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."