Page 12 - ACTL Journal Fall24

Rick with his mother and step-father, Rev. Jacob and Annie Ruth Parker
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Then, in 1963, the board adopted a resolution refusing
to desegregate Bibb County public schools and vowing
to continue its separate systems. A group of parents filed
suit, and on January 24, 1964, U.S. District Judge William
Bootle ordered the school board to begin eliminating the
separate school systems. The board responded with a plan that targeted total integration by the
1972-1973 school year — nine years later. Judge Bootle issued further orders. On September 1, 1964, sixteen Black students become the first to attend previously all-white high schools, enroll-
ing at Lanier, Miller and Willingham.
Rick was an integral part of that history. His mother and step-father, Jacob Parker, pastor of the Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church, felt it a duty that Rick be part of it. Rick became one of six African-American students to integrate what had until then been an all-white 600 student junior high school.
I naively asked Rick if there were any incidents. He just laughed softly and answered “well, of course. Nothing terrible, but of course.” Why, I thought, of course? Without a touch of bit- terness, Rick recounted that as the six unwanted desegregators sat by themselves at recess after lunch, various utensils that had not made it to dishwashing would be lobbed at them, like mor- tar rounds, from the white crowd. “No one was seriously hurt,” Rick recalled. He didn’t say more, but the flip side of that comment is that people – his people – were hurt.
By the time Rick went on to high school with a few other Black students in what had been an all-white school, things had calmed down a bit. Instead of knives and forks, the kids threw M-1 rifles.
The school had mandatory ROTC (Reserve Officer Train- ing Corps) with Regular Army Drill Sergeants, who be- came the common enemy.
But Rick took to it – he and a couple of friends joined the Drill Team. And the team was good, really; the varsity team, the Golden Boots, won the National Championship in Rick’s senior year, though he wasn’t there for it. Rick was a member of the Boots, but he couldn’t compete in the Nationals because he had been promoted to officer rank and was one of the commanders of the junior varsity Silver
Rifles, and he proudly competed with them. JOURNAL