This is a machine-generated transcript. Text is unformatted and may contain errors.

Welcome to another edition of black man in America presented by your city station in cooperation with the city's commission on human rights these programs are broadcast Tuesday afternoons at five on W. N.Y.C. F.M. ninety three point nine mega cycles and Tuesday evenings at mine on the bill UN wise see eight hundred thirty killers like olds here now to tell you more about this important series is our moderator Good evening this is Thomas Allen substituting for commission of what M.H. both and I'm here to bring you another in the series the black man in America devoted as the title states to examining the history and life of Afro Americans and the contributions they have made and are making to the material cultural and spiritual wealth of this country and this includes all of living not simply the civil rights issues we see in the headlines tonight's guest is Mr Reginald G. damn wrong author of triumph in a white suburb the dramatic story of Teaneck New Jersey the first town in the nation to vote for adequate at school this book was published by when the morrow in company and one thousand nine hundred sixty eight Mr Darrow was raised in New York City and graduated from Columbia University he is presently marketing director for O.T. I Services Incorporated an office temporaries employment organization a successful advertising copywriter interpret interrupted his career for a year and a half in order to write triumph in a white suburb his extensive research for the book concluded two hundred hours of tape recorder interviews over one hundred seventy persons were question since one thousand nine hundred fifty eight he has lived with his family and Teaneck. Welcome this evening Mr damn relative to this program and I wonder if we could began by having from you here in New York City we know that Teaneck New Jersey is just across I usually thank it's the fact that it's just across the bridge on Washington George Washington Bridge but maybe you should describe the town to us its location and population and if you perhaps get into the racial blocks to white and the South see our economic background of its inhabitants Well you're correct tonight is just five miles from the George Washington Bridge and it sort of bisected by Route four. It's a town of the six and a half square miles today the population is approximately forty seven thousand it's an almost entirely a bedroom community we have very little industry. And. Entirely residential to today the town's ethnic makeup is. Of Pop. We have about a ten percent and possibly twelve percent black population. And the white population is roughly divided I think into one so Catholic religiously one third part us and ones are Jewish it's a. Some parts of it a white affluent but the town as a whole is a is a middle class community back in one nine hundred forty nine Teaneck was chosen as a model American town in the United States by the Civil Affairs Commission civil affairs division of the United States Army. At that time to that was all white. There were. There were several Negro families living in Teaneck but very close to angle was fourth Ward which had been predominately black since the forty's the middle forty's and along the border with between Teaneck and Englewood's blackboards ward tonight had a rough ride to the buffer zone the words. I discovered the slack by looking at an aerial photo seeing coming across an aerial photograph an authentic library and a photograph of been taken somewhere before nine hundred fifty and I couldn't understand a photograph of all the streets laid out in an area which I knew were woods and this big made me very curious I went walking in the woods and found curbs stoned and manhole covers dating from one nine hundred twenty nine but in the middle forty's the the the town fathers of Teaneck concerned about the the the fourth ward of angle. And being black and in order to divide. White Teaneck from the black angle angle was black was was. Blocked off many of the streets planted trees in them and made made above is on the boards and this is something everybody knew about. Real estate brokers people who live in the area blacks and whites are saying you're saying then are you saying that blotch eleventeen Act What fall into the middle income category for the most part Oh very definitely but I just want. The first few Negro families in Teaneck. Actually left behind this buffer zone they were they were technically in Teaneck but they're more part of a legal and. Socially and economically and then. The nineteen fifty one and then the name of James Payne who lived and the word was driving up angle would Avenue which crosses from Englewood into Teaneck and he saw a piece of property for sale it was a For Sale sign up and a competent reason really and he investigated. He looked into the sea called the the broker's number on the sign and they will say broker happened to be outside of Teaneck and the owners of the property happen live in California and after a time he threw the males a great upon a price and he bought what the property and two years later he began to build as in some of one hundred fifty three. This was the first time that anybody realizes a negro on this property and he doesn't sell for thirty five thousand dollars base brick ranch house and this touched off an exodus of whites around him. The all the whites repeated all the stereotypes about. Negroes not being able to keep up their properties negroes and criminal people expressed fear of rape and robbery I said the neighborhood would decline and. Actual fact. As more and more Negroes bought homes and whites around in the one neighborhood the neighborhood is gradually improved. The the property owners there have taken better care of the property than the whites who previously lived there. If anything they the blacks who bought these homes were equal in income to the whites who were placed and if anything they were better educated if you measure it in terms of college degrees. So there was really nothing to flee from but the whites fled Nevertheless she is ESTO only the negro Ariane there when Mr Paine bought the home one you know about surrounding homes that primarily the negro well as it developed real estate brokers took advantage of the situation they began blockbusting blockbusting is used in two senses depending upon one's point of view of people who. Don't want any Negroes living in the neighborhood or street they use blockbusting in the sense of the first Negro who moves in and they consider the blockbuster that. People who. Are willing to accept integration. They use it in a different sense they use it to describe the tactics of the real estate brokers which is you know a Negro has moved on to your street you might as well so your house now while you can still get a good price for it and they say things like We don't want to be the last one on the last white on the block do you and the. These tactics are. Also called