BACK TO THE DOLLARWAY SYNDROME: A WORK IN PROGRESS

In 2019, Rob began previewing the book he’s writing about what he calls “The Dollarway Syndrome” – the proclivity white Americans have for treating individual black Americans with kindness, civility, and compassion while, at the same time, supporting and espousing political and social policies that retard black progress. In this post, he relates more about how The Dollarway Syndrome works.

I’ve organized the book into three parts. The first three chapters comprise a memoir in which I relate basic facts about me and report incidents and stories that describe the Dollarway  Syndrome. These incidents and

stories mostly occurred during my time at Dollarway, the small, Pine Bluff, Arkansas high school from which I graduated in 1969. Part two explores the connection between geography and race in America and some basic human behavior concepts. It serves as a bridge between the memoir section and part three, the portion of the book in which I offer explanations for the Dollarway Syndrome, what it means in our broader racial context, and how we might minimize its negative effects. Part three connects the Dollarway Syndrome with ideas about race discrimination offered by scholars, journalists, and others who focus on racial issues.

Today, I relate part of a story from the memoir chapters that harkens back to a political campaign in which Henry, Woodson, and I all took great interest – the 1966 Arkansas governor’s race between moderate

Republican Winthrop Rockefeller and the Democratic nominee, arch segregationist state supreme court Justice Jim Johnson. Rockefeller, who won and for whom Henry later worked, vigorously courted black voters

while Johnson reportedly regularly tossed round the n-word.  The encounter I describe with one of my white classmates left a lasting impression because it shook me and represented my first experience with the duality of the Dollarway Syndrome.

Reading Partners

I arrived at Dollarway as a sophomore in 1966, attending under a freedom-of-choice desegregation plan that lets students pick their school. Only a handful of blacks (three in my class) elected Dollarway. Most remained at all-black Townsend Park High.

One of my white classmates noticed I carried around paperback books that weren’t on our English class reading list. He shared with me that he was also an avid reader and fan of the Erle Stanley Gardner Perry Mason  novels

he’d noticed me reading (the popular television series starring Raymond Burr had just ended). For several weeks, this student and I cultivated a friendship based on our mutual affinity for those novels, whispering back and forth and passing notes in study hall about the latest one we’d started reading.

I felt this student and I developed a genuine friendship based on mutual respect and trust.

Unlike other white Dollarway students, he never used racial slurs. We interacted in a way that made me feel his equal. For a few weeks, I thought of him as the best friend I had at Dollarway, white or black. That’s why I felt betrayed by what happened a little later.

A Locker Room Conversation

Besides English class, this student and I took physical education together. One day in October, with the hot gubernatorial election nearing its climax, as we dressed after gym class, he asked me, “Hey, Wiley, you think ol’ Rockefeller’s gonna win the election?”

I hesitated. Should I make known my

intensely pro-  Rockefeller views? I wondered how being honest with him would affect our friendship, since I knew many white Dollarway students favored Johnson.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know who’ll win. I know who I hope wins.”

I hung back, acknowledging the first part of his statement, but ignoring the second part. “I can’t say now who’ll win. It’s close, real close from what I hear.”

“I don’t like Rockefeller.”

My heart sank a little with his words, but I only nodded and waited for his reason. I lifted my eyebrows but remained silent in the moment.

“Johnson will be stronger,” he continued. “You know, tougher. Rockefeller seems weak to me.”

“I don’t know,” I said, buttoning my shirt,

picking up my gym bag, and moving toward the door. “I guess we’ll just have to see how it turns out.” I left before he could say more. Later, I reflected on his last words. They nagged at me.

After thinking about it a long time, really until after things white people said during the 1968 elections two years later, I realized what my reading partner probably meant. He meant ‘stronger’ and ‘tougher’ on blacks. I’ve always believed he preferred not saying that to me, given the time we’d spent together and the decency he’d shown toward me. I assume he knew talking in overt racial terms would jeopardize the friendship. For his own reasons, I imagined he didn’t want that.

Far worse instances of white people engaging in racially insensitive behavior after befriending me occurred during my Dollarway years. This one stung so much because it was the first.

This student and I remained friends for most of the rest of that school year. We drifted apart over the remaining two years of high school. The relationship was never the same after what happened in the fall of ’66. As I saw it, being for Jim Johnson and recognizing racial equality wasn’t possible. By being friends with me and supporting Johnson, was he saying it was? I’d never considered such an idea and I’m still troubled by people who’d suggest that. One thing was clear after that locker room conversation. I’d seen something I never had before. I’ve been thinking about it ever since.  

