(dramatic music).

(sound of children's voices).

(dramatic music).

(dramatic music).

KARMALITA CONTEE: And I remember my mother saying to me all the kids were going to be bused and we were going to go to Crestview Elementary School.

I had never been to this school, I'd never been to the community.

STEVEN MATTHEWS: All I know is I'm going to school with people that are different than me now.

And I'm driving past the school that's in my neighborhood every day to come to this other school.

When the bus pulls up, the White kids came up and you know, one of them just looked at our bus and just spit on the ground, as to say, spitting on us because the whole entire bus was Black.

I feel like I was a part of a science project.

(drum music starts).

GROUP: We won't bus, no!

We won't bus, no!

We won't bus, no!

We won't bus, no!

We won't bus, no!

We won't bus, no!

RICHARD NIXON: Tonight, I want to talk to you about one of the most difficult issues of our time, the issue of busing.

The purpose of such busing is to help end segregation, but experience in case after case is shown that busing is a bad means to a good end.

(yelling of protestors).

NIXON: Across this nation, in the north, east, west, and south, state cities and local school districts have been torn apart in debate over this issue.

WOMAN: My children were never prejudiced until now.

This is being forced.

They don't understand it.

WOMAN 2: I'm upset about the busing because I think it will destroy the community life.

The school is the focus of the community.

REPORTER: Are you concerned for your daughter or is she concerned?

WOMAN 3: Well, I'm concerned for her and I think she's concerned for her education.

WOMAN: You know, I'm concerned about how we'll be treated and everything like that, and very much concerned about the education what we are going to receive.

(ethereal music).

THOMAS V. MILLER JR: It was very difficult times, because this is sorta like a southern area, and uh, relatively slow to integrate.

EDWARD J. FEENEY: Prince George's County did have problems with minority people, and so that was something we will try to work with as best we could.

(ethereal music continues).

ELIZABETH MAKLE PASTEUR: We knew the difference between White and Black.

We knew our limits.

Restaurants, you could go and get your food, but you couldn't eat in there.

Water fountains, you didn't drink from because there was a sign on it that said, “for whites only.” SUSIE PROCTOR: The schools were still segregated.

I lived 20 miles from the capital of America.

And I was in ninth grade before I went to a school with indoor bathrooms.

Everything we got was secondhand.

The White children would get new books or new materials and we got what was left over.

(drum music).

AVIS MATTHEWS: The schools were separate.

They justified it based on the separate but equal statute that had come out of 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson, which basically said schools could establish separate facilities for White citizens and non-White citizens as long as the facilities were uh, equal.

Well, that was never true.

The Supreme Court overturned it, said that separate schools were inherently unequal and so then the long fight to desegregate began.

THOMAS: A suit was filed saying that areas are still segregated and it needs to be remedied.

AVIS: The Prince George's County School Board was dismissive of the whole topic.

THOMAS: And so a federal judge ordered busing.

GROUP: We won't bus, no!

We won't bus, no!

We won't bus, no!

THOMAS: Anytime you have a court make a decision that changes accepted law, you're going to have people that are very, very concerned.

(street noise and insects chirping).

DOTSON BURNS JR: I've been asked many times why I was chosen to be on the front lines of integration.

To be honest with you, I can't answer that sincerely.

I don't know.

(jazzy bluesy piano music) (jazzy bluesy piano music) (jazzy bluesy piano music) Fort Worth was divided basically into four sections.

I lived on the west side and it was totally Black.

The Ridglea wall is a wall about maybe six feet high made of cinder block, the wall was placed there to separate the Black community from the White community.

One day my mother sent me to a grocery store in Ridglea, so if you crossed the boundaries, you entered White neighborhoods.

(dramatic music).

I was confronted with another White boy and his crew.

Of course, some words were exchanged.

One of the shoppers grabbed me and said, “This boy jumped on these White boys” and I said, “No, that's not true.” He told me to shut up.

Of course, the other White boy, “Yeah, that's what happened” and they were laughing, but I got the brunt end of the stick, so to speak.

