The Hillsboro Story - Excerpts
History and Memory
On a hot summer night, July 5, 1954, Lincoln School, the colored elementary school in Hillsboro, O hio, went up in flames; and my sweet, sleepy, segregated little hometown was suddenly awake.
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It's Hard to Get a Date if You're a Communist
"I was called a Communist. Even worse than being a nigger lover was to be a communist. Any kind of social change, anything that shook the... at the time there was a lot of fear in the country left over the McCarthy days. People don't realize that."
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People Talk
Hillsboro, population, 5280, is nestled in the foothills of Appalachia, thirty-eight miles north of the Ohio River. The river was a section of the Mason Dixon Line, a boundary that separated Kentucky in the south from the "free" state of Ohio in the north the years before and during the Civil War.
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Prosperity
Hillsboro, Ohio was prosperous in 1954. Dad owned Banyas Buick Company and employed a secretary, another salesman, a parts manager, and three mechanics. Earl Bowan, one of his mechanics, rode to work every morning on a Harley. The garage showroom was shiny and clean and had a large window that faced onto High Street.
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Style
Gertrude Clemons arrived in court in a white shirtwaist dress with a v-neck cut and a wide collar, white earrings, black heels, and white purse. Her daughter, Joyce, the Plaintiff, wore a yellow dress with black patent leather shoes. They looked like models from Ebony Magazine.
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The Brown Promise
If Philip Partridge was the spark that ignited the school fight, Imogene Curtis carried the torch. While he did time in the state penitentiary for arson, she formed a local chapter of the NAACP, and instigated a lawsuit against the Hillsboro Board of Education.
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The County Engineer
Phillip Partridge, poised and particular, was short on patience when it came to people trying to fold the same old attitudes into whole new possibilities. America was in motion. The Supreme Court had officially ended segregation. But it was one thing to talk about it and another thing to level the playing field.
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