 

ATTENDING TWO REUNIONS

This time, Rob shares an essay he wrote for a church service on family. This piece looks back at his experiences in the ‘60s and asks that Americans act now and spare their children the pain, divisiveness, and turbulence of the past, and even of today.  

High school class reunions generate many emotions – longing for days gone by,    excitement at seeing old friends,regret about roads not taken, reflection on life and what it’s meant, realization of mortality and all it implies. I never thought, however, reunions would generate sadness and apprehension for my children’s future. That’s what happened this summer as a result of attending two class reunions. Those reunions drive my thoughts about family this fall. 

 

My 50^th

Two Thousand Nineteen marks 50 years since I graduated from high school. Due to an odd circumstance, I got to go to two reunions. The thoughts and feelings they generated offer a commentary on the past, on our times, and, unfortunately, on the times my family may see in the future. 

I’m a member of the graduating class of Dollarway High School of 1969. The Dollarway School District lies on the western edge of Pine Bluff, Arkansas. I attended DHS from the beginning of my sophomore year until graduation.

I grew up in Hope, Arkansas, so until we moved to Pine Bluff,

I attended school there. I finished my  freshman year at Hope's Yerger High in the spring of 1966.

Like most school systems in the South in the 1960s, the

Hope and Dollarway districts found themselves caught up in the battle over desegregation. Both operated dual school systems. Blacks attended one set of schools and whites another -- by law. They called it de jure segregation.

The Dollarway and Hope districts resisted ending their dual systems by using so-called “freedom-of-choice” plans. Students and their parents could choose the school they preferred. This resulted in desegregation in name only. No whites attended the black schools. A few blacks attended the white schools. Only two other black students graduated from Dollarway with me in 1969.

The federal courts and the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare ultimately decided the constitution required unitary systems – one set of schools for everyone. That fall—after my graduation – in both districts, the black schools and the white schools merged. That freshman class I started with was, therefore, the last graduating class Yerger High ever had, as

Back of Yerger 50th Reunion T-shirt

the back of the 50^th reunion t-shirt proclaims. I remained friends with some members of that class and they kindly invited me to their reunion in early July. Two weeks before, I attended my Dollarway class reunion.

Initially, both reunions left me joyous about renewing old acquaintances and reliving my youth. But, as they say in the National Football League, “upon further review,” I saw things differently. 

I had a positive experience at Dollarway. For the most part,  it

was what high school should be – a time of personal growth, youthful exploration, and adolescent experimentation. I had a few racially uncomfortable moments there as I will explore in my forthcoming book The Dollarway Syndrome: Race, Individual Goodwill, and the Continuing Struggle for Equality. By and large, however, my Dollarway

experience left me with warm feelings. That’s what the reunion reminded me of – positive emotions associated with football games, bonfires, drama club meetings, and track practice.

The Yerger reunion provided pleasant moments of a different

kind. I loved spending time both  with the friends with whomI’ve stayed in touch and those I hadn’t seen in ages. I appreciated learning about their triumphs and tragedies, reminding me of the miniscule margin between success and disaster. I didn’t do high school with the Yerger graduates, but they’re good people who played a meaningful role in my past.

Some Things Never Change

Despite the good feelings, generated by different circumstances at the two reunions, being at both reminded me of something else – America’s unfinished business with race. Both school districts have re-segregated. 

Dollarway, nearly all-white when I started there in 1966, is now about five per cent white, the rest of its student population black and Hispanic. Hope is about 20% white, the rest black and Hispanic.

It happened at Dollarway because whites left for private schools and because real estate developers built subdivisions in far out suburban areas. In Hope, a few private academies opened, and some white parents transported their children to a nearby rural district that welcomed them with open arms. So, fifty years after the battles I witnessed in the ‘60s, America still fights wars about race. The reunions reminded me of the depressing fact a good chance exists my children will likely still be fighting about race at the time of their 50^th class reunions. The battles won’t be the same as those of my youth, or even the ones of today.  But so many signs I can see say their society will face racial turmoil. That makes me very sad. I so much wish we would decide we don’t want that for our children, that we really are one family, and do something about it ourselves --- NOW. 

                         

                    

G. Thomas Eisele: Judge, Mentor, Friend

Last month, an Arkansas federal judge died at 94, saddening many in and outside that state.  He had an enormous impact on our native state and on two of us personally. We’d be remiss if we didn’t pay tribute to his remarkable life.  

