Booker T. Washington alumni asked to share memories of school’s early years

Students at the Booker T. Washington Elementary School today are a diverse group of races, religions and backgrounds. But it wasn’t always that way. From its founding in the 1920s, Booker T. was not just an elementary school, it was the only local school providing a first- through 10th-grade education to black students in Dover.

School desegregation slowly brought an end to racial separation at the school, and over the decades many of its former students moved on to accomplished lives in Dover and elsewhere. But as Booker T’s alumni grow old and their memories fade, fourth-grade teacher Judy Sheldon was worried their stories and experiences of attending a segregated school were in danger of being lost forever.

To save those memories, Sheldon has organized “Uniting Our Past With Our Present,” a documentary project involving her fourth-graders. Former students will be interviewed and asked questions provided by today’s students, and those memories will be preserved for the future.

“I’ve been told several times by various alumni how much they appreciate this project because their history has not been recorded,” Sheldon said. “These people have the history and I hope we can do their narratives justice.”

Approximately 30 former students already have expressed interest in the idea and Sheldon is hoping more will come forward. She’s already held some preliminary discussions with some, Sheldon said.

“I’ve found this all completely fascinating, just to hear them talk,” she said. “The main thing was their spirit. They knew they had books that were falling apart. But their pride and sense of family was really enlightening. They didn’t seem to let it get them down.”

Dover’s Doretha Cale was one of the last generations of her family to attend the segregated Booker T. Washington school from 1961 to 1966.

The school, she said, holds a special place in her life.

Teachers were more like second parents who worked hard to instill morals and proper beliefs, Cale said, particularly her favorite, Lillian Sockum, who died in April 1982.

“Right from the first grade, she’d find out what your interests were, who you wanted to be,” Cale recalled. Teachers would teach things such as tap dancing and proper posture. Everyone could recite poet Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “Lyrics of a Lowly Life.” Teachings from the Bible were an everyday event.

Ann Holden Thompson, 72, attended Booker T. Washington from 1942 to 1952, and said the DuPont-founded school was “a jewel” when built in the 1920s. The school building as served as the black community’s only social center outside of church, and teachers, administrators and community members were meticulous in keeping the building functioning despite a continual lack of money.

That lack also was evident in other areas, Thompson said.

“Our textbooks, I can’t recall ever having a new one,” she said. “The Dover school system would give us used textbooks and used band uniforms. I don’t know of anything that was brand spanking new.”

Students had little in the way of sports equipment and most used what they could bring from home, she said. Sports teams were bused to segregated schools in Maryland or Pennsylvania because no local white teams would play them, she said.

For these reasons and more, Thompson wants to tell her story to today’s students. She was among the first to sit down with Sheldon’s students Feb. 4, which also happens to be her birthday.

“The minute I saw the notice for this in the paper, I started contacting people,” she said. “Basically, students today have no concept of what it was like. We think the story need to be told, and we’re happy [Sheldon] is one of those people who also see the need.”