Before going on the
Living Legacy Pilgrimage, I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing six people in my home city of Kalamazoo who experienced racial segregation in their youth. Here are two of those stories.
Dr. Martha Warfield
As a student in rural Dowagiac, Michigan, Martha Warfield was among five black musicians in their high school band when it marched in the Orange Bowl parade and halftime show in Miami Gardens, Florida, in January 1955.
Throughout the preceding summer, the entire band -- blacks and whites -- had worked together washing cars and picking pickles to raise money to cover expenses.
Upon arrival in Florida, the black students were told they could not stay in the band's designated hotel because it was owned by the segregated Dade County School District and used as a training facility for students in hotel management.
Black chaperones, including Martha's parents, threatened to take the black musicians back to Michigan, but the band director pointed out that all five, including the lead drummer, were first-chair players ... and necessary for a good performance.
The local NAACP chapter got involved and arranged for the black musicians to stay at a very fine integrated hotel in Miami Beach where the Count Basie Orchestra happened to be performing.
When the professionals learned of the students' situation, they invited them to join them on stage to play with the orchestra.
While that was an honored privilege, Martha also recalls with regret that, when the entire Dowagiac band was together, the white students dutifully pointed out that their fellow black students were to use the "colored only" bathrooms and drinking fountains.
"They so easily fell into the ways of southern segregation even though we shared the same bathrooms and drinking fountains at home," she says.
In her career, Dr. Warfield served as vice president for diversity and inclusion at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Dr. Ben Wilson
Born and raised in Florida, Ben Wilson, in 1963, was among the first African Americans to desegregate the football and basketball teams at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
He was the first black person to play in a particular district basketball tournament in Arcadia, Florida.
On the court, Wilson was taunted by white spectators, including adults. "They began to catcall, 'I thought Malcolm X was dead,' (referring to the recent assassination of the black civil rights activist) and other nasty racial comments," he says.
Wilson's participation as a black athlete in the tournament was so significant and unusual that it was featured in a local newspaper.
Now retired, Dr. Wilson is emeritus professor and director of Africana Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan; author of books on African American heritage; producer of educational programs on Michigan's Black Experience; and participant in professional development seminars.
Next blog: The same ole issues: Ole Miss
