REUNION RECALLS BENEFITS OF SEGREGATED SCHOOLS

CAIRO, Ill. -- There are many positive reasons for having integrated schools, but graduates of Cairo's all-black Sumner High School believe that segregated schools had some advantages that today's students are missing.

"Today's students learn earlier how to interact with different cultures and society but they lose some of that black heritage that comes from an all-black environment and from having black teachers," said Laura Dent, a 1964 Sumner graduate who lives in Marion. "They should come together in unity, as one. There is strength in unity. That's what this reunion is all about.

Dent joined some 400 graduates and their families at a picnic held Saturday in St. Mary's Park to celebrate the sixth reunion of Sumner graduates. Although many graduates meet annually over Labor Day weekend, the official reunion is a biennial event that began in 1987.

Sumner graduates said black students attending integrated schools miss out on the camaraderie and strict value system that existed in segregated schools. The values and discipline are just as important to students as the technology and classroom instruction, they said.

Many reunion-goers said today's students need more discipline and less coddling from an educational system that cannot separate discipline from abuse.

"The teachers made sure we weren't just going to school to be there," said 1948 graduate Robert Newell, who still lives in Cairo. "They did that because they knew what obstacles we would face. Now, they've taken the discipline out of schools; they've taken prayer out of schools. The only thing they're doing is building prisons because the kids are running wild, and they're running wild because there's no discipline."

Class of '49 graduate Venard Chambers said students in integrated schools today also miss out on the individual assistance and sense of family segregated schools provided. Chambers chose to attend Sumner High School, which was 20 miles away from his home in Sandusky, rather than the closer Lovejoy High School in Mound City, because his parents "wanted something better" for him.

He lived with his grandmother in Cairo during the week and went home to help his parents farm on weekends. His parents later moved, and he spent his final three years of high school living with Ethlene Fowler, his English teacher.

People helped each other back then because they believed in the concept of extended family, Chambers said. The faculty, students and communities cared about each other. That component is missing in today's more integrated communities, he said.

"Some of our inner city families and students don't have much of an extended family concept anymore," he said. "What they do have is an attempt by most of our gangs to take the place of that, but theirs is a negative influence.

"The good times that I had were important, but the kind of feelings that I get when I walk up here and see old friends and all of the pictures and things -- even at 65 years old, that does a lot for my esteem."

Paducah, Ky., resident Herbert Martin graduated from Sumner in 1955. He said he hoped the graduates shared with their children and grandchildren how important segregated schools were in their lives.

The segregated schools are gone, he said, and the graduates are starting to disappear. Also disappearing are the old segregated neighborhoods, businesses and other landmarks, he said.

"Our kids need to learn to do everything they can to hold onto their heritage because it disappears," said Martin. "When we come home now, everything that was there is gone. All of our old buildings, landmarks, even whole blocks of houses. Things like this weekend are all we have left."