It's incidents like that that would live with you forever and ever and so long as you would come out alive, you live another day.

But somehow or another, it's almost unexplainable, we kept hoping that one day you'll reach a point where you won't have to endure this, that even though you were being beaten down, that you were being neglected, that you kept that courage up in spite of all of that, knowing that one day things would change.

You didn't know what day that was, but it was something to look forward to.

(pensive music).

After being discharged from the Army, I came to Washington D.C. And when I got off the train and came outside, that's when I saw the sea of Black people and I said to myself, “Wow, I've never seen as many concentrated in one area.” That was the beginning of integration in certain areas, so I decided that I would try my hand at teaching, so I sent out applications to all of the surrounding counties and I found a job, so naturally I took it and that's where my teaching career started.

(pensive music ends).

(ethereal up-tempo music).

STEPHEN CUMBERLAND: Crestview was a small elementary school in a neighborhood that was basically upper middle class.

Young folks trying to get their life together and they came to a community that had a school that was absolutely perfect.

SUSIE: Crestview was uh, a nice little school that sat back in the community.

It, of course, had been all White.

JOE HOFFMAN: I walked to school most of the time and the school was in the community.

Everyone that went to Crestview lived in Crestview.

CAROLYN CUMBERLAND: It was a nice neighborhood and we loved the school.

I think it was the best 28 years we ever spent in a community.

(up-tempo music ends).

(uplifting piano music).

MARY SPENCER: Oh my goodness, my memories of Tower Road.

Everybody was just like family.

They were just like your sisters and brothers and everybody would help each other, you know?

DONNA ADAMS: Tower Road is one big family.

We all had different parents, but we were all one family.

Until this day, we still call ourselves “The Tower Road Crew.” We didn't have rich kids in our neighborhood, so everybody lived the same way, so when you look at your neighbors and they're living the same way you're living, you think it's normal.

You don't think anything out of the ordinary.

THOMAS: People were very satisfied with their schools, very satisfied with their neighborhoods.

They wanted their students going to school in the neighborhood so they can kind of keep an eye on them.

STEPHEN: There were Black communities, White communities, everybody was happy in their own little situations.

CAROLYN CUMBERLAND: At least we thought they were.

I think the majority of the White population considered them to be second-class citizens.

(splash of kid diving into pool).

(sounds of protestors).

(drum music).

WOMAN: I think that the government has got to stay out of our homes.

We have to preserve a free freedom of choice not only in Prince George's County but in every county across the nation.

We have to stop this.

This is like a dictatorship.

It's more than just a busing issue.

SUSIE: Well, that's what it was.

Court-ordered integration and the way that Crestview was integrated was that there was a bus sent to 15 to 20 children and those children were picked up and brought to Crestview, so that was their integration.

ROBERT SPENCER: They were talking about busing us to Crestview.

You know, at first, you were like, I mean, you know, almost thinking it's a joke.

(drum music continues).

(drum music continues).

KARMALITA: And I remember my mother saying to me, “You're not going to be coming back to this school,” and I thought that can't be possible.

This is the school I've been at for three years.

Are we moving?

Are we going somewhere?

I don't remember really it being fully explained why it was happening other than our entire road, all the kids were going to be bused.

STEVEN: What's a kindergartner know about integration?

All I know is I'm changing schools and I'm driving past the school that's in my neighborhood every day to come to this other school.

That's, that's all I know.

COURTNEY PRINGLE: The term Tower Road signified this Black bus of children being transported from one place to another that I call it being uprooted to go somewhere else to solve a problem in another place.

(voices of protestors).

EDWARD: There was a part of the monthly meeting where you could come and speak open forum kind of thing and we were jammed with speakers at that time and everybody's saying the same thing over and over, please don't do this to our kids.

Uh, by the way, we're going to take them out of school.

We're not going to leave them here.

DOTSON: There's a lot of hot air blowing, which didn't amount to too much, it was a lot of people blowing off steam.

It didn't stop anything.

GROUP: We won't bus, no!

We won't bus, no!

EDWARD: We had people, uh, marching around outside, and my daughter who was very young at the time, she said, “Dad, what are they doing?” And I said, “They're protesting, which is their right.

