The View from the Bus

NO northern city has been more polarized by the busing issue than Pontiac, Mich. (pop. 85,000), a transient auto assembly-line town 25 miles northwest of Detroit. Last May, the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a district court order calling for the busing of 9,000 of the 24,000 students to achieve racial balance in the city's predominantly white (68%) school system. When the schools opened in September, six members of the Ku Klux Klan were arrested for fire-bombing Pontiac school buses; militant white mothers chained themselves to buses and enrolled their children in impromptu neighborhood "freedom schools."

For Pontiac parents, busing has been a traumatic experience. "There is fear," says School Superintendent Dana Whitmer. "The whites fear the ghetto and the blacks fear sending their children into what they are afraid are Ku Klux Klan areas." The significant issue, though, is how the children have reacted. The answer, so far, seems to be: remarkably well, to judge by the testimony of two typical Pontiac teenagers:

Dorian Brooks, 13, is a black eighth-grader at Pontiac's Eastern Junior High School, a once all-black school that is now 60% white as a result of busing. A shy, pretty girl who would like to be a social worker, Dorian does not mind being bused. "I like to meet a lot of different people," she explains, "and I was glad when the busing started. At the beginning they didn't socialize at all, the blacks and the whites. We had a Sadie Hawkins dance, and I only saw one white couple, and they left five minutes later. We had a skating party, and I didn't see any white people at all. I guess they either think we don't want them or they are afraid something will happen to them down here. Some mothers and fathers come and pick up their kids, and maybe I don't blame them if they are scared. I know one white kid who got on a bus and some black kids just jumped him for no reason at all and beat him. I don't think it happens very much any more, though."

Dorian, one of the organizers of a Brotherhood Week at Eastern, feels that continued togetherness is the answer. "I have made some good white friends," she says, "but I can see it is hard for them. Like, we were making up these committees and this girl told us to put her in a group with all white people because she had been socializing with the blacks so much that she was afraid her friends would hate her. Another time, a friend of mine had this pajama party and she wanted to invite me, only she was afraid her parents wouldn't like it. Maybe it is going too fast for some people, especially parents, to accept it. The big problem is keeping the students together once they get to school. I think we could get a lot of school spirit and make kids interested, get activities going, have some campaigns to make money and have trips. I think the more we are together the better it will be. It is up to the students to do it. It will take time, but we can do it."

John Kindig, 13, a white seventh-grader at Jefferson Junior High, where the white enrollment has grown from 10% to 55% under the busing program, agrees. "All these adults keep telling us we're supposed to be against busing," he says. "They tell each other 'Burn the buses, tear down the schools, beat up the niggers.' Who do they think they are? We're the ones who are going to school. We're the ones that have to live together. We can do it fine if they'll let us alone. I've made a lot of friends here at Jefferson, and my best friend, that's Keith Fowler, he's black. I'd like to have him come on over and spend the night, but my dad he wouldn't allow it. I've stayed at Keith's place though. And we go skiing a lot."

John, an A student who wears jeans and a T shirt bearing the inscription "The Devil Made Me Do It," is a founder of The Group, an organization of black and white students dedicated to making the new busing and integration program work. "The bus I travel on is all white," he says of his ten-minute ride to school. "On the first days, when we pulled up to the school, like it was very quiet. I don't know why, except I guess we were all afraid of the black people. I guess the blacks were worried about us too. At the beginning just about everybody sat at all-white tables in the cafeteria, and the whites and blacks wouldn't talk to each other very much. But we've only had twelve big arguments or fights at Jefferson since school started.

"Blacks are different," he continues. "They have different personalities and all that. But I guess I would never have known any or made any friends among them if it had not been for busing, if some of those grownups had their way. The adults say that seventh-graders can't grasp the situation, that we're too young. Well, how can they tell? They aren't the ones in school. They're not trying to make it work. We are. We have to live together and grow up together so we can keep this earth going. Busing shouldn't be the solution to segregation. But it's one way we can get to know each other."

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