To Ninfa Barnard, I’d like to say, “Well done!” That front page story you wrote concerning Sarah E. Howard was nicely researched and presented. And it was long overdue about a brave, pioneering young woman who helped pave the way in education for all people, regardless of skin color in our city, county, state, and country.
We know her father ushered her legal battles through the courts regarding her desegregation efforts to transfer from the African American Townsend Park campus portion of the Dollarway School District to the white-dominated Dollarway High School campus. But it was Sarah herself who was the one who day to day for the greater part of two and a half years showed up with her head held high to get the education that she sought for the other side of that “separate but equal” fence that supposedly had been torn down by the Supreme Court in 1954.
As a white student two years behind Sarah at Dollarway, I never shared any classes with her, but I did witness how rudely many students (but not all) treated her in the hallways between classes and how a number of the teachers acted fairly indifferently toward her at best.
But I did share a study hall class period with her with my assigned seat being located next to hers. We didn’t become friends, but I did notice that she almost always did her non-math homework using a Sheaffer cartridge pen, had the nicest handwriting, and completed the neatest homework assignments I ever saw.
But even in study hall, many students were mean and discourteous to her just because of who she was. For example, when the study hall supervisor wasn’t looking, some would throw paper wads and other air-borne missiles at her — not that their aim was that good. Most of those flying objects ended up hitting me and others in her general vicinity — so they’d shoot even more to get at her. How she put up with all that and much worse until she graduated, I’ll never know. But she did.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
About 10 years ago, I researched the history of Dollarway Schools for a personal project and went through the Pine Bluff area newspapers among other documents covering the years it took to desegregate our school district.
As you might imagine, the school board dragged its heels with legal assistance to keep the high schools of Townsend Park and Dollarway segregated from one another as long as possible. And the federal courts seemed to play along in that dance for a long while, too. Until it seemed that Sarah’s father, the attorney George Howard, mentioned in a court brief that Dollarway High School had recently received its long sought-after North Central Association of Secondary Schools and Colleges accreditation, whereas the Townsend Park sister campus had not yet received theirs.
And since preferred acceptance into the more desired colleges and universities required such accreditation, Mr. Howard wanted such on his daughter’s transcript. Soon afterward, Sarah gained admittance by the federal courts into the high school of her choice. And, as they say, the rest is history. Of course, it wasn’t that simple and not that fast, but that’s the Cliffs Notes version.
Once again, thank you for such a nice article about a fine, deserving, and accomplished lady graduate of Dollarway High School. She is one of the many success stories that claim Dollarway AND Townsend Park High Schools as part of their heritage.
Tyler “Tommy” Thompson, a member of the Dollarway Class of 1967, lives in Little Rock.