No matter whether you like it or you don't like it, you have to respect it.” EVELYN BURNS: There were little upheavals that took place because I remember one night when we were at a PTA meeting and we came out and a cross was burning on the sidewalk.

I thought, gee, someone really hates me that much.

What have I done to deserve that kind of hatred?

PROTESTOR: Well, we're picketing here today for the benefit of our children, trying to protect our community.

DOTSON: This White gentleman got on the news.

Of course, the news reporter stuck a mic in his mouth and said... REPORTER: Why your school?

Why is it the only one in the county?

DOTSON: What do you think of this bus desegregation?

He said, “They're trying to take our schools and we can't let that happen.

Once they take over our schools, we don't have anybody to feel superior to.” (dramatic music).

It must've been my second year teaching and overnight I was picked to go to one of the previously all-White schools and this particular school maybe had one or two Black kids.

TIM ELLIS: Surrattsville Elementary was probably 99% White and walking in and having a Black teacher, that was the first time, of course, I'd had a Black teacher and I can't imagine really what he might've been going through, coming into an all-White community.

Sometimes you'll hear everyone should be treated the same.

Well, he treated us differently because some of us needed a little bit more help.

Some of us needed different help in different areas.

He helped me not to see color as a barrier.

You saw people for people.

(dramatic music fades and drum music starts).

DOTSON: I went in with the attitude...

Here I am, look at me as a person that will work with you and try to bring about some positive changes here.

ELIZABETH: When integration came, that's when I was transferred to Crestview Elementary School.

That's when the Tower Road children came at the same time I did.

COURTNEY: And the superintendent told me she had a school that she wanted me to help integrate.

When I came into this school, I could see that I was one of many and that my skin color was different from the many.

I never had the problem with that.

It wasn't me that had to make any adjustments.

It was the people around me that had to make adjustments.

CAROLYN: Charlotte Perry was the principal of the school when our children started and she was a very good principal, so we were very, very, uh, pleased.

SUSIE: It was common knowledge that Mrs. Perry was racist and half of the staff, that was just understood.

I actually saw Mrs. Perry take a young boy, a Black boy, um, he's probably about fourth grade.

I don't know what he did, but she called a police friend of hers and they came and put him in handcuffs and took him, I guess just out for a ride to scare him.

I guess, that's what that was all about, but we have to know who's in control.

ELIZABETH: I heard that Mr. Burns was coming to Crestview, I couldn't believe it because I knew this school was not going to have a Black principal, although I was treated fine, but I knew the school was not going to have a Black principal.

SUSIE: If there was a new principal coming, the outgoing principal would have a couple of days with the incoming principal to as they said, go over the guidelines for this particular school.

No, Ms. Perry, she didn't show up, so there he is kind of standing around, you know, so I took it upon myself to introduce him to staff, teachers, kinda show him the lay of the land.

ELIZABETH: And I looked in the office and I said, “We have a Black principal here.” COURTNEY: That was quite a welcoming surprise to see that we had a Black man at the helm.

I saw a proud Black man in stature, articulation, and knowledge.

He was a British sort of dresser.

He reminded me of GQ.

GQ is a magazine for the well-dressed man.

ELIZABETH: You know how he dresses, he in his suit and his tie, his shirt, shiny shoes.

DONNA ADAMS: I'm surprised they didn't mistake him for being the janitor.

DARRICK ADAMS: Right, but now he's probably too well-dressed.

But I wonder how it was for Mr. Burns being a principal head of... DONNA: How was he accepted here?

DARRICK: Yeah, being, you know, the head in charge of this, he probably went through a lot more than what we did as kids.

LISA ADAMS SPENCER: Oh, I'm sure.

CAROLYN: I think some of the parents were very apprehensive because we had not had a Black principal and at that point, we had very few Black students in the school and we weren't certain what was going to happen.

DARRICK: A lot of people don't like change and I can understand a White person not want a Black guy coming in in charge...

In a White school.

I mean, I wouldn't have felt comfortable either.

