I interviewed a family friend, named Nancy, who graduated from Burch High School in Mingo, West Virginia in 1964. As a 74-year-old woman, she could not remember much of integration, but I found some of her answers pretty similar to what mine would have been. It was surprising to find that there have not been many changes in the southern region of West Virginia from the number of black people in schools to the way they are treated and the areas they mostly live. Things had not really changed in the area; however, there were a few differences when it came to how people talked about race and a seemingly increase in violence between races as time went on.
One of the main similarities between our schools was the lack of black people that were enrolled. I had never really thought or noticed that in my own schooling there were no black kids, but when I got this paper and sat down to talk to Nancy about her experiences, I realized I couldn't think of one black kid I went to school with or even graduated with. Nancy stated that at least in her area, people weren't too worried about integration personally because there were no black kids in the area. She couldn't even remember seeing any black kid when other sports teams would come to play sports at her school. For my schooling, however, it was common for schools in other areas to bring black athletes. Even though I don't remember anything particularly bad being said about these black athletes, there was clear attitude difference when they were in the room.
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Though the data I found from both time periods stipulate that there was a larger black population than either of us can remember, I realized that the data could be explained by Nancy's answers to my questions. While it was true that neither of our schools had black students, the cities of each of our counties had a made up most of the statistics of black people in the area. For example, before I interviewed her, I could not understand how Logan County claimed a black population of 1366. But when Nancy pointed out that most black people lived in the bigger city next door, I realized the same thing about my town.
In all, I found myself agreeing with Nancy about why there were so many race problems in our area. When it comes down to it, the race was not really talked about in either place. It seems like people in both places are not sure what to talk about race. This has led to an ignorance of one another and a large gap when it comes to understanding one another. Not only is a race not talked about, but in Nancy's case, she had never even been around black people until she was much older. By that time of her life, her mind had been filled with thoughts from other people who had also never been around black people.
One of the stark differences I found between the situations was the lack of violence that seemed to happen in Mingo after integration. I'm not sure if Nancy just couldn't remember anything specific or if that information was accurate, but it did seem odd. Though there were no race problems in my town in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I couldn't say the same thing about the cities around us. For example, Logan High School had police officers stationed throughout the school to contain the race war between the white boys and the black boys. No one can really come to a consensus about how the problems began, but I did find it strange that there had been more racial violence in my time that she could remember.
In conclusion, I found myself agreeing with Nancy when she talked about how these places are still not able to react to race because they did not have any real connection with black people. She believed that integration took too long because according to her, the more black people she met, the more she realized that she had something in common with them. Hence, going by that statement, it’s clear that little has changed in the last forty years, and I believe that even in the next forty years, there will be still no much change.
