Sequoia Union High School District Meeting Sets Attendance Boundaries
Restrictive covenants like the one in Palo Alto Gardens had been
set up all over the Mid-Peninsula. P
ractices like blockbusting and redlining created the situation such that Belle Haven and E
ast Palo Alto were essentially all black within a matter of less than ten years.
The NAACP and OCR had taken notice of our segregated neighborhoods
and were reviewing the attendance boundaries for the High Schools in Sequoia District in hopes of rectifying
an
all black high school in East Palo Alto and all white high schools in the rest of the mid-Peninsula.
These boundaries had already been set up, but the NAACP had asked that they be reviewed. 3,700 neighbors signed a petition asking that Willow Road be used instead as an attendance boundary for the high schools because that would create more equality: racially and economically. However, the Board - and some vocal neighbors from the west - voted to keep the boundaries the same: along 101. The NAACP named it The Concrete Curtain.
“The Board and Superintendent are aware that there are social-economic problems; they have considered these carefully and feel like they would like to do something to influence the attitudes of society. Attitudes, however can be changed only through the education of the people and will not be modified by manipulation of attendance areas…
“Public education has been and is under constant pressure to expand its areas of responsibility. There is a very definite limit to what the schools can and should do. The prime responsibility of a school board is to provide an equal opportunity to all children…”
After a young, white lawyer (Norman Howard) from Belle Haven complained that this was Separate But Equal all over again, the Board did recommend a change to the plan. Dr Rex Turner, District Superintendent, recommended adjusting the boundaries so that Menlo-Atherton High School would include 35% of Belle Haven’s North corner, since those students could walk over the pedestrian overpass.
To offset the excess student population at M-A, an equal number would be sent to Woodside from M-A.
For more information about how East Palo Alto and Belle Haven became segregated neighborhoods, review the Exhibits from the testimony submitted to the Office of Civil Rights in 1960 which I have included in the photo carousels on the home page.
Marshall, Rachelle. Concrete Curtain - The East Palo Alto Story. “The Crisis” Nov. 1957, p 543-548
https://books.google.com/books?id=5VcEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA523&lpg=PA523&dq=%22concrete+curtain%22+%22east+palo+alto%22&source=bl&ots=30lIcaImyb&sig=SwthmlMmujbQkvFeuhSK3vTXJMs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=O2mLVJyJCs7coAS0_4DwBQ&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22concrete%20curtain%22%20%22east%20palo%20alto%22&f=false
Image, Exhibit M from United States Commission on Civil Rights. Testimony to US Commission on Civil Rights, 1960 Hearings Los Angeles & San Francisco - Accessed through University of Michigan Libraries collection. Google Books. January 27 & Jan 28 1960 My screenshots on Google Docs.