I guess if I was a White person in their shoes either.

I mean it's just the way you was brought up at that time, you know, giving up a lot.

LISA: It wasn't normal for a Black to be in charge, ask President Obama... (group laughs).

DOTSON: My ultimate goal at that time was to go in and prove that this can work out.

STEPHEN: Soon as I met him, I realized what a great principal he was going to be for Crestview Elementary School.

CAROLYN: I think he helped the parents uh, understand better what was happening, and knowing the type of principal that he was, uh, we knew that everything would go well.

STEPHEN: He accepted us and we accepted him.

DOTSON: This girl came to me one day and said, “Mr.

Burns, I know you met my mother.

She's been in for a conference, but my dad's not coming and I don't think you'd like him.” The father probably was racist.

But it was strange when he met me, he shook my hand and smiled at my face and talked as if everything was beautiful, so that was one of the games that you played.

You had to.

(sound of helicopter).

(voices of protestors shouting).

MAN: All of you need to disperse in the name of the Commonwealth, if you're not going to disperse; you're going to be arrested.

BOSTON WOMAN: As a community, it's tearing them apart.

They may say this is helping, it's tearing them apart.

I'm not for this.

BOSTON WOMAN 2: I wouldn't care if they were green or purple, it's the idea of putting my kid on a bus when I have a school right across the street from where they should go.

(police and protestors scuffle, sound of glass breaking, women screaming).

NIXON: There is no escaping the fact that some people do oppose busing because of racial prejudice, but to go on from this to conclude that anti-busing is simply a code word for prejudice is a vicious libel on millions of concerned parents.

BOSTON WOMAN 3: Let us go to our neighborhood where our kids safe.

NIXON: They do not want their children bused across the city to an inferior school just to meet some social planners' concept of what is considered to be the correct racial balance or what is called progressive social policy.

GIRL: They were throwing eggs at the window and trying to hit people with them.

MALE: And while we was in school, they were throwing glass at Black people and little kids.

(sound of chanting).

NIXON: The way we handle this difficult issue is a supreme test of the character, the responsibility, and the decency of the American people.

(voices of protestors in streets, police whistles).

WOMAN: I guess it would work out all right if the parents stay out of it all and let the kids work it out for themselves.

It'll be all right.

(pensive dramatic music).

LISA: You know, we were being mixed in with other kids.

You know, we've seen White people before, so when we showed up at Crestview with other White people, it was not a big deal.

DONNA: Well, we didn't see picket signs or anything so... BRENDA HAWKINS BAKER: Why would you put two Black kids in a class... Like 27 kids, just two Black kids, and just throw you in that class with no help?

I didn't know that this was politics.

I didn't know that they was just putting these African-American kids and the situation, to me, it was like war on us.

KARMALITA: I remember going into the classroom and being told, that's your seat, but here we were kids that were plopped in the middle of a year, and so the transition was sit down, do your work, but did they help us?

I don't think they knew to help us.

I don't think they knew what to do because, in hindsight, they were as caught off guard by this as we were.

DOTSON: And the kids should have been um, briefed, gone through some type of explanation session, but it didn't happen that way.

I guess they were anxious to get this thing done as quickly as possible, uh so that's what happened.

KARMALITA: I remember one little boy calling me that “N-word” and he only got to do it one time because I was a patrol and I took the patrol belt off and I beat him until I guess somebody pulled me off of him and they said, “you can't be a patrol anymore,” and I was like, I'm good with that.

I'm fine with that.

(drum music).

STEVEN: Yeah, I remember probably one of the few times that I did something with somebody from this community; and I went to a Halloween party.

Kids were bobbing for apples and once I bobbed for apples, nobody else bobbed for apples after that.

Kids don't know better.

Kids are at a party, kids are going to bob for apples because it's fun.

They didn't stop bobbing for apples because they said, oh, the Black kid bobbed for apples.

They bobbed for apples because their parents told them not to.

You know, it's taught.

SUSIE: If they have been taught at home, that all of us are human beings and that's how we should all be treated the same way and then that was probably a good experience from them and you'd see them playing together and just having a good time.

