San Antonio Register (San Antonio, Tex.), Vol. 65, No. 17, Ed. 1 Thursday, October 24, 1996 Page: 6 of 10
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‘That’s why Tm here’
Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks goes
on tour to reinstill lessons to youths
PHILADELPHIA - The white
Mmo flowed up to the curb, and
0aaaevs-by stopped, turned and bo-
urne silhouette u
Windows. “Who is thaf?”
The back door clicked open, and
tyro dainty feet slowly descended to
the sidewalk. A broad-shouldered
man wearing an
earpiece and one
of those Secret
Service suits ap-
peared at the
door and hooked
his arm into half
a parentheses
for the passen-
ger who slowly
rose from the
back seat.
Applause p .
rained down like KarKS
a sudden summer squall. Cheers
rose, shouts split the air.
“Rosa, Rosa, Rosa!” the crowd
chanted.
So it was that Rosa Parks, the
83-year-old civil-rights superstar hit
town Friday to a welcome usually
reserved for rock stars. With a prac-
ticed, royal wave, the seamstress
who started a revolution acknowl-
edged the cheers at Community
College of Philadelphia as she
stepped out of her hmo, her thin
smile radiating below those owlish
bifocals.
“Rosa. Rosa!”
%
m
bar story to a new generation. The
tour Is sponsored In part by the
Ross and Raymond Parks Institute
for Self Development She began a
trip to Philadelphia Friday by visit-
ing Abington Friends School and
speaking before more than 1,500
school students who
“We’re very concerned about the
youth these days,” she said in her
whisper of voice to Friday’s crowd at
CCP. “You’re living in some very
perilous times right now. ... That’s
why I’m here.”
Sne said she had come to not only
talk about her own legacy but to
remind young people of the role they
had in preserving it
That message wasn’t lost on 15-
year-old Shawn Jackson, a senior.
He was one of more than a dozen
students from around the country
selected to take part in Pathways to
Freedom, a Parks Institute program
that took students to tour historic
sites of the civil-rights movement
this summer accompanied by
Parks.
Jackson got wide-eyed when he
recalled meeting Parks: “It was like,
it was like meeting a movie star.”
‘ Jackson said he gained insight on
Parks’ refusal to give up her seat
“Everybody thinks that her feet
were hurting, that she was tired,”
Jackson said. “She told me that she
was
ment
Even before she entered the gym,
the students had been chantingner
name in a thunderous refrain, when
she finally did step onto the basket-
ball court, they ratcheted it up even
Over the last 40 years, her stray
has been documented well enough.
How after work one December day
in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955, she sat
down at the front of a Route D bus
and refused to yield her seat to a
white man. How she was arrested
for violating the South’s entrenched
Jim Crow laws because she
wouldn’t move to the back of the
bus, the “Colored” section. How her
case drew the attention of a dynam-
ic young preacher named Martin
Luther King Jr., who organized a
boycott of Montgomeiy’s buses on
her behalf.
And how after 381 days, the boy-
cott led the Supreme Court to out-
law segregation on public trans-
portation, which eventually allowed
African Americans access to all
public accommodations and gave
birth to the modern civil rights
movement.
Parks is on a national tour to tell
more.
Morenike Leon, 24, a student at
CCP, bounced up and down and
furiously snapped pictures.
“Oh, my God!” she said. “This is a
lifetime event”
Once at the podium, Parks made
several brief remarks, encouraging
the students to maintain “spiritual
awareness” and “to do what you can
to get the best grades you can.”
She said she was pleased by the
enthusiasm. And she left them with
this:
“We’ve come a long way from
Montgomery, Ala., where we suf-
fered so much. We have to continue
to do our best to make life better in
the future. Do what we can to make
sure that there’s freedom and equal-
ity and prosperity and peace in the
world."
Wild applause went up again. The
civil-rights superstar waved and
then took her seat.
In the front row.
San Antonio Re:
October 24,1996
The Godley family
Principal turns around
struggling elementary
school
Special to the Register from
Dallas
About a week ago. two or three
students at Albert Sydney Johnaan
Elementary School took it upon tban-
selves to dean up unsightly trash In a
school hattiroom.
Principal Lincoln Butler MP
nounced over the school’s PA system
that he was proud of the students.
