Different Families, Different Worries

On the night before school began in Louisville, Elmer Woods, a brewing company sales supervisor, took his sons, Byron, 13, and Kenneth, 12, aside. "Keep cool and watch yourselves," he told them. "No matter what they yell at you, just ignore it."

Next morning, the boys got up at 5:45 a.m. to have breakfast before their father drove them ten blocks to catch a school bus at 6:50 a.m. Then they rode for 40 minutes to cover 16 miles to their new school, Stuart High, in suburban Jefferson County. The bus was pelted with rocks; passing motorists honked horns as a sign of antibusing protest and hurled racial insults. But there was no serious trouble at school, and the Woodses, a black middle-class family with an income of $20,000, felt the ordeal was well worthwhile.

That does not mean they enjoy busing. "I'm really not for it," says Woods. "I'd much rather have the boys closer to home." Last year Ken walked to Martin Luther King School, only two blocks from his trim red brick home in the city's predominantly black West End. Byron attended Shawnee Junior High School, ten blocks away. Says the boys' mother, Mary, a medical lab technician at Jewish Hospital: "If there was a better way of bringing about racial equality in the schools, we'd go for it, but there doesn't seem to be."

Mrs. Woods frets, too, about the boys being so far from home. Both may want to stay after school for sports. To accommodate them, Woods says he is ready to drive out late every afternoon to pick them up.

But neither the parents nor the boys consider those disadvantages as too much. They have found the Stuart curriculum much broader than anything in the West End schools. Byron, who has been weak in math, is pleased that he can take an extra math course to catch up. "I know that I'm going to have to work harder," he says, "but I can do it. The teachers are closer to you here. They explain things more." Ken is taking an elective in chess. Neither had any problems with white classmates on opening day. Said Byron of one white boy: "I sat down in class; then he did. I moved closer, and pretty soon we were friends."

For the parents, the most important factor is the educational opportunities now offered to their boys. Says Woods about the busing plan: "It's the best thing that has happened since the Supreme Court ruling of 1954. We're 20 years late, but it is going to better my kids." Noting that white students will be bused out of their neighborhoods for only two years, while the arrangement is long-term for blacks, he wonders, "Can't they stand something for two years? We have suffered much more than they have."

Mrs. Woods notes that she had not been closely exposed to whites until college. "Why must someone wait half his life for that?" she asks. "If busing is going to mean a long struggle, then so be it." Nevertheless, Mrs. Woods is worried. "What," she asks, "is going to happen after all the police leave?"

On the day of school opening in Louisville, the three children of Al and Mildred McCauley--David, 15, Danny, 14, and Debbie, 10--remained in their brick home in Highview, a white middle-class suburb in Jefferson County. Debbie, who was not scheduled for busing and could have attended her old school a few blocks away, asked, "Mommy, when can I go? If I don't pretty soon, I'm going to be far behind." Mrs. McCauley shook her head and looked away.

McCauley, a dry-wall finisher from the Kentucky hill country, and his wife, an articulate spokeswoman for Save Our Community Schools, are keeping their children home to protest the busing plan. Their two boys would have had to get up at 6:35 a.m. and ride a bus for 50 minutes to reach Parkland Junior High, a black ghetto school 22 miles away in Louisville. "They won't go there--ever," vows Mrs. McCauley.

The parents object primarily to what they consider the inferior education and disorderly conditions at Parkland. Mrs. McCauley visited it last year and claims that "it hadn't been painted in eight years. There was no maintenance." Moreover, they have heard rumors of stabbings, rapes and other crimes in the Parkland neighborhood.

Fern Creek, the school the boys attended last year, has a minor drug problem, but its neighborhood is bucolic by comparison. David, who is already one year behind in school, feels he would slip further at Parkland: "It won't help me. I don't see why I should have to go." Agrees Danny: "I like Fern Creek; I don't like Parkland."

The McCauleys understand blacks who want to go to better schools. "But," asks McCauley, "why don't they just upgrade their schools? I just can't see sending my children in there to get a lower education so that they can get a better one."

More broadly, the McCauleys feel put upon by Government. "We've been shoved," says Mrs. McCauley. "Unemployment is running wild; inflation is killing us. Now the Federal Government steps in and orders this busing. We're fighting for our freedom as Americans." Sadly she adds, "I get up some mornings and feel like I want to secede."

They are even wondering about whether to stay in Highview. But they figure their house is worth $38,000 and so many homes in the outlying country are for sale that they doubt they can get what they want for it.

So the boys sit idle, watching TV and helping their parents with various chores. Police had sealed off the nearby schools; thus Danny for a time could not play tennis there as he did this summer. Debbie plays with neighborhood youngsters but appears confused. "Busing--yech. It stinks," she says.

As the boycott seems to lose momentum, the McCauleys worry that truancy charges may be brought against the children. "We feel like there's a gun in our back," protests Mrs. McCauley. They say they would never resort to violence to block busing. But, predicts McCauley, "after the Guard leaves, all hell is going to break loose."

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