Looking to tomorrow: Last commencements held for Cleveland, East Side High Schools

CLEVELAND — On a muggy Saturday morning, a security guard on the campus of Delta State University approaches a dark vehicle with a smile and directions.

“Come on Mom, she’s a graduate; you’ve got to let her go,” he says.

A few moments pass with more lighthearted cajoling before a young woman opens the passenger door, carefully stepping out.

As she teeters toward the sidewalk to join the Cleveland High School class of 2017, it becomes clear that the nearly 4-inch heels were more likely the culprit behind the hold-up than Mom’s attachment.

But the officer is right.

All of Cleveland is letting something go in one form or another this day.

More:Judge finalizes Mississippi school desegregation settlement

Within two hours, degrees for Cleveland High School will be conferred by the state of Mississippi for the last time. Before the day ends, the same will happen for the Wildcat’s across-town rivals, East Side High.

The day of the ceremonies comes a year and week to the date that federal judge Debra Brown ordered the Cleveland School District to consolidate its two high schools and middle schools, writing in her opinion that “the delay in desegregation has deprived generations of students of the constitutionally guaranteed right to an integrated education."

White students make up roughly a third of the district’s enrollment, according to most recent available data from the state Department of Education. That figure, 969 out of 3,565, makes Cleveland somewhat of an anomaly in the Mississippi Delta.

Less than 5 percent of the students enrolled in the Clarksdale, Hollandale and Leland school districts, for example, are white.

Scholars have long noted that the Delta essentially has what would be called a dual school system: public for black, private for white.

And there’s a clear presence of what historians have referred to as segregation academies or schools that were established post-Brown vs. the Board of Education for the purpose of avoiding integration.

So in some ways, there’s a lingering sense of defensiveness in the town when the desegregation case is mentioned.

“(Race) never crossed any of our minds,” says Emma Hardy, a graduating Cleveland High senior. “We didn’t look at each other, like ‘oh you’re black and I’m white,” said Hardy, who is white.

“In class, we would see posts made on CNN stories (about the segregation order); we would laugh about it, ‘like they really don’t know anything.'”

But race, tracing back to the original desegregation lawsuit brought against the district in 1969, is very much at the heart of the matter.

More:Cleveland School District appeals order in desegregation case

Residents weary of the attention that comes with being the district that “never integrated” will posit that calling the town’s public schools segregated is a misnomer.

Yes, there is an all-black high school, East Side, black and white residents have conceded in media coverage of the case. But that’s by way of choice, parties against consolidation from both East Side and Cleveland High argue.

In 2013 a federal judge enacted a freedom-of-choice plan that allowed families to choose where they wanted to attend in the district.

While plenty of black families took the opportunity to enroll in the district’s historically white schools, the reverse never happened.

The problem attorneys with the Cleveland School District, the U.S. Department of Justice argued, was that enrollment at Cleveland’s historically black middle and high school never changed.

White students from Cleveland High School (along with some of their black peers) would come over to East Side to take advanced placement courses, their families would stop short of enrolling.

The divide is evident in Saturday’s graduating ceremonies.

During the Cleveland High School procession, there’s a mix of black, white and Hispanic students. In contrast, East Side’s class of 2017 is virtually all black.

That might be why of a number of alumni and graduates that The Clarion-Ledger spoke with Saturday called the day “bittersweet,” but acknowledged it was time for a change.

“It’s emotional,” says outgoing East Side senior Natashia Washington. “But better things are to come for Cleveland.”

She explains that she worried at times that having the two separate schools was harmful to the mindset of children.

Testimony in court documents gives credence to this.

“For the past 50 years, the kids have always been taught that East Side was a bad school and they have been looked down upon. I think the kids on the west side of town have no desire to cross those railroad tracks. And I don’t care what kind of program you bring to East Side, they don’t want to come, period,” said the Rev. Edward Duvall, a parent at a December 2012 hearing. Federal attorneys called the stigma “a real and lasting vestige of segregation.”

But it was clear from East Side High’s last commencement exercise — even if there were moments in the past when the East Side Trojans felt like they didn’t get respect from the West Side of town — that they still have pride.

“This (consolidation) will be a moment to show who we (East Side) are,” said Jakobe Richards, a class of 2017 East Side graduate.

“We were the East Side Trojans,” says Vanessa Richards, his mom, who also graduated from the school, placing an emphasis on the past tense.

“I feel excited and a little sad,” said Rosie Mcgee, a 1967 East Side High graduate. “We’re going to look to tomorrow.”

She walked off, joining roughly 50 of her fellow classmates at the ceremony to celebrate their “golden anniversary.”

East Side has a tradition where “golden class” graduates who walked the stage 50 years ago come back to see a new class off. The members, who wear gold robes with black stoles, form a tunnel which the graduating seniors, who wear black robes with gold stoles, walk through to their seats as “Pomp and Circumstance” plays.

That won’t happen next year.

Consolidating the district’s high schools requires everyone to give something — a tradition, their beloved mascot — away.

William Crump, a black Cleveland High graduate from the class of 1987, is optimistic about what can be gained in return.

Crump is a third, named after his father and grandfather. If you look at his family tree, most of the branches will have East Side graduates. The exceptions are Crump, his daughter Jasmine, and his niece whose graduation he was attending.

Still, he admits he loves being a Wildcat. Part of the reason he attended was because of the school’s baseball team.

“In a way, I shouldn’t be so stubborn, but consolidating the schools will get us over this barrier, this racial hump that was erected in the '60s,” Crump says.

He points out how students like Hardy, for example, are already traveling to East Side for college credit courses. It makes more sense to distribute the district’s resources equitably, he argues.

An open question, in the midst of the district’s settlement agreement to consolidate schools, has been not whether white flight will occur, but to what extent.

Originally, when the district pushed back against the order it argued that the changes would lead to white families withdrawing their children.

During Cleveland High’s ceremony, principal Steven Craddock, who is white, makes a subtle plea.

“Let’s not forget we have a great and deep interest in public education,” he says.

Craddock grows emotional speaking of the 60 years of composites that will be removed from the walls along with the school’s marquee as renovations take place on the campus.

Hardy mentions this at one point. She won't be able to come back with her children one day and point out her senior portrait or her father's, who is a fellow Cleveland High alum.

"Nothing will be black and gold anymore," she says on the eve of graduation. "The administrators won't be the same people they were when we here."

Still, the senior class president is proud of her service on the student advisory committee where she worked alongside peers from both Cleveland and East Side, recommending a new name, mascot and school colors for the consolidated high school and middle school.

Under the new plan, this fall students grade 9-12 will attend a new high school called Cleveland Central High School. The school will be housed at the former Cleveland High and Margaret Green campuses. Students in grades 7-8 will also attend a new junior high called Cleveland Central Junior High at the Old East Side High campus. 

How the town reacts now says, Jerry Smith, a black Cleveland High graduate, is a test.

He explains that throughout the national coverage of the case residents were discouraged as being perceived as backward.

What happens with the consolidation, he says, will show whether those views were right.

“We need to come together as a town more,” Smith says.

Contact Bracey Harris at 601-961-7248 or bharris2@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter.