CONWAY (WBTW) – Dr. Veronica Gerald’s office at Coastal Carolina University is only a few miles from where she grew up on Conway’s west side.
“For the most part, the African-Americans lived on the west side,” said Dr. Gerald, who is a professor at CCU. “(We) attended school on the west side, the funeral homes were on the west side, their grocery stores and neighborhood stores were on the west side.”
Until she turned 16, Gerald said she lived in a totally segregated world in the Racepath community. Then she and other students at the all-black Whittemore High School received letters inviting them to help integrate Horry County schools. She decided she would take the offer and attend Conway High School at the beginning of her junior year in the fall of 1966.
“We had second-hand books (at Whittemore), (and) we had a very sparse library,” said Gerald. “We just had so many things we thought equated to inequality. So, I wanted to go to a school I thought had a better educational system.”
Gerald and four other Whittemore students will be honored at Conway High School’s 22nd Annual Ethnic Buffet in celebration of Black History Month on Thursday. The other students are: Dr. Preston McKever-Floyd, Michael Avant, Michael Hughes, and Lavernon Owens.
“The day we went to get our books and I saw the sea of white faces, I was a little scared,” Gerald admitted. “The stairs (of the old school building, now Conway Middle School) were like courthouse stairs, and the building was so huge, and I can’t even explain how scared I was.”
Gerald said her fellow Conway students were mostly welcoming and understanding, though there were some who let their prejudice show.
“When we would get on the bus, if we sat beside them, they would move or would not allow us to sit by putting books in their chairs,” she said. “The staff, actually, at Conway High School, welcomed us and provided us with a sense of ease and comfort.”
Current Conway High School Principal Steven Fitch said Thursday’s luncheon is just the beginning of a way to open up discussions with the Whittemore Five about what the tumultuous 1960’s were like in a small town like Conway.
“This is a case of obtaining primary research–being able to go back and talk to the people that actually lived during these situations,” said Fitch. “When you talk to somebody first-hand who lived it, it’s an entirely different story than reading it out of a textbook or hearing it from a friend of a friend.”
Gerald, herself a long-time educator, believes teenagers today could learn a lot from the lessons she learned as a teenager in Conway.
“Whatever it is you’re doing, whatever the situation is, you have the power all along,” she said. “It’s inside. I had these things inside, but I’m not sure they would have revealed themselves had I stayed in the segregated situation.”