But the ones that were taught that you know, Black people are bad and White people are better, and if they had that kind of message coming from home, then it would've been difficult for them to realize that these Black kids had the same needs and goals and aspirations that they had and that they all deserve the same resources, not hand-me-down resources.

It all depended on what they were taught at home.

(pensive music).

TIM ELLIS: Yeah, when the busing started, there was quite a bit of tension.

I remember a lot of my friends didn't want to, you know, socialize or make an effort to get to know anyone, but you know, you definitely took notice because it was, you know, a lot of Black kids that were coming into the school.

MARY: My youngest son was in about the second or third grade and he had a rough time.

They fought him a lot.

Well, it was the White kids that was, you know, bullying him, but he didn't really want to tell on anybody, but the only reason why I knew he had bruises back here on the back of his neck and I said, “Tony... “ Because when you give him a bath you say, he was hollering, he was hollering “Ow.” I said, what's wrong with you?

And he said, “They hit me with stones."

I said, oh my.

So I went down there.

I said, “Oh, well this cannot happen anymore.” I said, “Well, if it happened anymore, I'm going to the Board of Education.” Oh, Ms. Spencer, it's not going to happen anymore.

Okay, all right.

BRENDA: I think they thought we was bad kids.

That's what I was thinking.

That's what I thought in my mind and I just thought that, I said they not even helping us.

First-grade year, we was going to the cafeteria and I had my lunch and I went to sit down with my lunch and I realized I forgot my straw, so when I forgot my straw, I went back to go get it and she said, "What are you doing up?"

She pulled me by my ear and put me on the stage and said, “I told you not to get up.

Now you have to eat on the stage.” So I was on the stage in front of all these people crying, when my sister walked in, she said, “Whatcha doing on the stage?” I said, “She told me I had to eat on stage, so she told all the older kids, “Move over, she going to eat right here with me.” DOTSON: And when they tried to remove her, then the scene started.

I had the younger kid in my office and she told me that I was an Oreo.

I said, “Oh, what do you mean by that?” She said, “Well, you're White inside and Black on the outside.” It hurt me, but I try not to reveal it because deep down I knew it wasn't true, so that was my only saving grace, knowing from within that that's not true.

EVELYN: Our Black children were leaving a situation where they felt very comfortable, they were nurtured, they were taught by Black teachers and I think for them to have been put into another situation, it really, I don't think they felt comfortable.

I don't think they did their best.

STEVEN: Why did you need to move me?

So, that you could diversify another school?

They could say that they have Black students.

That's what you accomplished?

You didn't help, you didn't do anything to help me.

JOE: Tower Road might as well have been a Paris, France, right?

I mean you didn't make friends in other neighborhoods like that, I didn't go over their houses and eat, there wasn't a lot of visits.

There wasn't a lot of that going on.

Couldn't ride our bike there.

STEVEN: You used me for your benefit so that you could say you got something done.

BRENDA: I think if it's an African-American principal, I would try to help them, not treat them better, but just try to help them, give them a little bit more push to help them, give them a push to help them, you know, fit in, feel comfortable.

STEVEN: I wasn't a perfect kid.

I was one of the students where the teacher couldn't handle me.

Mr. Burns, I felt I gave him a difficult time.

Actually, uh, I actually had a desk in his office, but the question, hey, could you have used some assistance?

Could you have used some kind of help of getting adapted to this school?

Maybe if we had all of those things, I wouldn't have been in trouble.

BRENDA: Being a Black child, a Black teenager, a Black adult, you had to work that much harder than the next person.

DOTSON: You would hear things, which weren't too good, and I could see the kids viewed me as a placement, you know?

In other words, I was just put there because of the desegregation, and that my heart wasn't with them.

I was more or less siding with the Whites, which was totally untrue.

STEVEN: He's a principal, it's a Black guy, but he's the principal of a White school in a White neighborhood, so whose interest does he have?

He wants to keep his job and keep making the powers that be happy.

Then he has to accommodate the majority.

And answering to a bunch of higher-up Whites who were doing a science experiment called integration.

