begun,” The Mint Press News Website, May 6, 2015 URL: http://www.mintpressnews.com/aclu-says-the-black-spring-has-begun/205372/

16 One significant work that addressed a single magnet school was Elaine Clift Gore, Talent Knows No Color: The History of an Arts Magnet School, (Charlotte, North Carolina: Information Age Publishing: 2007), 15-17. This study argued that the special environment created in a specialized school for arts allowed for the students to transcend race.

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School” addresses the eventual conversion of Suncoast from a community school to a dedicated magnet school—one that features special curricula and all students attend by choice. In doing so, this dissertation positions Riviera Beach residents in persistent conflict with local decisions about desegregation made by the school board. The magnet school was an imposition on a community that simply wanted a school to serve its students. This dissertation exemplified the ways that racial and economic conditions influenced the ability to change the educational prospects for students across Palm

Beach County.

This dissertation contributes to the current scholarship on magnet schools and desegregation by offering a case study of a dedicated academically oriented high school. One of the major concerns over the effectiveness of magnet schools as a desegregation tool has to do with racial isolation within schools. Christine H. Rossell’s research in the 1990s indicated that magnet schools that operate as programs within schools tend to promote racial isolation within schools, or a “school within a school,” whereas dedicated magnet schools have a greater chance of racial integration.17

The history of Eastside High School in Gainesville, Florida is closely related to this dissertation. It examined the conditions under which that school became a magnet program to desegregate. Garner, “ School Without a Name,” 236. The article by Scott Gelber, “The Crux and the Magic: The Political History of Boston Magnet Schools, 1968-1989, “ Equity and Excellence in Education, 41, no. 4 (2008):453-466, showed dissatisfaction with magnet schools from the perspective of both African American and white parents throughout the entire Boston city school system. Stephen J. Caldas, Roslin Growe, and Carl L. Bankston III, “African American Reaction to Lafayette Parish School Desegregation Order: From Delight to Disenchantment,” The Journal of Negro Education 71, no. ½ (2002): 43-59, and Carl L. Bankston III and Stephen J. Caldas, A Troubled Dream: The Promise and Failure of School Desegregation in Louisiana, (Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press, 2002), examined the consequences of desegregation in various districts in Louisiana and highlighted their use of magnet schools. These works all deal with the consequences of implementing magnet schools in high minority communities at the district or city level.

17 Christine H. Rossell, The Carrot or the Stick for School Desegregation Policy: Magnet Schools or Forced Busing?” (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1990).

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Studies of magnet programs within schools do demonstrate that racial isolation occurs and can contribute to a combative school environment.18 This dissertation has shown that a dedicated magnet school can create similar conditions. Suncoast High School’s diverse curricular tracks separated the students and created a school-within-a school.

This aspect of the study makes it difficult to assume that a dedicated magnet is somehow more capable of driving out discrimination than a program within a school.

Further, this dissertation shows that dedicated magnet programs can produce significant problems of access for neighborhood students who must compete to attend.

Sociologist of education Carl L. Bankston III and teacher Stephen J. Caldas studied desegregation in the state of Louisiana.19 Bankston and Caldas found that magnet programs there could produce similar outcomes as seen at Suncoast. Magnet schools placed in minority neighborhoods can become so popular and competitive that they prevent many residents from attending. They also argue that, while magnet schools may create racial isolation, they provide a method to keep white students in the public school system.20 This conclusion ignores often painful histories of discrimination that come along with high minority schools. Because this dissertation, like Garner’s study of

Eastside High School in Gainesville, focuses not only on the outcomes of magnet schools but their origins, it is harder to come to this conclusion. School systems should not be concerned about providing for one group of students, especially an already

18 Both Garner, “A School Without a Name,” and Lawson Bush, Hansel Burley, and Tonia Causey-Bush, “Magnet Schools: Desegregation or Resegregation? Students’ Voices from Inside the Walls,” American Secondary Education 3, no. 29 (2001): 33-50 describe magnet schools where the regular and magnet school students felt separated. Furthermore, these divisions allowed for students to view one another with skepticism and even hatred.

