Honoring Scarboro’s role in DOE’s ground-breaking school desegregation
EDITOR:
Honoring Scarboro’s Role in DOE’s Ground-Breaking School Desegregation
This summer, the Department of Energy has an opportunity to say “thank you” to a group of important Americans, the residents of the historically African American neighborhood of Scarboro in Oak Ridge.
The neighborhood of Scarboro was created by the DOE nuclear complex in the late 1940s to house many of its African American workers, who labored around-the-clock to help America win World War II.
In 1955, the department — who still owned and managed the city of Oak Ridge — desegregated the Oak Ridge public school system. This was the first public school system in the South to take this bold step.
Imagine their courage, as African American students walked into the previously all-white classrooms for the first time. Imagine the courage of their Scarboro parents, allowing their children to enter such an uncertain environment.
What a triumph of the American spirit.
What’s even more amazing, this desegregation occurred prior to the ground-breaking civil rights protest of Ms. Rosa Parks. It also occurred a full two years before the famous Little Rock school desegregation.
Later this summer, on July 27 through 29, the Scarboro Community Alumni Association will host a Scarboro reunion.
They are expecting hundreds of former Scarboro residents to attend, including many who pioneered the nation’s very first school desegregation.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Secretary of Energy Rick Perry or Under Secretary Lisa E. Gordon-Hagerty (the head of DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration) could attend to give the nation’s thanks to these great Tennesseans?
Suppose Mayor Terry Frank or Mayor Warren Gooch asked Representative Chuck Fleischmann to invite DOE to the event. Do you think Secretary Perry or Under Secretary Gordon-Hagerty would respond?
America owes the people of Scarboro a deep debt of gratitude for their wonderful contribution to our nation. This summer is a perfect opportunity to say “thank you.”
Martin McBride
Oak Ridge