EVELYN: He would come home and he would always talk about what happened, what was bothering him.

DOTSON: But you could tell there was a lot of distrust and I incurred, there's no particular reason why it should be that way.

I was there to be principal for all of the families.

EVELYN: And one of the things that he would do would be go to his music.... (jazz music plays, Dotson plays bass).

Or get out and go on his motorcycle.

(rev of motorcycle, sound of Dotson riding his motorcycle).

DOTSON: When I was a child, my mother was very strict but yet loving.

I knew from a very early age that there was nothing she wouldn't try to provide for me.

My mother and I would sit down at the dinner table in the evening and turn the radio on and we would listen to the New York Philharmonic.

It sort of soothing, you know, while you are eating.

My goal was to become the concertmaster of a symphony orchestra and be the first violinist.

If you didn't have the money, you couldn't afford the lessons, you know, so you start practicing on your own and naturally, you would pick up bad techniques, but it was hard to undo a lot of those bad techniques that I had acquired and I finally switched over to bass.

Of course, if you're playing jazz, they say, well, you can't play a bad note.

(jazz music continues).

HELEN STEINBERG: He was very much interested in bringing the arts to Crestview Elementary School.

You know, he would bring his bass into school.

He would perform.

He wanted the students to know that these are lifelong activities.

DOTSON: I like art, so the idea came up with, let's create another class.

Some of the activities included oil, paper mâché, and just all forms of art.

It brought about a good relationship.

That was a good experience.

HELEN: I think that those students coming here with Mr. Burns at the helm did have someone they could look at and see themselves in the leader of this school.

EDWARD: He was a wonderful model for the young people.

Dotson drove a motorcycle and when he would drive up, he was wonderful with the kids because he'd let them sit on the bike ‘cause he was just a kind man and cared about the young people and it made the young people respect him greatly.

When you're trying to get people to go to places, they don't want to go, which was part of the desegregation, the more everyone can see our likes and differences are very, very similar.

It makes a difference in the whole building.

DOTSON: I wanted to treat everybody the same, so that was the way I operated the whole time I was there and eventually, they came around.

(jazz music ends and people applaud).

(voices of children).

COURTNEY: It was my job to accept them when they got off that bus and came into this building, so I never saw them as children from Tower Road, but they would talk about the fact that they had been uprooted to come and integrate this school.

(reflective music).

KARMALITA: What made it a little bit easier was the fact that there were Black teachers and so it was comforting to see a Gladys Baskin and a Courtney Pringle.

COURTNEY: When you receive a group of students being bused in, there're a lot of differing personalities and yet when they step across that door seal, I'm looking for one personality, and that's cooperation among them all, that means softening up the mind to get it to understand that we have something called a wheel and, in this room, we live by this wheel.

I am the hub of this wheel.

You are the spokes and it takes all of these spokes working together to get that wheel to turn properly and we've all got to do this collectively together.

Somehow, they seem to understand that.

It was molding that clay, putting it all together so that when we left that room, we had not just the curriculum done, but we also understood how to move out into the next realm, which would be the next grade, the next location, whatever it was, and be successful in standing on one's own feet.

(drum music).

STEVEN: Everybody feared her, you know, and you say why fear?

Fear wasn't a bad thing because she had expectation of you.

It was different.

She wasn't saying you can settle for less, you know, so yeah, you feared her because she was strict, that she didn't play any games.

But it was something that was set, that you understood what her expectations were.

DONNA: Ms. Pringle was the tough teacher, strict, tough.

LISA: They all were.

DONNA: She would jack them up.

She would jack them up.

(chuckles).

MAN: What was the golden ruler?

(laughs).

COURTNEY: Fantastic.

Fantastic.

Yes, I owned a golden ruler and of course, you know, we couldn't paddle the children, but I could hold that golden ruler up and they understood what that could mean, but it was not a negative thing, but it was something that kept us on the right track.

It's as simple as that.

JOE: I was not a well-behaved kid and there were times when we might be by ourself for 10 minutes and she put me in charge.

The reason I remember that is because she shared some confidence in me, so that was pretty neat.