19 Bankston and Caldras, A Troubled Dream, 209.

20 Ibid. 210-211. 209

privileged one. Instead, More concern and attention ought be paid to student populations that are all too often ignored. Magnet schools that are placed in high minority, low-income neighborhoods need to consider the value that the community places on its school and incorporate at least some of those values into their design.

Magnet schools like Suncoast prioritize educational accountability reforms, but do not address existing disparities between groups of students. The U.S. Department of

Education’s Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MSAP) requires grant recipients to place magnet schools in high minority neighborhoods.21 Despite efforts to increase interracial schooling, there is no expectation that the home school’s cultural community become part of the new school culture. Magnet schools could provide an ideal setting for facilitating conversations about race and poverty in American classrooms. But they are not. The underpinning belief behind a magnet school like Suncoast is that the entire culture must be renewed. A magnet school that does not honor the community in which it resides does little to promote understanding among students whose lives are incredibly different.

This study benefits the historiography of desegregation by examining desegregation practices that took place in the 1980s and 1990s, decades after Brown.

First, it disrupts the narrative that de jure segregation proliferated in the south whereas de facto desegregation existed in the north after Brown. The placement of this case in

South Florida is important for this argument because Florida has historically been viewed as an anomaly within the south. This dissertation addresses the categorization

21 “Magnet Schools Assistance: Eligibility,” United States Department of Education, last modified October 12, 2010, URL: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/magnet/eligibility.html

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of Florida as operating under a “Down South” mentality—one that carefully constructed roadblocks to racial equality but never “stood in the schoolhouse door” to preserve segregation.22 Historian of education Ansley Erickson’s study of educational space and desegregation in Nashville examined the ways that suburban developments claimed the rights to school building sites and fostered a school system that favored whites.23 The history of Suncoast contributes to this narrative because the Palm Beach County school board’s tactics of delay in desegregation prioritized the rights of its white citizens without defying laws. Additionally, the late 1970s fostered suburbanization that relied upon coordination with the local school board, which ultimately fostered the demise of urban schools like Suncoast. Just as Erickson described Nashville’s story “as much national as local, as much American as southern,” so is the story of Suncoast.24 Although this case study took place in an urban southern environment, school boards across the country used similar tactics that reinforced residential, and therefore educational desegregation.25 The study of the conditions of Palm Beach County over time exemplify

22 Ed. Irvin D.S. Winsboro, Old South, New South, or Down South? Florida and the Modern Civil Rights Movement, (Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Press: 2009)

23 Ansley T. Erickson, “Building Inequality: The Spatial Organization of Schooling in Nashville, Tennessee after Brown,” Journal of Urban History, 38(2), 2012:247-270. Other studies of school desegregation have acknowledged the ways that local governances used space to impede desegregation. Davison Douglas, Reading, Writing, and Race: The Desegregation of the Charlotte Schools (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), 123-33, 138-39, discusses the closures of black high schools. David Cecelski, Along Freedom Road: Hyde County, North Carolina and the Fate of Black Schools in the South (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1994). Gregory S. Jacobs, Getting Around Brown: Desegregation, Development and the Columbus Public Schools (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1998).

24 Erickson, “Building Inequality,” 248.

25 Gregory S. Jacobs, Getting Around Brown: Desegregation, Development, and the Columbus Public Schools (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1995); Matthew Lassiter, “De Jure/De Facto Segregation: The Long Shadow of a National Myth,” in Matthew D. Lassiter and Joseph Crespino, eds., The End of Southern History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009);

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that the segregation and inequality of education for Riviera Beach blacks resulted from decades of overt and subtle discriminatory policies.

