Inglewood

I arrived in Inglewood in April 1966. This was at a time when the city and school district were undergoing a racial change. The city of Los Angeles was across the street from Inglewood's east boundary and that part of Los Angeles was almost totally black. Naturally the black people wanted to improve their living standard so they began to buy homes and move into Inglewood all along the eastern boundary. At the same time a few financially successful black people began to buy homes in La Dera Heights, a prime residential sub-division in north west Inglewood. One of the first black families was that of Frank Robinson who was then Manager of the Cleveland Indians baseball team and they were soon joined by doctors, lawyers and other professionals. As a result of these changes, we had black students in the west part and the east part of the district but the middle was all white.

The older residents of Inglewood were quite confused and uncertain about what they should do. Many of them simply sold to black families and moved away. Others made an honest attempt to welcome the blacks into their neighborhoods. A few people were very hostile toward the blacks refusing to talk with them and hoping they would go away.

The school district was a key player in this drama. The Board of Education appointed a Citizens Committee to deal with the problems of integration in the schools and hired a "Human Relations Coordinator." This Coordinator was a big black guy who was a kind of referee in all disputes between blacks and whites. He was also expected to teach the whites how to get along with the blacks. As I recall it, this man never gained entry to the inner circle of leadership at the district level. He operated independent of the top level administration and was gone a great deal of the time telling other school districts how to integrate peacefully.

Then a lawsuit was filed claiming that Inglewood was in violation of certain Federal Statutes requiring school enrollments to be racially balanced. We spent a lot of time in court trying to get a decision that we could finance and that would satisfy the Federal guidelines. The Court refused to consider the element of cost in any plans for racial integration. We tried to make the point that dollars for education were in limited supply and that anything that cut into that supply would leave less money for the basic job of educating children. The Court was deaf to that argument and ordered Inglewood to achieve racial balance in its schools by a certain date.

Now the only way to mix students who live in segregated neighborhoods is to transport a certain number out of one neighborhood and into another neighborhood and to take some out to make room for those being brought in. This means "bussing" which is a trigger word any place in the country but bussing is the most obvious and the most used technique for achieving racial balance in school districts. Bussing school children out of their home neighborhoods gives an accurate head count of black vs white and will probably satisfy the demands of a court order but it will not achieve genuine racial integration. Real integration involves far more than an even number of whites vs blacks in a school.

Enough about integration problems for the moment. Inglewood had some other problems that required attention. When I arrived in Inglewood in April 1966, they were attempting to connect the district to television programs being broadcast from the Los Angeles County Superintendent of Schools headquarters. The idea seemed to be that we would have a large "master" antenna to pick up the County programs and then would "re-beam" them to any classroom or classrooms in the district. Each school was supposed to have a large antenna to receive these programs and then pipe them to all the classrooms. Some $60,000 had already been expended before I arrived and not one program had been shown in any school.

The work on wiring was being done by district personnel on an over time basis. I had a long talk with the man in charge of the project and it was apparent to me that he was in over his head and had neither the training or the experience to make the system work. I had great concern about the whole project and I instructed him to concentrate on one school only and to get the system functioning there. It turned out that the whole design was faulty and could not be made to work. We were out $60,000 and had a great deal of explaining to do.

There were also some other peculiar practices in the District. They had never bought a new truck or car. Rather they purchased vehicles from war surplus and then spent a great deal to re-build them. They also wasted hours of man-power because of crews waiting for equipment to be repaired.

Inglewood is an old town and was an ideal small town until all the turmoil of integration turned it upside down. There is a large city park in the north section called Centinella Park. Years ago there was a large spring at this site and the waters from the spring were used to irrigate the Freeman Farm. Today Daniel Freeman Hospital stands on a part of that old farm. This hospital is operated by a nursing order of the Catholic Church and the hospital is known world wide for some of its medical practices.

While I was in Inglewood the Forum was built by Jack Kent Cooke, then owner of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team. The Lakers were playing in Los Angeles Sports Arena at first but were asked repeatedly to revise their schedule of games to accommodate another organization. This was very upsetting so Cooke appealed to the County Board of Supervisors for better control of his scheduling arrangement. In fact, he told them that if he could not get better control of his schedules, he would just have to build his own arena. The Supervisors laughed at him and refused to make any changes. Cooke bought a large piece of land in Inglewood and built the Forum. The Sports Arena was an empty shell for a few years after the Forum was completed.

In 1969, the Inglewood School District was holding a tax election and we were trying to drum up support for the proposition. Another fellow and I went to Jack Kent Cooke's office in Beverley Hills to try to get him to endorse the tax election. He thought we wanted a donation and was armed with his accountant and a hard luck story to show us how "broke" he was. When he found out that all we wanted was his endorsement, he gave it readily. We then had a good visit with him. He gave us both memberships to the Forum Club which is an exclusive restaurant on the first level of the Forum.

Contrary to my comments so far, I enjoyed the time I spent in Inglewood. The interesting human factor in racial integration far out weighed the frustration of trying to make it work. Some people were so wrapped up in the problems that they could not forget it and go about their every day lives. One man, a medical doctor, had a fatal heart attack while addressing the Board of Education at a regular meeting. Business places closed rather than try to accommodate black customers. Dentists moved to Orange County rather than work on black patients.