Garnett Thomas Eisele served as a judge in the Eastern District of Arkansas from 1970 until his 2011 retirement.  Before taking the bench, as an old-time moderate Republican, he played a major role in Winthrop Rockefeller’s gubernatorial campaigns and served as his legal advisor at $1 a year.  Richard Nixon appointed him to the bench and he swore off politics, believing judicial office required the reality and appearance of fairness.

Tributes have poured in since his death, noting his penchant for unpopular decisions in criminal, environmental, and civil rights cases.  For the two of us who knew him, his judicial record tells only part of the story.  He seemed larger than life because of his intellect, kindness, civility, and dedication to helping people realize their potential.

Henry Writes:

My mother believed everyone encounters people who enrich lives if we open ourselves to those chance meetings.  Judge Eisele confirmed her belief.  Just out of college and working for Governor Rockefeller, I met Tom Eisele.  Although incredibly busy as the Governor’s lawyer, he took the time to talk with, advise, and encourage this young college graduate.  When it came time to move on to my career, he encouraged me to attend law school.  He thought, for some reason, I’d do well in the law.

By the time I graduated from law school he’d become a federal judge. He hired me as a law clerk. The newspaper headline read:

“Negro Named as US Law Clerk.” My hiring made him the first federal judge in Arkansas to employ an African American clerk.  He let me know that though he recognized the significance of the hire, he chose me because of my record, writing ability, and the potential he saw in me to help him do the people's business.

Working with him gave me a daily opportunity to watch and engage his unparalleled attention to detail, his total belief in fairness and justice, and his complete conviction that the cases we handled belonged not to us but the litigants whose lives depended on the energy and intellectual honesty we brought to each case.
Though I’d committed to a two year clerkship with him, I got a chance to clerk for an Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals judge.  He said I couldn’t pass up such an opportunity.  He believed it significant that I’d become the first African American to clerk for a judge on that court, but he thought it just as important that the experience itself would serve me well for the rest of my career.  He believed I could make a difference. 

G. Thomas Eisele (credit: Arkansas Online)

Later, I was appointed Magistrate Judge in the Eastern District of Arkansas. I’m sure when the district judges chose from the lawyers presented them by a recommending committee, his strong, respected voice and his belief in me made a difference.  I became the first African American Magistrate Judge in a southern state.  I found challenge and reward in my 31 and a half years on that court, serving alongside Judge Eisele.  My mentor and wise advisor became my colleague and invaluable friend.  I treasure that friendship and the memory of our conversations.  Nothing I write could demonstrate his impact on my life.

He opened his courtroom, his mind, and his heart to all people.  I miss him.

Rob writes:
I knew Judge Eisele less well than Henry, but my experiences with him produced enormous respect and admiration.   When I lived in Little Rock in the 1970s, I often ran along Rebsamen Park Road, a straight, flat stretch that parallels the Arkansas River.  Occasionally, I’d find myself catching up to a shirtless man who never stopped smiling and who always had time to talk until I pushed ahead.  That man was Judge Eisele. 

Oh, I knew who he was.  Most of the regular runners along “the river,” as we called it, knew “the Judge,” who parked his old Mercedes on the eastern end of the route, ran west for about three miles, and returned.  I wasn’t a lawyer then, but he knew me from television.  As we plodded along, we talked sports or how I was doing with life.  Despite his position, he wasn’t dour, standoffish, or self-important.  He talked to me like a human being.

Years later, after I’d become a lawyer,  on a visit to Arkansas, I mentioned to Henry that I’d worked on a case, just decided by the Texas Supreme Court, on admissibility of scientific evidence.  He said Judge Eisele had a pending case involving that issue and he might want to know what I’d learned.  The Judge invited me to his office and we spent almost an hour talking about the ins and outs of that complex topic.  When I returned to Houston, as he’d asked, I sent his law clerks the briefs in my case.   I was astounded that he cared what I thought.

Finally, when we started this project, I needed background on Henry’s life before we met.  Henry said Judge Eisele heavily influenced his decision to attend law school.  He urged me to call him about it.  I dialed the number Henry gave me, expecting I’d have to fight my way through a palace guard of gatekeepers.  Judge Eisele answered the phone himself.  We talked for an hour, just two people discussing a mutual friend.  The world needs more people who approach life like he did.