This dissertation calls for concern over the growing numbers of magnet schools as a vital root of the federally funded push toward privatization of schools through school choice. Despite millions of federal dollars dispersed throughout the United States to create and maintain these special schools, their growing presence goes largely unnoticed by historians of education. School choice has become a major component of educational reforms that historians of education such as Diane Ravitch, David Tyack, and Larry Cuban have critiqued.26 Educational reforms during the last century have derived from large social perceptions of education as a panacea. Instead, reforms should draw from within schools to make substantive change for students. The case of

Suncoast High School demonstrates that magnet schools require more scrutiny because their origins precede charter schools. Though not part of a coordinated reform,

Jeanne Theoharris, “I’d Rather Go to School in the South”: How Boston’s School Desegregation Complicates the Civil Rights Paradigm,” in Komisi Woodward, ed., Freedom North: Black Freedom Struggles Outside the South, 1940-1980 (Gordonsville, VA: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 135.51. Robert O. Self, American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland, (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2003), 5-7; Thomas J. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North, (New York: Random House, 2008), Matthew J. Countryman, Up South: Civil Rights and Black Power in Philadelphia, (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 4. Ronald P. Formisano, Boston Against Busing: Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 3-4.

26 Diane Ravitch, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education,” (New York: Basic Books, 2010); David Tyack and Larry Cuban, Tinkering Toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995). The following works address magnet schools briefly, but do not highlight their impact on education; this leads to the issue of magnet schools as a desegregation method to become neutral, making it easy to assume that magnet schools were successful in desegregating schools: Michael Casserly, “Uncle Sam and the Nation’s Great City Schools: Reflections on a Rocky Relationship,” in Carrots, Sticks, and the Bully Pulpit: Lessons From a Half-Century of Federal Efforts to Improve America’s Schools, Frederick M. Hess and Andrew P. Kelly (eds.), (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2011), 211; Paul E. Peterson, “The New Politics of Choice” in Learning From the Past: What History Teaches us about School Reform, Diane Ravitch and Maris A. Vinovskis, eds. (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 15. 212

magnet schools operate in similar ways to other methods of school choice. Magnet schools like Suncoast essentially provide a system of schooling that is separate from the public school system because of their exclusivity.

The study of magnet schools as part of the school choice movement provides a path to discuss the “rhetoric of choice” and its relationship with school segregation and segregation. Erickson argued that current conversations of school choice leave out issues of segregation and desegregation, though they are linked rhetorically. Both school choice and opposition to desegregation place emphasis on individual decision making while downplaying the influence of policy and politics.27 In the narrative of desegregation, this relates to the myth of de facto segregation that ignores a history of decades of discriminatory policies that led to desegregation. The current school choice movement argues that charter schools and magnet schools offer choice equally while ignoring physical, economic, and political constraints of individuals. Magnet schools like

Suncoast deal with similar problematic issues as the current school choice movement.

The study of Suncoast High School demonstrates that the implementation of the magnet school there has used to “rhetoric of choice” to justify displacement of neighborhood students. School choice implies individual action; it places responsibility on students and parents to attain a good education and not school systems. Suncoast’s high standards steadily drove the majority of the population of Riviera Beach out, but the school board and school administration have not yet taken on the responsibility for

27 Ansley T. Erickson, “The Rhetoric of Choice: Segregation, Desegregation, and Charter Schools,” Dissent (Fall 2011): 41.

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this outcome. School choice reforms need to respond to these consequences instead of assuming that all students can easily make a choice about their education.

Lastly, this dissertation offers commentary on the way that magnet schools, a powerful force within school choice, can fundamentally alter the way that high schools operate. In 1985, Arthur G. Powell, Eleanor Farrar, and David K. Cohen utilized the shopping mall as a metaphor to describe a typical high school in the United States.28

The shopping mall high school provided various types of students “specialty shops” that suited their needs. The “top track” shops catered to the school’s “brightest or most ambitious students,” while other shops focused on special needs, truants and misbehavers, and job-minded students.29 Embedded in the conceptualization of the

“specialty shop” is the notion of “specialness,” which applies to students and teachers who participate. Importantly, the shopping mall high school metaphor came about because of a trend toward commodification of education—schooling driven by consumer demand.

