The school fight · concentration, boycott, settlement

1951 – 2020

The northern pattern: Fort Wayne's school board never operated racially separate schools by law. Segregation arrived the northern way — by boundary. Postwar boundary-drawing concentrated Black pupils as the Black population grew: by 1949, 75.5 percent of Black elementary pupils attended three schools, up from 53.4 percent a generation before, and 85.1 percent of Black high school students attended Central High. The board defended the lines: in 1951 it refused to let two Black basketball players transfer from Central to North Side. The first Black teacher was appointed in 1952 — the Smiley Collection names Hana L. Stith among the first Black teachers hired by the Fort Wayne Community Schools, and profiles Lavonne Cunningham Miller as Marsha Smiley's ancestor-in-arms, the community's leader in the fight to desegregate the schools. In 1968 some six hundred people marched on City Hall for six days demanding Black representation on the school board and the desegregation of Central High.

The boycott came in September 1969, and the two strands of the record give it different sizes — both are printed here, as the Schools section carries them. The News-Sentinel's retrospectives describe Black parents boycotting four central-city schools — Hanna, Harmar, McCulloch and Smart — for about nine to ten days, with more than 1,300 children taught in "Freedom Schools" in six Black churches, led by the Rev. Jesse White of True Love Baptist Church and fifteen Black ministers; the state superintendent of public instruction negotiated the settlement, under which the district adopted an integration policy, halted construction and modernization of central-city schools until a plan was in place, and replaced temporary classrooms. Morgan's study, citing the same retrospectives' sources, counts the boycott over two elementary schools for eight days, with some 1,300 children registered in the alternative Freedom Schools in six churches. The 1,300, the churches and the settlement are common ground; the school count and the days are not, and this record does not choose. The board closed Central High School in 1971 as its high-school desegregation move — a board decision under community pressure, not a federal court order; attorney Clifton Files was co-counsel for the plaintiff class, Parents for Quality Education with Integration. In 1977 an out-of-court settlement with Black parents put the district's first-phase plan on magnets rather than busing, and the first two magnet principals were appointed early in 1979. The generation after closes the loop: Levan Scott is styled by the Smiley Collection the first African-American principal in FWCS, and in 2003 Wendy Y. Robinson — FWCS-trained, a teacher in the district since the 1970s — became superintendent of Fort Wayne Community Schools, the first woman, the first African American, and the first graduate of the district ever to lead it; she served until June 2020, and the district named its Family and Community Engagement Center for her in 2022. The Schools sections carry the full record, including the 1969 settlement's terms and the closure of Central.

Sources:

1. Iwan W. Morgan, "Latecomers to the Industrial City," IMH 95 (March 1999) — the 1949 concentration figures; the 1951 transfer refusal; the 1952 first teacher; the 1968 march; the boycott in its footnote (two elementary schools, eight days, 1,300 in Freedom Schools, News-Sentinel, 28 February 1980).
2. The Schools section of this history, from the News-Sentinel retrospectives (6 September 2019; 1 February 1990) — the boycott's four schools and nine-to-ten days; the Freedom Schools under the Rev. Jesse White and fifteen ministers; the settlement terms; Central High's 1971 closure; the 1977 settlement and the 1979 magnet principals.
3. Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center, Marsha Smiley Collection — Hana L. Stith among the first Black FWCS teachers; Lavonne Cunningham Miller and desegregation; Clifton Files, co-counsel, Parents for Quality Education with Integration; Levan Scott, first African-American FWCS principal.
4. Fort Wayne Community Schools and the Journal Gazette (August 2023) — Wendy Y. Robinson: superintendent 2003–2020; first woman, first African American, first FWCS graduate in the office; the 2022 naming of the Dr. Wendy Robinson Family and Community Engagement Center.