Gregory Freeman: She 'Kept On Pushing' To Help Pupils. P-D 10/26/1997

Headline: SHE `KEPT ON PUSHING' TO HELP PUPILS
Reporter: By Gregory Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Sun., Oct. 26, 1997
Section: NEWS, Page: 2D, Edition: FIVE STAR LIFT

NO ONE took the ragtag group of black parents seriously.
That, more than anything else, spawned the 1972 lawsuit against the St. Louis school system that led to today's hotly debated school desegregation program, says Minnie Liddell. Liddell, the parent whose name is on the suit, is known as the "mother of school desegregation" here. Yet she'd never planned to be part of anything monumental. "I was just looking out for my child, " she said in an interview last week.

The city's black schools in those days were routinely crowded. Her 12-year-old son had attended Ashland, Walbridge and Yeatman elementary schools, even though the family had remained at the same address. "Every other year they were sending him to another school because his school was o vercrowded, " she said.
In 1971 the school system had decided to move him once again, this time to Bates School. For Liddell - who thought Bates was in "horrible" condition - it was the last straw.
"I thought enough was enough, " she said. "Our kids were being moved from school to school because of overcrowding, yet they wouldn't send them to all-white schools in south St. Louis whose populations had dropped."

Liddell and several other parents met with the St. Louis School Board, hoping only to prevent their children from being moved to another school. "They ignored us, " Liddell said.
   So the parents kept their kids out of school for six weeks in protest, a tactic that they'd seen work in other cities.
   It didn't work here.
   Both blacks and whites summarily ignored the parents. Many thought the parents, including Liddell, were tilting at windmills.
   "Here I was, just a parent, not college-educated, not having any connections trying to change things, " she said. "People didn't take us seriously."

But those who ignored the parents didn't have the last laugh. The parents filed the monumental suit that Liddell says has given thousands of black youngsters an opportunity at a better education.
The case and the desegregation program that resulted have taken their toll on Liddell, who suffered a stroke last year. "I've made a lot of enemies, black and white, over the years, " said Liddell, 58. "But I've kept on pushing on this because it's so important."

Liddell acknowledges that some blacks these days complain that their youngsters are mistreated in some of the suburban schools where the kids are bused. "But all of the kids going to schools in St. Louis County aren't catching hell, " she said. "And we need for our kids to learn to be strong because racism isn't going away, and they're going to find it when they go into the real world."

Liddell has little patience for those who want to settle the desegregation case and end the program as quickly as possible. "A lot of that is just politics, " she said. "Jay Nixon's using this issue to get to Washington, just like John Ashcroft and Kit Bond did before him."
Nixon, the state's attorney general and a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, is pushing for a quick settlement of the desegregation case. Ashcroft and Bond were critics of the program before being elected to the Senate.

Liddell remembers her childhood days, growing up in the old Mill Creek area.
   Black students living in Webster Groves, Kirkwood and even Carondelet were bused to her neighborhood because school systems in the city and county didn't let black students attend school with white children.
   Even after the Brown vs. Board of Education case in 1954 (which ruled that separate but equal schools were unlawful), the city's schools didn't allow black and white students to mingle.
   While some black students were sent to all-white schools, they were placed in separate, all-black classrooms and had separate lunch and recess periods.
   "The schools did that, and the state allowed it to happen, " she said. "This went on for decades, and no one did anything about it."

Liddell's not enamored with the current St. Louis School Board. While the magnet schools are popular, she said, she doesn't believe that youngsters in the city's all-black schools are getting the education they should. Meanwhile, the School Board is talking about ending the desegregation program without what she thinks is a viable program to replace it. If the program ends, she said, she'd still like to see poor black children have the option of going to suburban schools.

Ultimately, she'd like to see the schools set up a system like one in Boston. Riots broke out when Boston started its desegregation program in the 1970s, but it has since gotten out from under the desegregation order. The system now has parent boards that oversee the work of educators. "If a principal's not up to snuff, the parent board can remove him, " she said. "The parents there were given a say-so in the hiring and firing of teachers. Meanwhile, the judge there has said that if the schools resegregate, parents have the right to take the case back into the courts."

She also favors the idea of charter schools. "We've got to come up with ways to improve the city's all-black schools that aren't magnet schools, " she said. "They are not getting a good education, and if magnet schools are going to help with that, come on with it."

School desegregation hasn't been perfect, Liddell says. "But I do believe that things would have remained the same, with black kids not getting an opportunity for a good education, had we not gone forward with the suit at the time."

"No matter what happens, I'm proud that I took a stand, " she said. "And no matter what, I can't quit."

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

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