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First of three parts on teacher pay equity.

At some point after slavery, die-hard segregationists coined the phrase “separate but equal.”

This phrase served to deprive the black race of many of the benefits that members of the white race were receiving simply because of the color of their skin. Like a slick Wall Street ad agency, they used this phrase to convince a whole nation to buy into something they knew was morally wrong.

Having no say-so in local, state or federal governments, my people were forced to live and survive regulations and laws designed to keep them poor, second-class citizens. Those very regulations and laws required blacks to pay taxes and fees, and what they got in return was never equal.

While researching information for a book I am writing called “Graduation From the Three Negro Schools … Including Florence and Trinity,” I discovered an excellent example of what I call “separate but hardly equal.”

I have uncovered most of the teachers’ salaries covering the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s.

Back in 1927-28, the principal at the white High Point High School was paid three times more than the pay of Edward Curtright, principal of Normal High School/William Penn High School (Negro High School).

Hardly equal.

Curtright was paid $1,500; his white counterpart, $4,500.

The next year, Curtright was paid $1,620, compared to his white counterpart’s $4,740.

The comparison among teachers is also dramatic. The lowest-paid teacher in the white high school made $200 less a year than the highest-paid teachers at the black school.

Among the eight teachers at the black high school in 1928-29, the average pay was $1,053. The lowest pay was $810 a year, the highest-paid trio — including a history teacher with 35 years experience — received $1,250.

For the 44 teachers at the white high school, the average pay was $1,675. The lowest pay was $1,050, the highest, $2,750
Alfred J. Griffin and his wife had twice as much experience as any of the teachers at the white high school, except one.

Even with 35 and 36 years of experience, they were paid less than all but four teachers at High Point High School in 1927-28 and all but five for the 1928-29 school term. The white school even had courses that were not funded at the black high school.

It is easy to criticize a Negro school and its students when they can’t get the same tools offered the white students on a large scale.

I remember the hand-me-down books, full of hand-written racial epithets, that we got from High Point High School/High Point Central High after they got new ones.

This is an example of used and unequal.

This ugly chapter could have been prevented if only the masses had just said, “This is wrong.” But they chose to remain silent while black folks doing the same jobs were treated and paid like indentured servants.

“Separate but equal” was just another way of saying you are being judged and rewarded based on the color of your skin.

Under the disguise of “diversity,” separate but equal is no longer practiced openly.

Now, it is camouflaged, discussed, planned and implemented behind closed doors in board rooms, which makes it more dangerous than it was 100 years ago.

Glenn Chavis researches and writes about High Point’s black history. Contact him at Storytime40@aol.com