Venable Elementary School
Venable Elementary School
“I had never been in a situation before where I was the only Black in the classroom.”
Corlis Turner Anderson
“I never told my mother. I felt like it was my burden at that age to carry.”
Corlis Turner Anderson
“And in Venable, that’s my first brush with discrimination.”
Kent Merritt
“It just wasn’t no discussion. That was the school I was going to.”
Charles Alexander
“She would send little notes home in my backpack to my mother to share the type of day that I had.”
Charles Alexander
“They went home and they told their daddy, and the daddy came to school looking for me.”
Charles Alexander
“If this thing is going to work, then we had to be not as good as, but we had to be better.”
Frankie Allen
“First day you go to lunch, and you sit there, and you’re sitting there by yourself.”
Frankie Allen
“Is he good enough to be on the team?”
Frankie Allen
Rod Gentry
Rod Gentry
“I remember I just wanted to go to school.”
Robert King
“I was leaving all of my Black friends and I was leaving the teachers.”
Robert King
“I would just turn my head away from the class because I’d have tears coming down.”
Robert King
“There was no preparation that I remember.”
Robert King
“Don’t you ever look at me that way.”
Veronica Jones
“We were all bunched together.”