Now Mr. Butler can’t walk the hall-
ways of the south Oak Cliff school
without some student tugging on his
arm to boast, “I cleaned up the bath-
room, Mr. Butler.”
Teachers at the school say the stu-
dents were following the example of
the ever-smiling Mr. Butler, who is
known to pick up loose paper whenev-
er he sees it
“I don't like to stand around and
give orders,” Mr. Butler said. “If I see
srunMhing that needs to be done, HI
just do it”
anne taking the reins in 1995, Mr.
Butler has had a tremendous impact
on Johnston, a school that had been
struggling to improve, district testing
officials said.
The school rose on the district’s
improvement-based ranking system
from 39th place to third among cam-
puses teaching kindergarten through
sixth grade. It’s among 79 schools
deemed most effective by the district
that will be honored at noon Wednes-
day af the Hyatt Regency Dallas
Employees at Johnston and 20 oili-
er campuses will divide SI million in
bonus money because of student aca-
demic gains. District officials are try-
ing tp find $1 million more to reward
an additional 57 scfiuuL> that were
promised cash in November.
With K»«ha M. Pease Elementary
dropping from the rankings, only
three schools have finished in the
money all nve yean of the
program. TWy an Cny Middle
School. Hmy W. Longfellow Acade-
jcnooi
“1 waa shocked to aaa us on the U*
again,” arid Joy Barnhart Ctoy* prin-
cipal.. “Wa don't do any kind of reme-
dial lasting work hare.”
Me. Barnhart anribuiaa her stu-
dents’ continued improvement to a
program that strmme the kind of non-
academic work that students find tan.
Whether it1* speech or ml or a new TV
production dma, Me Barnhart trim to
urn extrauirricufoi participation as a
reward for academic effort
“I don't focus an any type of driU-
'euMmd-klU-'em curriculum.” my* said.
“This lathe Nintendo age. You have to
make it a little more intriguing."
Highly regarded principals such m
Ms. Barnhart and m. Butler are a Mg
reaeon why schools improve, said Bob
Mandro, executive director of institu-
tional research for the district
“We have found that the beat way
to change your results is to bring in a
new principal—without a doubt," Dr.
Mandro —m
More times than not during the
day Mr. Butler can be found cruising
Johnston's hallways with a walkie-
talkie clipped to his belt
“I spend very little time in my of-
fice,” he said. That* why I'm always
behind on that administrative stuff.”
Before coming to Johnston, Mr.
Buffer had been out of the principal
business for years. He has served
as a principal at three other Dallas
schools and did a stint as a central
administrator at school district head-
quarters before taking the Johnston
job.
"I was bored,” he said. “I missed
being with the kids.”
After arriving, he replaced 16 of 42
teachers and managed to hire beck
some of his favorite teachers from
earlier tours as a principal.
One of those was Syporia Turner,
who worked with him 12 years ago at
BP. Darrell Learning Center.
“I like his management style,” Ms.
Turner said. “He’s a very fair person.
And he’s always so positive.”
Teachers and community members
say he has reversed dipping teacher
morale and improved discipline.
“He came in and got respect by
giving it,” said Mattie Foster, who has
two daughters at the school. “And he
tells a kid they are Number 1.”
The Annual Godley Reunion
this Sunda;
A-
Rev. Roy Godley, Moderator
The annual Godley reunion progam
and musical will be held Sunday,
October 27 at 3 p.m. in the San
Antonio Singers Building,4802Billy
Drive, near East Houston.
Performers will be the Rev. Godley
and family and other Godley fami-
lies of the city and surrounding area.
There will be dinner served on the
premises and a warm Christian invi-
tation is extended to everyone. For
more information call Rev. Godley,
Sr. moderator at (210) 359-9344 or
Mary Godley Steen (210) 658-0514.
See Principal
Page 9
Vote November 5 for the
candidate of your choice. It
is your right to vote.
Don’t let this one get away.
Vote ...Y ote...Vote
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San Antonio Register (San Antonio, Tex.), Vol. 65, No. 17, Ed. 1 Thursday, October 24, 1996, newspaper, October 24, 1996; San Antonio, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth842183/m1/6/: accessed June 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UT San Antonio Libraries Special Collections.