Chapter 7

"OK, let's start with some definitions. What's a Progressive?" He mentally took a deep breath, diving in to the same old pool. Hope I drown, said something deep inside. The pool of despair, again and again and again.

"Mr. Thompson, I know this is off the subject, but yesterday you said we used to have two school systems around here. That right?"

The teacher nodded. "Uh huh. For about a hundred years."

"How come I never heard of that?" The young black man looked offended or neglected or something of the sort. It was, the teacher thought, unusual for him, a boy who was studiously neutral, uninvolved, cool.

"How long's your family lived in the county?"

"Five or six years. We're from Ohio."

"That's why. You've got to find some folks, some African-American folks who've been here a while, before the Fifties, before the war or came up from the South. Some have been here for as long as there's been a county, since 1776. Ask some white kid's grandpa."

"But, but, how could they do that?" He spread his arms wide, almost hitting the girl in the next row. She squealed and he apologized.

"It was the law, Maryland law, right from the start. The State said there had to be schools for black kids, this was after slavery ended, 1864. You know it was illegal to teach a slave how to read, don't you? But it didn't say what kind of schools, or how many, or for how long. At least not at first. So there were white schools and black schools. It was the way things were. I think the black schools went to grade eight in the beginning, and they got used books and old furniture. White schools were brick; black schools wood."

"So what was going on? I mean, it's strange, weird, two separate school systems side by side." He made a face, distasteful, acrid, bitter, something of the sort thought the teacher, distasteful. "I mean, it costs money, right?"

"Yep, it was. But they paid a lot more for the white kids, maybe five or ten times more. They were separate schools but they sure weren't equal. Everybody was used to it, thought it was normal, the way things were supposed to be, separate drinking fountains, all of that, sit in the back of the bus, sit in the balcony at church and at the movies." Shouldn't they know this, thought the teacher. No marches in their memories I guess. Civil eights was not a cause, it was a law, a law that many refused to obey.

"Remember, Maryland was a slave state. Even the Emancipation Proclamation didn't apply here. I don't think there were any protests until a black principal raised a fuss when he found out that white principals got paid more than he did."

"Where were these schools? Can I see one?"

"Mostly gone, a couple are still in use, but most have been torn down. The school system's offices are in one, a brick one."

"Around here, any in this area?"

"Yep, nearest one was over on River Road, near that place that sells ice, and there was one over toward Silver Spring, near the B&O railroad tracks, and another out Cabin John way."

"Did they have school busses for black kids?"

"Think so, near the end anyhow, after the war, World War Two. A lot of people measure things by the war. If you hear me say that, the war, it means the Second World War, 1939 to 1945. Some kids, black kids, went into D.C. for schooling. It was free for a while, and then there were ways to get around paying."

The boy shook his head and closed his eyes, confused.

"Enough?" asked the teacher. "You people who have grandparents that have lived here a long time, you ask them about this and maybe we'll talk about it again. Later."

A girl raised her hand. "My mother said there were no black kids in her high school, this high school."

"Interesting. But not unusual. Ask around, let's see what we can learn. Remember African-Americans are a small minority, perhaps ten percent. Now, about the Progressives, what does that word mean, what did they want?"

Amazing said his inside voice, you actually remembered what you were doing, put it back on the right track - gold star on the calendar.