Thanks for showing those pictures, Paul. Excellent photos and an even
better story to accompany them.
Carlos
On 6/5/2015 9:18 PM, paul stenquist wrote:
I taught English Lit and Composition at a very special place called Percy L.
Julian High School from 1975 to 1980. Prior to my years at Julian I had been
teaching at one of the worst schools in Chicago — Austin High School — a West
Side school that had gone from 100% white to 100% black in a few years. The
administration and the largely white staff didn’t know what to do, the school
was out of control and on fire frequently and, at one point, the National Guard
had to be called in. In 1975 the federal government mandated faculty
integration, meaning that if you were a white teacher at a school that had too
many white teachers and you wanted to transfer to a school that had too many
black teachers, they had to allow you to apply for a position. I had heard
about Julian. It was an all-black school on the south side of Chicago. It
wasn’t a white school that had re-segregated but rather a brand new school that
a prosperous middle class black community had fought for. I ap
plied, the principal approved it, and the largely black staff welcomed me and
several other Austin teachers with open arms.
I had some great classes and some wonderful kids at Julian. I taught Honors
English 3 and a special double-period Humanities class. The kids and I went to
the Chicago Symphony, the opera and a number of theatrical presentations. We
had a great marching band, majorettes and cheerleaders. All in the mid 70s when
the white kids in the suburban schools were thumbing their noses at those kind
of things. We also had a fabulous football team, and in 1979 we became the
first public school in almost 20 years to win a city championship over the
predominantly white catholic league schools.
I documented much of my time at Julian on film. I have several thousand
transparencies and BW negs that I shot during those five happy years. I’ve just
begun scanning some of them. I started with that 1979 football championship,
but I have many more that I will eventually scan.
In March of 1980 I was offered a job in New York at Hearst Magazine Division.
The Chicago Board of Education had run out of money and had stopped paying the
teachers. We were on the picket line when I got the call. I crossed the line,
walked into the office to turn in my resignation on Thursday afternoon, March
7, 1980 and flew to New York the next morning. I still feel guilty. Today,
Julian is still somewhat better than the other Southside Chicago High Schools,
but the magic is largely gone. The entire south side of Chicago is a mess.
The gangs are in control, and kids are shot on the street every day. A number
of Julian kids have been killed on their way home from school. It’s had for me
to imagine. It’s heartbreaking.
Here are the first of my Julian scans. The way it was 40 years ago.
http://photo.net/photodb/folder.tcl?folder_id=1080368
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