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| Photo by Bill Ray |
June just wrote this compelling article, recalling her experiences with SUMMER
HEAD START AND THE WATTS UPRISING: August 1965. We hope that it will spark discussion with you and your families about this tremendously turbulent time and how much work is still left to do. Please let us know your thoughts.
Here goes history again with my
commentary on events big and small and the way I view them.*
This time I would
like to tell you about my take on “ The
Watts Uprising” or as many called it “The Watts Riots” and the beginning of Head Start
and how I was involved.
In the Spring of 1965, I was
working for the School for Nursery Years/Center for Early Education (CEE).
Previously I had enrolled there for training as a nursery school teacher after
which I had been hired as a training teacher in charge of the “baby group” of
three-and-four year olds. When the
Center was asked to set up a cooperative school for young children and their
families at the Aliso Village Housing Project, I volunteered. I used to take
CEE students from the Westside to the Eastside of Los Angeles on a daily basis
to teach and to be taught. We all learned a great deal from that experience
(more than I can describe in this brief essay, but needless to say, it was
exhilarating, as well as frustrating).
The adult students and I were convinced from the housing project results,
that low-income children and their families deserved to have programs that many
middle and upper middle class parents took for granted.
About that time, we heard
rumblings that Sargent Shriver, the head of the Office of Economic Opportunity,
was thinking about inaugurating a program for young poor children.This was the
chance we were hoping for. I talked this over with the administrators of
CEE, who took the issue to their Board (
mainly composed of psychoanalysts) and received the approval to write a
proposal to the Office of Economic Opportunity, headed by Sargent Shriver. A
dear friend and administrator at CEE, June Mayne, met with me in March of 1965
and we wrote a proposal to OEO, thinking we could help those Washington folks crystallize a program. We burned the
midnight oil. We thought the proposal was terrific, but we received no
immediate response.
Finally, sometime in late
May 1965, we heard that there would be a Summer Head Start program and CEE
would be one of the delegate agencies. We did not receive our categorical
breakdown until July 6--- the first day of programming for the children.
By then, we had recruited teachers, assistant teachers, aides and
volunteers so that each group would have three adults to 15 children.
With that whirlwind of activity
(and there many volunteers who helped), we recruited 1,108 children in
places all over the County.
· We enlisted volunteer pediatricians so that each
child was visited at their site
by these doctors;
· We enlisted volunteer dentists to visit each
child at their site;
· We enlisted volunteers
from a group that would later become Thalians, to be on call if a teacher felt that a child might need
some psychological help, or if the teacher might need some support in her work
with the children and/or their families;
· We organized a committee headed by Suzy Klemer
to provide educational and art material and have it packaged so that teachers
could have this available in the trunks of their cars (storage space was a real
problem at many sites) Scrapbooks were made for each child and his or her
younger siblings;
· Other
volunteers were recruited to work directly with the children including dance,
art, literature and much more.
It was a
wild and sometimes bumpy road, but we went
on
despite the uncertainty hoping for a better world.
However, there were two incidents that will complete the picture
of why the Watts Uprising is an important part of this history. In August, 1965 Watts’ was in turmoil and it was in the
middle of our program where many of our
sites were located and isolated. We received a call from a teacher in Watts saying
that there were some families without basic resources and especially in need of
diapers. We didn’t think twice before telling her we would come with
diapers and more. June and I
loaded my car, a green four door Lincoln, with canned foods and
Pampers purchased at the local Ralph's; we draped a Head Start flag on the
top of the car and off we went. When we
were stopped by the National Guard, they looked at the flag, the merchandise in
the back seat, and two “sweet-looking” middle aged women and they decided to
let us bypass the barriers. Shaken, but
undeterred, we delivered the goods to a Head Start site and grateful families.
The other incident that I recall, as if it were today, concerned a
night meeting we held at Nickerson Gardens Housing Project in Watts, prior
to the start of Summer Head Start. June
and I planned to go to the gathering to gain support of the parents, whose
children we hoped would attend HS. Sam (Sale)
joined us, thinking we needed a male guardian.
During the meeting, a father stood up and asked me “ Why won’t the
government give me a job so I can take care of my family, instead of giving
this measly program for my kids?” I had
no answer. I think it is a question that
still needs an answer.
*
History
is often in the eye of the beholder.
This is the way I remembered that event over 50 years ago, so there may
be some things that are not the way they have been reported, but they are still
vivid in my somewhat “elder-headed” memory.
No need to fact-check with Politico
