WOMAN RECALLS STORIES ABOUT SEGREGATED SCHOOLS; TALKS TO STUDENTS AT FRANKLIN SCHOOL ABOUT BLACK HISTORY

Segregated schools and separate facilities for black and white people remain a part of the nation's history, a part that should not be forgotten, said Juanita Spicer Monday.

Spicer shared a story about her childhood in the segregated south with youngsters at Franklin Elementary School Monday.

She spoke to second graders in Doris Mattingly's class at the school. Among the students was Spicer's granddaughter, Jessica Spicer.

During February, Black History Month, Mattingly said her students will be studying famous black Americans. "We have talked about segregation and other issues like that," she said. "I thought it would be good for the students to hear some of (Spicer's) experiences."

Mattingly added: "We try to include family in as many projects as we can."

Juanita Spicer, a retired teacher, now runs a tutorial program at St. James AME church, and volunteers with the NAACP and with black students at Southeast Missouri State University.

Spicer told the youngsters she was born and raised in Ft. Smith, Ark., during the 1930s and 1940s.

"We played, went to school and attended church with all black people," she said.

"I thought I would share with you what it was like for me a little black girl growing up in the south," Spicer said.

In her segregated schools, Black History Month wasn't needed.

"When I attended an all-black school back in the early '40s, our black teachers used people like George Washington Carver and Booker T. Washington as our role models," Spicer said. "We knew who all these people were. They taught us a lot of black history."

But Spicer said her third-grade teacher was among the best influences in her life. She taught Spicer that she could do whatever she wanted to do if she was willing to work hard.

"Good education was the key to achieving those goals," Spicer said.

Spicer loved reading, "especially Nancy Drew mysteries from the school library," Spicer said. "Most of our books were old and came over from the white school. But we could still read them."

That summer, she and her sister, Bennie Mae, took a bus trip to her Grandma Gentry's farm.

"We rode on the Greyhound bus," Spicer said. "My mother told us we must sit in the back of the bus because all black people must sit in the back of the bus."

She left Arkansas in 1953 to attend Lincoln University in Missouri.

"These children will never see a school that is all black or ever know a school where black people may not attend," Spicer said later.

But it's important for them to know that part of the nation's history.

"It's really an educational experience," Spicer said. "I hope to let them know at an early age how things were. I hope to touch their hearts and help them form a positive attitude."