While the metaphor of the shopping mall accurately described American high schools in the mid-1980s, the transformation of Suncoast and its eventual influence on

Palm Beach County demonstrates its limit. School choice and consumer demand in education has shifted. Whereas individual schools were viewed as a one-stop-shop for all students, magnet schools and charter schools change that perception. When

Suncoast first opened, it altered the function of the school district because having a magnet school required advertising the school. When individual schools are branded

28 Arthur G. Powell, Eleanor Farrar, and David K. Cohen, The Shopping Mall High School: Winners and Losers in the Educational Marketplace

29 Ibid. 119-123, 134, 214

they become specialty shops in their own right. Early administrators claimed that they intended Suncoast to be a school that could provide for any type of student so long as they were dedicated to the curriculum and culture of academic excellence. This dissertation demonstrates that residents of Riviera Beach almost immediately perceived the change in the school as out of their grasp. When schools take on specializations including International Baccalaureate, special science curricula, arts, etc., they often limit the pool of students who consider themselves part of that particular group. As a result, students who might not only benefit from the special curriculum but also contribute new perspectives in those environments are all too often excluded.

School districts that heavily rely on magnet schools like Suncoast also create problems related to access. Any magnet school that has strict admissions policies not only forces students to compete to attend, but also places a burden on parents to understand this system so their students may participate. If a school requires an entrance exam, the parent must arrange for their student to take it. If the school requires an audition or interview, then the parents must provide transportation and expend time and energy to give their child a chance to do so. This system places unfair burdens on students and parents alike, but especially those who are already disadvantaged.

Widespread use of magnet schools or charter schools can create conditions in which the neighborhood school—the shopping mall high school—disappears. In its place is a school district full of unique specialty stores.

The Inequality of Choice

For Riviera Beach’s predominantly black and economically deprived citizens,

Suncoast High School has been and remains a symbol of disappointment. It represents the abandonment of neighborhood schools and decades of neglect for a community that 215

still struggles simply to exist in harmony. Before the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown decision ever made the call for desegregation throughout the nation, Riviera Beach had two public high schools that its students could attend—one all-white and the other all- black. To be sure, the all-black high school suffered in the typical ways that black institutions have because of the separation of the races. Like most all-black institutions,

John F. Kennedy High School (originally Lincoln High School) received less financial backing and encountered additional obstacles to provide its students with the same quality of education as white students. The school, however, provided a community resource for students and parents. Riviera Beach High School, the white school founded in 1955, sat in contrast to its all-black counterpart. But while these obvious differences existed in 1955, parents from Riviera Beach had two community high schools for their children—even under segregation. When HEW demanded desegregation in 1969, the community lost its black high school in favor of retaining the all-white school for all students—the newly created Suncoast. At the very least, however, all students could attend. By the time that Suncoast became a nationally renowned magnet school, Riviera Beach residents had no community high school to call its own. In fact, in 2002 the school board promised Riviera Beach a new high school for its students who continued to be bused outside of their neighborhood. But the promise has not been fulfilled.30 It must be acknowledged that supporting magnet schools like

Suncoast, public schools that require tests and applications for admittance, will often strip their surrounding communities of the basic promise of education.

30 Letter to the Editor, “No High School for Riviera? Promised Eight Years Ago Squabbles have Stymied it,” The Palm Beach Post, February 15, 2010. URL: http://m.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/opinion/no- high-school-for-riviera-promised-eight-years-ag/nL4gf/

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Embracing school choice by providing magnet schools throughout Palm Beach

County has allowed for choice to characterize the district. In fact, in 2010, the students, faculty, and administration evacuated the old Suncoast campus, which had once been

Riviera Beach High School, and entered a new state-of-the-art educational facility.