blockbusting and they this is what they did in that area yeah and a group formed called THE NEXT of a conference group of private citizens to try and prevent whites from money. At first people thought that the this was an exclusion. Tactic. And fact they were accused of it no it wasn't the purpose of their tactic was to hold black meetings and say look let's accept negroes. Let's stay and find out what kind of living this would be. Don't Run Don't panic and for a while they were they were successful and stopping the tactics of a wrist a purpose but. As the years went on. One hundred thirty six seven eight nine nine hundred sixty are because real estate brokers would not bring any whites into the area and because as a normal tone of houses the neighborhood kept going. In the direction of becoming predominantly Negro and then it spread to the area spread the operations of the real estate brokers increased and. We got to point where. Negro and Roman began to make become appreciable and to to neighborhood schools that service the. And in segregated housing that create segregated schools Oh yes. There were no Soviet housing there would be no so good schooling. But the very interesting thing is that. Teenagers are very unique instance. Least the story of Teaneck least the book is there may be other probably other communities but no book has been written about them and. What you have and and a middle class black population who are not culturally deprived who are not impoverished. And yet whites fled for them fled from them. As as a as a do as they have done everywhere and the proof of this is that when the Bryan school which is one of the neighborhood schools when the enrollment. Was in the stories and forty percent and up to fifty percent. In this school in town where the chairman Teaneck had eight elementary schools and the school was fourth in achievement test if you can make you know I don't think education should be measured entirely by Cheeseman test and reading and written the tick and so on and so on but if you want to use that standard. The school sports ahead of three neighborhood schools that were one hundred percent white and the head of the other school which also had an eagle population another was there were only three schools in town that had a higher achievement so this put the school never became a problem from the sense of. Having underachieving students but the pandal white parents and nevertheless you know following the old stereotypes. They feared for the education of their children fortunately was it simply education Mr Downer on as us are so tied in with Anna Gratian. I'm not sure I man you was the white community man or is the white community concerned about. The educational standards on is it in opposition to integration as well I mean how I think white children goes and I know is that that they were in opposition to integration percent because the principal of the Bryant school told me he had parents who are very concerned they seize on any excuse. And at one point. The white parents asked the superintendent of schools. A question was superintendent of schools on the school's achievement and he said it was average to the town or they interpret this is average and most of the people moved to Teaneck move for good schools the schools have a good reputation and they went to the principals and you lied to us you told us. That everything was going well here and the superintendent says it's just average and everybody knows that that Nick schools are above average. And. Some of them who moved out moved to another section of Teaneck and they expected when their children started. Attending the new local school for them that their children would be behind and they were surprised to find out they weren't behind so they called up to the. Principal of the Bryan school said you are right Bryant is a good school but it was too late they had already moved and they had already contributed to a situation of. Potential racial imbalance. But Tina was very fortunate and in one thousand sixty one it hired a new superintendent of schools a man with a most unlikely background to do what he eventually did he was born and raised in Maine. Educated in Maine. He came to us from. Dedham Massachusetts but enough none of us previous school systems had he had any and he sed Negro students at all his biggest problems were white Protestants and white Catholics at each other's throat if he had any such problems he had no experience of an ethnic experience and some of the the. Black members of the community were very critical of the board for having hired someone with no ethnic experience at all do you have black members on the board now we do now we don't know yes but we didn't then. At the time he was hired the percentage the black the black community accounted for less than five percent. And but he quickly saw that there was. There was a potential problem and the Bryan school is one school and this was one and wrong it was thirty six percent because he looked into it studied the problem and realized that from what had happened in other communities when the enrollment got up to. Fifty percent it was accelerated. Because of white presidents it was accelerated and there would be a potential problem. And two months after arriving in Teaneck he told the board of education that they should do something and there was this this recommendation was met with stony silence he did mention a taboo subject but he was persistent and. The following spring. For sixty two. Well that was the fall of sixty one he recommended and then the spring of sixty two he got the board to institute a. Voluntary transfer of open enrollment plan you know such as been tried many many other places of course and of course we know today these things these voluntary transfer plans do not work and are in one hundred sixty two that wasn't so apparent or Though he didn't expect it to work but he bought it as a first step and one of education was very reluctant to say why they they answer to this plan they when the board was questioned in a public meeting. They said oh wasn't for this purpose it was for the purpose. To Teaneck had a problem of overcrowding not in a sense that many New York schools or carded but that they had a higher. Pupil teacher ratios and they liked. And so the board said that this Lantos transfer plan was for parents who want to send that children to smaller classes and said nine that. The situation developing a Bryant was a primary reason for. However the. Honeybee Scrivener and I knew so when tenet of schools at that time he said it was for and then he got a very good deal opposition from the black community and they gave him a real rough time and questioning him and but. Dr Scribner was a Type A man who listened and. He took into account everything that was said and he said that he saw this is only a first step you can expect the community move too fast but he was moving well in advance of the situations the following year he couldn't get the board to go any