School Integrators Unsung Heroes No More, of Sorts

Four of the 13 integrators of Lanier Jr. High School in 1965. From left to right Sylvester Royal, Carlton Haywood, Harold Michael Harvey and James “J. T.” Thomas. Photo © 2019 Cascade Publishing House

One year ago, this month, three of my high school friends, and I decided it was time to come from the shadows and discuss our role in integrating the Lanier Jr. High School for Boys in Macon, Georgia, during the 1965–66 school year. Our feat had gone unnoted then, and mostly unnoticed in the intervening 55 years.

Our research found no mention of our efforts in the local newspapers, but we did discover an article written a few years ago, extolling the opening of Central High School (formerly Lanier Sr. High School) in 1970 as the beginning of integrated public-school education in the county.

Miss Qaida Poe, cousin of Edgar Allen Poe teaching ninth-grade English circa 1965–66 four years before all grades were desegrated in 1970. Seated in the third seat in the far left row is future civil rights lawyer and journalist, Harold Michael Harvey. Photo courtesy of The Fishbowl.

The article featured Virgil Adams, a prominent Black attorney in Macon, who said it was a smooth transition on opening day. It probably was for him. The fight to integrate the previous six years had not been a walk in the park. The first battle began during the 1964–65 schoolyear when four Black students entered Lanier Sr. High in the twelfth grade. For two weeks, the kids had to sit on the school bus until their white classmates had entered the school. Those four brave souls were followed the following year by other Black students in grades ten through twelve on the high school level.