Though teachers and students lamented the nostalgia and charm of the old campus, they were on the whole happy to leave behind an emblem of what they viewed as a negative past. But the old school building is not empty. When Suncoast moved to a better facility, a new school soon arrived. Instead of a new community high school, the county placed a charter school into the building where Suncoast once stood. Inlet Grove is a charter school that offers a variety of career oriented curricula and is also an

International Baccalaureate school.31 Parents from Riviera Beach have asked for unfettered access to education for their high school students close to home for decades, but that call has gone unanswered. The drive to include more choice simply pushes these students farther and farther away from their homes.

The use of school choice to eliminate racial desegregation has exacerbated longstanding problems in Riviera Beach. When Debra Robinson spoke at the school board workshop in 2013, she unearthed a painful truth about the dark side of Suncoast high school: “Suncoast displaced all the children in the neighborhood. Every child in the neighborhood, who lived across the street, could no longer go to that school. No longer had a right to go to that school.”32 To deny students an accessible high quality

31 The curricula offered at Inlet Grove includes: Commercial Art, Culinary Arts, International Baccalaureate, Journalism, Nursing, Pre-Architecture, Pre-Engineering, Pre-Law, Pre-Med, TV & Film, and Web Design. Inlet Grove, “Career Choices,” Inlet Grove Website, accessed April 28,2015, www.inletgrovehs.com/parents.php

32 “School Board Workshop 1: Magnet Schools Assistance Program,” Video, accessed February 6, 2013, URL: http://www.palmbeachschools.org/Community/BoardVideo.asp 217

education is more than simply irresponsible: it is criminal. Ultimately, if we as a nation truly believe that education can be transformative for all students, then we ought to reject education as choice, especially with the expectation of desegregation. This dissertation of the history of circumstances surrounding the establishment of Suncoast

High School exposed the decades long struggle for Riviera Beach parents to provide high quality education for their children. It demonstrates that satisfying desegregation quotas cannot guarantee quality of educational opportunity for all students. Not only can magnet schools produce racial isolation within their classrooms, but they can also displace neighborhood students who do not fit the profile of the exclusive. True racial integration in schools is impossible to achieve without concerted efforts toward residential integration. But until that happens it is unconscionable to deprive any students in this country a chance to succeed close to home.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Amy Martinelli was born the last of two children in West Palm Beach, Florida in

1983. Her father, Victor, is the Chief Financial Officer for a construction company and her mother, Sharon, owned and operated a business as a Certified Public Accountant until making a career change and becoming a Certified Life Coach. Her family moved to

Wellington, a suburb of West Palm Beach when she was two months old. She attended the Dreyfoos School of the Arts, a magnet school in West Palm Beach, for her sophomore year of high school and graduated from Wellington Community High School in 2001. She attended the University of Florida and received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature in 2005.

In 2007, she received a Master of Arts in Education with a major in Social

Foundations of Education from the University of Florida’s College of Education and worked with Sevan Terzian. Throughout her graduate education she coached the

University of Florida Speech and Debate team and was awarded Outstanding New

Coach of the Year from the American Forensics Association National Individual Events

Tournament Committee in 2008. She remained in Gainesville, Florida after her master’s degree and continued her work with the speech and debate team. In 2008, she began a brief stint in the College of Journalism and Communication in the doctoral program but quickly realized that she preferred to work toward the noble pursuits of education rather than commercialization. She began her pursuit of a Doctor of Philosophy degree in curriculum and instruction and continued working with Sevan Terzian in the summer of

2009.

While working on her graduate degrees, Amy became involved in Gainesville’s local arts community. She performed vocally with two local bands, “Palm and Pine” in 229

2007 and “Rosewater” in 2014. She also performed in the Victory Against Violence annual production of The Vagina Monologues in 2010 and 2014. In addition, her acrylic paintings were displayed in two Gainesville venues, The Jones Eastside restaurant and

The Bull, a bar and music venue.

Amy plans to relocate to Lincoln, Nebraska in the fall of 2015 with her fiancé and hopes to continue her work in speech and debate and history of education.

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