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Griffin School students hold special reunion Melodie Phelps News Editor Fifty years ago they played an important role in the history of education. Saturday 13 of the 51 students who attended the Griffin School during the 1955-56 school year were back together for a special reunion. As the event concluded, the 13 former classmates stood at the front of the 3Rıs Musuem community in the nation, ³Jesus Loves the Little Children.² It was the song that teacher Marie Blevins began to sing on the morning of July 18, 1955, when the first black students came to the tiny, one-room school at Griffin. According to accounts from her family, Blevins knew that she faced a difficult task that day, and that she had prayed for strength and guidance before that first day of class. But as the students gathered at the Griffin School it was a song that came to Blevins mind, and she began to sing, ³Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.² The song launched integration in the Wayne County Schools. Prominently displayed in the room at the Wayne County Museum, where the reunion began Saturday afternoon, was a picture of that class gathered around Blevins. It is a pictured that has been published in numerous articles and hundreds of newspapers, as the nation watched how a tiny school in rural Kentucky handled integration. Blevinsı family and the family of Clark and Lena Mae Stonewall were guests of honor during the anniversary celebration. But as Harlan Ogle, Executive Director/Curator of the museum noted, it took a whole community to accomplish what the Griffin School did in 1955. ³No one or two people could have accomplished what was done 50 years ago at Griffin,² said Ogle, as he spoke to the large crowd who attended Saturdayıs anniversary celebration. Ogle traced the history of integration in education and talked about the important 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended the segregation of students in public school systems. Ogle praised the leadership of people like Superintendent Ira Bell and O.M. Travis who met together to map out a plan for implementing integration in Wayne County. Superintendent John Dalton, who spoke at Saturdayıs anniversary, noted that as he researched the events that led to the 1955-56 school year in Griffin, he gained even more respect for the families who played such an important role in the integration effort. He noted that after the school board granted the request to allow the Stonewall children to attend school, there was some resistance to the action. Dalton said that resistance dealt with as the board continued to move forward with the Supreme Courtıs mandate. ³All of us here today have the luxury of knowing how this worked out,² said Dalton. ³Those of who were at the Griffin School at this time didnıt know what was going to happen.² Blevins was unable to attend the anniversary because of her health, but the family was represented by her sons, Parker and Carter, as well as her twin sister Lee Abbott. Other members of the family also attended the event. ³Our mother was always most proud to have taught at the Griffin School,² said Parker Blevins. ³She would tell the story over and over and over to people.² Parker Blevins spent much of the past month researching his motherıs role in the integration at Griffin School. He found a shirt box filled with newspaper clippings, personal letters and photographs, which he has put together into a collection. A copy of that collection, which is in two volumes, was officially donated to the Wayne County Museum Saturday, where it will be kept. Among the letters, Blevins noted there were some that sent money, $1 or $2, to the school, and these letters did not just come from the black community. One letter contained a check to pay for three months of electricity for the school. ³Many people in the country were watching Griffin,² said Blevins. He also noted that a high school in Detroit had adopted the Griffin School as a project. They sent books, clothes, candy and other items for the students at the one-room school. One gift was a radio that the class could listen to. After the formal part of the ceremony was completed, the group moved outside to the 3Rıs Museum, which is located just behind the Wayne County History Museum. There, the students from Griffin had an opportunity to recall their school days and memories of the 1955-56 school year. Clark Stonewall is one of the six Stonewall children to attend the school that first year. He said he was nine that school year. He knew all the kids in the community before attending school. ³I enjoyed class and I got some of my best grades there,² said Clark Stonewall. ³I enjoyed the people there...I have good memories about those times.² Parker Blevins said he was an eighth grader during the 1955-56 school year and he attended consolidated school, where Clarence Bates was the teacher. He recalled his mother was concerned about that first day of school at Griffin but she was also determined. ³She wanted everything to be great,² said Blevins. ³She had faith and she was very focused on how things were going.² As Ogle noted, the Stonewall children had not had the opportunity to attend public school before 1955, but all had been educated at home by their mother, Lena Mae. Stonewall, who attended Saturdayıs reunion, said that taught all of her children, working with them each day and into the night. ³They wanted to learn,² she said. ³They were eager to start school.² Stonewall said that it was a ³happy day² when her children began school at Griffin. Reader Comments Ray Guffey (6/2/2005) Saturday May 28,2005, Marie Blevins and her twin Lee Abbott was recognized as the grandchildren and stone setting of John H.P. Guffey and Nancy Allcorne at Taylor Grove Cemetary. Add a comment |
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