Apartheid. USA 1988

December 30, 1987:

‘Should race be a factor in the selection of New York City's next schools chancellor?,’ asked an editorial in the Times. ‘Of course it should - but it can be only one factor in determining who could function most effectively to rescue the floundering school system.’

The editorial: ‘Race and the Chancellor Race’ continued: ‘Black demonstrators point out that there is a plurality of public school students, 38 percent are black and 34 percent more are Hispanic, yet only one black and one Hispanic are represented on the seven-member Central Board of Education. The school system appears to offer a prime opportunity for new minority leadership.’^191.

191. The New York Times, editorial

[p. 152]

The small town of Keysville, Georgia is 70 percent black. When the town was incorporated in 1890, the boundaries were established as everything within a half-mile of the Keysville Academy. Later a tornado demolished the building in about 1895 and over the years its exact location became unclear. When the town government disbanded in 1933, it left Keysville incorporated but ungoverned, with no city water or sewer system, and no police or fire department. State Highway 88, which meanders through part of town, is virtually the only paved surface. Sandy roads lined by scrub bush, rusty cars and barking dogs lead to the shacks and mobile homes where most of the people live. Some people have wells and septic tanks. Others haul water and have crude home-made cesspools. The nearest doctor is 10 miles away. Keysville's schools, one black and one white, were disbanded in the 1950's. Children are bused 18 miles to schools in Waynesboro, Georgia. The town has two churches, one for blacks and one for whites. Whites live on one side of the highway, blacks on the other. With no government, Keysville gets no state tax money or other benefits because there is nobody to receive them.

The blacks in Keysville began an action to reactivate the government of the town. It would mean to begin with running water and fire protection for the 300 residents of the rural town. Black residents scheduled an election for mayor and a town council, but whites managed to get a court injunction to halt the election, knowing they were going to be outvoted. ‘Racism, in our opinion, is the real reason this injunction was placed on the citizens of Keysville to deny them the opportunity to re-enfranchise their community,’ said Georgia state representative Tyrone Brooks, a member of the legislative Black Caucus. The trick used was that no election could be held prior to the exact establishment of the town's boundaries and those had become vague since the tornado of 1895.^192.

192. The New York Times, from a report by the Associated Press

[p. 153]

Father Lawrence Lucas, the black pastor of the Resurrection Roman Catholic Church on West 151st Street in Manhattan got himself into hot water during a speech to several hundred black educators and civil rights advocates who had rallied in support of Adlaide L Sanford as black Schools Chancellor in New York City. At one point Father Lucas said, ‘It seems that in this city, that each group of what we call Caucasian, has a segment to do us in. Those who are killing us in our homes, falsely arresting us in the subway, who are murdering us in the streets, come primarily from the Catholic persuasion. Those who are killing us in the classroom I do not have to tell you what persuasion they come from. You just have to look at the Board of Education, and it looks like the Knessel in Israel.’

Mayor Edward Koch, a Jew himself, was up in arms. At an impromptu press conference he sharply criticized Father Lucas for ‘exacerbating racial tensions.’ He continued, ‘Happens there is one Jew on the Board of Education. I wouldn't care if there were seven, if they were the best people in the city but it happens there is only one. And for Father Lucas to engage in invective that can only have as its purpose to get people to denounce Jews or to denounce Italians - which is what he did - is an outrage.’ The Mayor protested with John Cardinal O'Connor of New York.^193.

193. The New York Times, from a report by Allan Finder