further than that then then. In large improving on this plan and the board provided free transportation which not been true. Had not the year before and it still still did not do anything with the problem because the the attitude in the go community was why should we buy such children. We have nothing to gain right as a good school and besides we didn't create this segregated housing situation it was a white community at that because all during this time no broker would show like a likely. Home in a white area I sing I always shall I white my home and me negro I know right. And it's very very clear because the groups that tried to stabilize the neighborhood are initially they grew into Teaneck the housing and they helped establish the thousand commission of Bergen County and they they were very active and made demands on the town council to declare Teaneck an open town and they tried to get the town council to. Pass legislation that would affect this account town council refused to do so saying it wasn't a town problem as. This is regulated by the state that is they couldn't do this so they were very active in town and. They had a series of tests on which they tested every every broker in Teaneck and not one single legal family was shown a house and in white Teaneck and not one white family was on the House and black teenager Black seventeen I. Shouldn't say that was black tonight because. Even today there are many white families living in what is thought of as a predominately what is predominantly Negro and I think. What all the all doing news years up until nineteen sixty the fall of one nine hundred sixty three the rest of the white white part of the town really tried to ignore. That it had a black population. They were Raphaelson the so-called you know the the invisible man. And in fact the sociologist and nineteen fifty nine did a study in Teaneck and which many teenage whites said that in a kind no no no negro isn't. And the sociologist interpreted this as the white Sanat Teaneck in this. Did not perceive the Negro people they must of actually seen in the area as being residents because it was a slum. The was a slum and they couldn't they couldn't fit their lifeline now in your first semester down here the title itself clients and white suburbs. Do you think that this. Town while this city is a model of democracy Well I've always been a little self-conscious a lot title was chosen by my publisher triumph is a very absolute word it's a little bit too absolute compared to most communities. Teaneck as far ahead but there's a great deal of bigotry and Teaneck still today and a matter of fact there is no more integration today and in the housing of the schools than oh I didn't say that. The the we had an enormous fight. The division and a great night for and since I was just taken place yes. Was fairly mild compared to. What happened in Teaneck in one nine hundred sixty four I understand only three hundred people. Turned out for the Great Neck meeting but we had fifteen hundred people Fourteen hundred people packed a high school and it almost became a mob the night that the Teaneck what of education adopted a mandatory integration plan and it almost got out of hand and. Which is you know absolutely would take your situation however the following year when when we the following. SCHOOLBOY election three segregationist candidates who was only defeated and this this is the level of prejudice in Teaneck is lower than most communities but is a relative thing and it has a long way to go till you've counted if I had suggested to my publisher that have a subtitle of triumph in a white suburb to suburb or bigotry at best. Yes That in by that you've talked a bit about the background of me the black community man how does this compare with the white community blacks are professionals for the most part as I might yes out of the nation the. Most of them other than in business or we have no many doctors and they teachers and many many people who all walks of life what about the whites. They does this come the middle class I mean the comparable and education and and income. As I said though that the educational of the legal community is probably high. And. Actually. The black community of Teaneck has contributed enormously to the town the town is more interesting the town is is richer in every way of having this black community it's made the town much more interesting much more exciting. And there was a man he was something like The Who don't see it this way got a law passed out there they say they would say they still think with the same almost the stereotype what about the young people I was impressed by the fact that the young people in Great Neck and decided to march a few days ago a few days before. The voting and to express their concern and they seem to want it integrated classes I want to know about persons of other races and cultures other young people and teen not taking any positive stands each day as young people I think they don't know one thing I. As a elsewhere are ahead of their parents. The parents find it very hard or trans old ways of thinking and I say. Do you think this is as a result of an aggression and schools or just down I think probably the result of a climate of the times. I think it's the result too of contact. It's easier for young people to change the ways of thinking they cause many of the young people the swallow the stereotypes of the whole. And the this can go to work for you know both ways as to why as I say we certainly needed more time than we've had to really get into your book I know almost terminal that most of the people and of you all perhaps all of them were Caucasian a lot Kalac people that you talk to and no writing the book you know that they the. I interviewed. The members of the black community and the white community although my book was primarily a study of white saying. Anything very briefly you want to say about that and the study of why yes I know I was asked about undermine this book has sold. In five and six thousand copies and it's coming out in paperback it's successful book as far as my publicist concerned friends of mine and have been very disappointed that hasn't sold more because after all it's a very unique book and they believe it's a measure of the race white racism in this country that more people haven't been interested in finding out about a successful coming together of Negroes and white. Thank you Reginald Armorel for being with us on the bottom and in America please be with us again next week when we will have another distinguished guests with us this is Tom Allen Wishing you all a good night we welcome your comments on these programs send your cards and letters to black man in America W N Y C New York one hundred zero seven am join us again next Tuesday afternoon at five AM W N Y C F M or next Tuesday evening at nine AM W N Y C A black man in America is a feature presentation of your city station broadcast in cooperation with the New York City Commission on Human Rights.