(reflective music).

EVELYN: Oh, I was just hoping that there would be equality and that uh, we would just learn from one another and just be together as a unit.

COURTNEY: You are who you are and you'll be fine as you are.

Go forth and do what you must do to help enhance the world, and that's the way we functioned.

(pensive somber piano music).

DOTSON: I've been asked many times why I was chosen to be on the front lines of integration.

Uh, to be honest with you, I can't answer that sincerely.

I, I don't know.

(music continues).

(rumble of car engine).

I never had a chance and I don't know why, to go to Tower Road and just browse and see what the neighborhood was like.

I never did that.

And I have no excuse, I just never did it.

That's something I should have done.

I really feel that deeply.

I should have gone down there.

MAN: Do you remember the first time that you drove down this road?

DOTSON: This is the first time.

MAN: This is the first time you've ever... DOTSON: This is the first time that I've ever been down Tower Road.

(rumble of car engine).

I regret that I didn't go and hopefully my not showing up didn't put any negative feeling on their part at that time.

PRODUCER: Could it have been your very clear intention to be a principal for everybody, to not show a bias?

DOTSON: Yeah, it could have been that, could have been that.

Um.

(sighs).

I have no good answer for not going down there.

If I had to do it all over again, yes, I would, but um, it's gone and I can't make amends for that.

(dramatic piano music).

BRENDA: He would've met good people if he had came sooner, he would've met good people that would've brought him in and surrounded him.

Because I think just Tower people are just good people.

We call ourselves “The Tower Road Crew.” (mysterious music).

(sound of truck pulling up).

(mysterious music).

ROBERT: Afternoon Mr. Burns, how you doing?

DOTSON: Fine.

How are you doing?

ROBERT: Wonderful.

DOTSON: I guess you don't have to... (laughs).

MARY: I really never had any serious problem with White, Black and White.

Never.

I don't know.

I guess God must've been with me because people say you don't remember so-and-so.

And I say, “Indeed, I don't.

I don't know what you're talking about,” but now it's quiet.

I guess I'm the oldest one that around here now.

Yeah, I am.

ROBERT: We were all Black going to Crestview, which was predominantly 95% White.

So if you're from southeast D.C. and you never get outside of Southeast D.C. or you're from the hills of West Virginia, you never get out of the hills of West Virginia... How can you really know what's going on in your country to get out and see things and it makes you a better person?

(sound of truck driving).

DONNA: I think as children you don't really pay attention to the color of anyone's skin, not unless it's brainwashed into you by your parents.

So to me, I think going to a different school didn't really prepare me.

I think my parents prepared me.

SUSIE: After integration, it was never the Crestview that the folks who knew Crestview, it was never their Crestview again.

All of a sudden, they had just lost something that was very important to them and it would never be the same again with this, with integration there.

STEPHEN: The young families just all grew up.

Now all of their children are gone.

Now you have a community of just senior citizens.

There's no students for Crestview to continue.

(reflective music).

(reflective music).

DOTSON: You can set aside all kinds of rules and regulations and stipulations.

TIM: I want a hug.

I want a hug.

You are awesome.

My favorite.

DOTSON: But there's one thing that you cannot do and that is change the hearts of people.

WOMAN: How are you?

Good to see you.

DOTSON: We haven't been able to create any type of medicine or regulation or law that can change a person's heart.

Looking back in retrospect, school integration, did it accomplish its goals?

I would say my answer to that would be no.

(chatter and laughter of people).

STEPHEN: This was forced integration.

Dotson Burns kind of tried his best to smooth it over.

(reflective music continues).

DONNA: Uh-huh.

Rick, write your name on the board.

Lisa, you get in timeout where you used to be.

DOTSON: Thank you for coming.

(crowd applauds).

I remember coming to Crestview and Susie Proctor was the first one that greeted me and carried me around.

I'll never forget that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

(jazz music, band plays, with Dotson Burns on bass).

SUSIE: Going to an integrated situation is not easy, but it's what you're going to meet in the world and I think when you are in an integrated situation as a young person, you realize that, you know, I could do anything he does or she does.