The Superintendent was a former Business Manager and when he moved up to the head spot I took his place. He was very bright and was fluent in six languages. He had no trouble making decisions. In fact he sometimes made the same one five or six times. You never knew whether or when a policy would be changed so you just had to do what you thought best and hope you would be supported. He was the one who started the television project that I had to stop. He also set up the policy of buying war surplus vehicles as a way to save money which turned out to be so costly. I had to be very diplomatic in changing these and other policies but managed to do so successfully.

I recall one incident involving a woman board member. She had requested a cash advance to attend a convention in Chicago. I gave her $500 out of a small Revolving Cash Fund which I administered in the office. She was to make the trip and then turn in a list of expenses so I could reimburse the Revolving Fund. A month later she had still not filed and expense report so I called her and asked her to please get it to me. Just after that I found out that the Board Member had not gone to Chicago, as authorized, but had gone on a "spree" to San Francisco. I called the County Auditor and told him the whole story. His comments were, "Sam, we are dealing here with an elected official. You and I do not know where she went, do we? You get a list of expenses for her or from her, have her sign it and send it to me. We will reimburse your Revolving Fund."

I understood the direction clearly. I also began to understand the power of an elected official. My secretary was most competent and she made up a list of expenses for the Chicago Convention totaling $500. The Board Member came in and signed it and I was off the hook. In thirty years of working with Board members this was my only experience with dishonesty.

I have previously mentioned a Citizens Advisory Committee which was appointed by the Board of Education to devise a plan that would solve the problem of racially balancing the schools. There were about forty members on the committee but it was completely dominated by a medical doctor who was a real crusader for integration. (He had no children in Inglewood schools.) The doctor got himself elected chairman of the committee and began to control all considerations for the group and would not allow anyone to look at the cost of implementing any plan under consideration. Actually, the "good" doctor controlled all discussions so closely that only the plans with which he agreed were seriously discussed.

We had two four-year high schools and two three-year junior high schools plus a number of elementary schools. The committee recommended (really the Doctor's plan) that we change to one three year high school at one location using an adjacent junior high for added space and convert the other high school to a four year junior high using an adjacent junior high as added space. The elementary schools would remain the same except we would continue to run buses to maintain racial balance.

This plan would require added science laboratories, office space and other specialized facilities at the proposed high school as well as revision and conversion of spaces at the proposed junior high. This plan was presented to the Board of Education at a regular meeting of the Board and the Committee Chairman requested that the Board respond by a certain date. The administrative staff discussed the recommendation at great length and came to the conclusion that it was not a feasible thing to do and that the education of all Inglewood children would be severely down graded and they told the Board their decision. The Board agreed with the staff.

It was now necessary that someone meet with the Committee and explain the Board's objections to their plan. Of course it was the duty of the Superintendent to handle this chore and he prepared a proper response after conferring with the staff. On the day of the Committee meeting I was attending a conference in Anaheim and I got an emergency call from my office in Inglewood. "The Superintendent is ill and it will be necessary that you give the Board's response to the Committee, tonight." Now I was not surprised that the Superintendent was "indisposed." He had formed a habit of becoming "ill" when distasteful jobs came along. At any rate, I met with the Committee and took the heat from them for the Superintendent who was back in the office the next day with no sign of illness.

Something can be learned from this method of attacking educational problems. When we rely on a group of untrained people who are dominated by an articulate aggressive individual to come up with a solution we should be punished by having to live with their recommendation. The most successful integration programs in this country have been those used in the South where the principals and the teachers worked out plans for racial balance. They then told parents and pupils what they were going to do because it "was the law of the land and it was the right thing to do." They then simply implemented those plans in a quiet positive way. When you stir in the whole community and call in "experts" to tell you what to do, all the problems are magnified. Appointing a citizens committee in most cases, is simply a good way to delay or avoid a decision and seldom helps in reaching a satisfactory solution to racial integration.

It was amusing to watch the "integration" of the central office staff. We were all white until a black bookkeeper was hired. At least eight applicants were interviewed for this job and the best candidate by far was a nice black woman. Her name was placed on the hiring list for Board action and then the Superintendent called me to come in to his office. He said, "Is there a black on the hiring list for this office?" I told him there was. He said he thought that he should make the decision about putting a black in the office. I told him that this employee would be in the Business Office and that I did not know of any policy that prevented us from hiring blacks. Later I found that the real culprit was the Superintendent's secretary who was Mexican. She thought the case required special permission from the head man and the Superintendent followed her lead. Anyway the black woman was hired and had no problems because of her color.

I have evaluated each man I worked for in every district and I may as well talk about Inglewood. That Superintendent is the only one I thought deserved to be fired from his job. He was totally indecisive. He required a great deal of attention. It was as though he expected each staff member to come by his office each day and pat him on the back. It was never clear where he stood on any question and he might change his mind at any time. The people in the community did not understand him and did not have a warm feeling toward him. I stayed with him for six years but when the Deputy Superintendent's job in Santa Monica opened I began to think of moving. A good friend of mine was in Santa Monica. He was retiring and thought I would fit well in that district. The job included both the unified district and the community college and the salary was considerably higher than the one in Inglewood. The Superintendent in Santa Monica had been a principal in Torrance so I knew him well. He was a large brash Italian guy who drank heavily and chased women. When I mentioned this to my friend in Santa Monica, he said, "Yes, he does all those things but he also can make decisions and he will support you in the ones you make. He is a real joy to work with."

I called the Superintendent, went for an interview and got the Santa Monica job. This occurred in April which was my month for moves. Again, I selected my replacement in Inglewood.