"Our parents were worried about integrated schools—not that we wouldn’t get an education but about the process of getting that education. My father always said, nobody ever called you “Boy” and meant it with the little "B". We decided to stay in the Black school, mostly for our own mental health. Discrimination was already a reality in the community, why put it more in your face at school? I remember going to the Greyhound bus station and seeing white and colored bathrooms and water fountains, but my mother protected us from segregation as much as she could. 

My mother always wanted us to feel that we were important in our community and expected to do good things. She felt that growing up was already hard, and she didn't want to make it harder by exposing us to people who didn’t want us. She wanted us to be where we were valued. This was the consensus among many in the Black community – they didn’t want their children to go to school where they were going to be knocked down. Their feelings of self-worth were important."