I'm as capable or more so.

DARRICK: Anytime you put two different races together and bring them up at the age that they brought us up from, it's got to be better.

So I think it was worthwhile that way because in society we got to intertwine Black and White.

BRENDA: Being in an integrated environment, it prepared me for life.

I could just deal with anybody.

I could deal with any, I'm good at any situation, I think.

EDWARD: I love the Rodgers and Hammerstein show, “South Pacific,” and the song 'they have to be taught'.

But I believe that, and I think if you start with children in the early grades, you'll let the kids be kids.

Uh, we wouldn't have any major problems.

STEVEN: Nobody ever asked me, uh, how I felt about it or how that made you feel.

It's not because all lives don't matter, it's Black lives have been ignored.

That's what we were talking about back then in elementary school.

This, see when you're talking about, “Hey, why do you say Black lives matter?” Yeah, I remember because I was in elementary school and my life didn't matter.

My education didn't matter.

KARMALITA: You cannot change hundreds of years in a decade and it takes intentionality.

This was not intentionality.

I believe equity is what our parents were asking for and I believe what the system gave them was integration and integration and equity are two very different things.

Equity would've meant we would have gotten all of the things that I found when I came to Crestview that we didn't have at Brandywine.

So no, I don't believe integration is the answer.

I believe equality is the answer, and I don't believe that this country is ready to do that.

They're ready to put a Band-Aid on a problem.

(jazz music continues).

DOTSON: Racial discrimination is part of the national fabric of this country.

It's almost like climbing a greasy pole with society on top with greased skin.

And you are steady working, you make some progress and you slide back.

In my day and time, I don't think I will ever see where it will be 100% okay.

So in your lifetime, you learn to make adjustments.

(band makes a flourishing finish playing and crowd applauds).

DOTSON: I guess that's a part of your life.

You never reach totally what you are trying to accomplish, but you're always in motion trying to work toward that end... (reflective ambient music).

(rumble of motorcycle).

And you never get a chance to see the end of that chain, but you're still adding links to it.

Knowing that you're adding those links toward a goal, a big goal.

(acoustic guitar music turns to rap music over credits).

♪ Look around by the things we call to change ♪ ♪ My feet move faster for the cream so we call it ♪ ♪ Quick change, yeah.

♪ ♪ We on a mission, free minds from tunnel vision ♪ ♪ The sweet sound created from deep cognition ♪ ♪ Finally, I could look up to the sky ♪ ♪ The days is getting better no guns or dry ceilings, yep.

♪ ♪ So you can smile, don't be afraid to show a grin.

♪ ♪ Nikki Smalls tell 'em how you feel.

♪ ♪ If I had one wish for my life.

♪ ♪ (Wish for my life) ♪ ♪ It would be to make everything right.

♪ ♪ (Everything right) ♪ ♪ There would be no more quarrels or fights.

♪ ♪ No more heartache or pain, turn these wrongs into rights.

♪ ♪ (Finally free) ♪ ♪ Things are getting better ♪ ♪ (I can finally) ♪ ♪ Make a change for me.

♪ ♪ (As I start to breathe) ♪ ♪ I'm a child of God.

♪ ♪ (Who believes) ♪ ♪ I have victory.

♪ ♪ (I'm free, free, free, free, free, free) ♪ ♪ Finally ♪ ♪ (Free, free, free, free, free) ♪ ♪ Yes, I'm finally free.

♪ ♪ (Free, free, free, free, free) ♪ ♪ Finally free, free, free, free ♪ ♪ Finally free.

♪ ♪ Heard bout things that were done in my past.

♪ ♪ (Done in my past) ♪ ♪ Those before me were so hard to grasp.

♪ ♪ (So hard to grasp) ♪ ♪ People told me that I wouldn't last ♪ ♪ I would fall on my face, but that's all in my past.

♪ ♪ (I can see) ♪ ♪ Things are getting better.

♪ ♪ (I can finally) ♪ ♪ Make a change for me ♪ ♪ (As I start to breathe) ♪ ♪