The Tribune 10.20.05

Black Empowerment and Elected School Boards

There are sincere and reasoned opinions on both sides of the issue of an elected school board, which will be on the November 8 ballot for the first time in Charlottesville. But I have no doubt where civil rights pioneers like Barbara Jordan would fall: they would favor the direct participation by all members of the community in the selection of the School Board.

In 1964, I worked alongside Barbara Jordan to organize a protest against the Houston School Board’s foot-dragging school integration plan, designed to delay full integration of the Houston schools as long as possible. I helped Barbara mobilize the community to fight successfully for a more aggressive plan. The same year saw the ratification of the Twenty-fourth Amendment outlawing the poll tax. In Houston’s black neighborhoods, we registered for the first time citizens whose participation in our democracy had been systematically limited by the $2 poll tax that prevented many of them from voting.

As Barbara knew well and I learned through her eyes, there are dramatic disparities in the way black and white citizens experience reality. In Charlottesville, the elected school board has become a symbol to African-Americans of the power that derives from full participation in the Democratic process, and of the long struggle of black Americans to get an equal education.

Barbara Jordan affirmed her unshakable faith in the Constitution and the principle of equal protection with these words at the 1976 Democratic Convention: "We believe that the people are the source of all governmental power; that the authority of the people is to be extended, not restricted. This can be accomplished only by providing each citizen with every opportunity to participate in the management of the government. They must have that."

I support the move to elected school boards, but I do so with my eyes open. There is legitimate concern that the electoral process will result in a board that does not reflect the diversity of our community, as appointed boards have successfully done in recent years. The danger is that over time, a lack of interest, a lack of candidates, or simply the difficult process of getting elected, will lead to a less diverse board, rather than a more diverse one. Locally, Albemarle County and Nelson County each has three school board seats on the ballot this year, and none of them are contested.

Our move to an elected School Board must be accompanied by a firm commitment to ensuring diversity. Only then can we call our system a representative democracy. Only then can we be confident that all voices are being heard. Only then will our political reality approach the ideals espoused by Barbara Jordan and other pioneers who sought to enfranchise every citizen, one vote at a time.