Atlanta Daily World

Education To What End?
The slaying of two school-aged lads by a rifle shot of a 21-year-old veteran and father here Friday afternoon was a shocking revelation to colored Atlantans that all is not well in our educational system upon which we lean so confidently for the training of our children. One of the slain lads was a student of the Booker T. Washington High school, while the other was not a school boy. But to all intents and purposes, all of them might just as well belonged to the school, since it was their major hang-out rendezvous.

The shooting Friday is the symptom of a deep and far more grievous condition inherent in the organization and conduct of the Washington High school. To say that the principal is at fault is only partially true. To lay the blame on the shoulders of the Board of Education would be much nearer the truth. But no one group or set of factors can be charged with all of the responsibility. There is much that is wrong and wicked at the school and in truth, all of us are in part, to blame.

We have known for years that gangsters and rowdies not registered in the school, have enjoyed free and easy association and contacts with the students. We have known for years the frightful conditions of overcrowding and congestion. We have known for years that young boys and girls have been repeatedly reported for knife and gun-toting. And we have known for years of the shootings and cuttings which have been hidden and cloaked by persons in the school, lest the public become aroused. But despite our knowledge, we have said nothing, and done nothing about them. Consequently, the faculty members have resigned themselves to fate. Some of them have been assaulted by students. Others have been bodily threatened and a few have been reported manhandled. Insolence is a common place by the students. All of which adds up to a state of utter confusion and contradictions in the educational process.

We have thus reached the point to call a halt to these conditions or demand that the school be closed up until they can educate the youth to some worthy end, rather than deceive themselves and ourselves that we are training the children for useful and purposeful lives. Now is the time for the citizens to speak. They can and will be heard if they speak with sincerity of purpose. They will not be remedied if the citizens sit back and resolve to allow the Board of Education to do it. It doesn't work like that. Negroes pay the taxes to support Washington High and the other schools for Negroes. It is their business, through the cooperation of the Board, to call attention to the failure and weaknesses of the school program, to teachers and to all other forces and factors which complete the process of making a worthwhile school. This is an indictment of one high school, but we can also point with painful truth, to other schools not measuring up to the standards of a well-ordered school system for Atlanta Negro children.