A Desegregated Life
I remember my dad waking me up to get ready for school, shortly after we moved to Franklin Township, New Jersey. It was April 1973. Franklin High School was my third school that freshman year. We started the school year in Maracaibo, Venezuela, then moved back stateside to Grand Rapids, Michigan, then Franklin, where my dad had taken over as principal of a high school in the midst of fierce race riots.
We had talked the night before about what to expect that day. We had been getting threatening phone calls since we moved there. “Cleaveland comes to school and he’s a dead man,” “We’re going to f*&@ up your daughter if she comes to school,” … the classic intimidation drill. Most of the calls came from the local KKK members in town. Franklin had been seething under enforced desegregation and bussing. The KKK was a big factor, one my dad was pretty used to.
My mom was not happy that I was going to school that day, but my dad, George Cleaveland, was pretty adamant — if I didn’t go to school, it would look like he was intimidated and he wasn’t going to be intimidated by anyone. He did prepare me, though, and we walked through steps I would have to take if a riot broke out that day or any day in the future. We were off.
Of course, this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened to the family. My dad, a teacher, had run a summer camp for the United Way in Michigan, Camp Blodgett (which still runs today), where inner-city kids came to enjoy two weeks on Lake Michigan. I never knew there was any difference between me, my sister and brothers, and the campers. We were all kids, climbing dunes, learning archery, and painting ourselves like Indians.
Because of his work at Camp Blodgett, in the late 1960s, my dad was tapped to help desegregate Union High School in Grand Rapids, Michigan, as principal. He worked closely with our local congressman, Mr. Ford, to ensure bussing went off without a hitch and that the black students coming into Union were protected and safe.
Unfortunately, it was not the case. Riots broke out at the school, with the KKK and white supremacist students blocking the way into the school. Police were a constant presence at the school, which caused its own problems.
That’s when the threatening phone calls first became part of my consciousness. I was 9 or 10, and someone called to say my dad was going to die the next day. Of course, I panicked. A month later, right after my dad and grandpa finished painting our house the most beautiful color of green, someone spray-painted swastikas on the entire house.
The worst was the cross burned on our front lawn. Imagine being 10 or 11, sound asleep, when you’re awoken smelling burning kerosene and wood. Fifty years later, I can still smell it.
Ultimately, my dad banned parents and police from Union, opened a dialogue with the students from every side of the issue, and peace was restored.
Because of the heat (no pun intended) on our family, Mr. Ford suggested my dad take a post as superintendent of American schools in South America, so we moved to Venezuela for two years to wait things out.
Now, we were back in the thick of it, this time with me as a high school freshman. I barely knew what continent I was on, let alone which school I was attending. But Dad and I talked about it on the way to school, we planned strategy, and we started our respective days.
Most of the day went off without a hitch, until it came time for algebra class. Someone came to the door of the classroom to talk to my algebra teacher. Then the fire alarm went off. My teacher came over to me and asked that four of the burlier students in the room escort me down to the front office. Then we heard glass breaking, yelling, chaos going on outside.
I don’t remember what the trigger for the rioting was that day. I had heard some nonsense about a black student cheating a white student in a drug deal, then beating up the white student, but that was ridiculous. Generally, though, the black students were tired of not being heard. They had had enough.
In the midst of all this, I was walked down toward the principal’s office, but couldn’t reach the front door, so I jumped on the school bus parked right in front of the door. Everyone knew who I was, so I didn’t get onto the bus unnoticed. Soon, the rioters were working hard at tipping the bus over. It was me, the bus driver (some long-haired hippy dude), and a couple of other students. I was being tossed around like a rag doll, all 85 pounds of me.
Then it happened. The front door of the school opened and out came my dad. What got me was how calm he was. He walked out the front door and approached the leader of the rioters trying to overturn the bus. The guy didn’t see him, so my dad touched him on his shoulder and crooked his finger to follow him into the school. Dad turned around and, without looking back, walked into the school auditorium.
And all the students followed.
That was it. It was done.
Of course, police had shown up, but Dad wouldn’t let them in the school. As had happened in Michigan, he closed the school to police and parents. He started a dialogue, an inclusive, far-reaching dialogue, to effect true change.
There was one more riot, well, non-riot. A group of white kids set themselves up in the center of the bus driveway, demanding the school once again return to whites only, but that lasted about 20 seconds.
As for most, high school was a time of being bullied. I was the principal’s daughter. I was 5'7" and literally weighed 85 pounds. I was gawky, geeky, and socially inept. So I poured myself into my group of lovely friends, most of whom I still talk with.
My dad wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, as I’m not a perfect mother. There are plenty of stories about just how imperfect he was. But I was and will ever be immensely proud of the man who helped me live a desegregated life.
