Jed Roebuck

Integration of a School and Family

To talk about the integration of the school I attended from first to eighth grade is to talk about an institution that was not formally integrated until 1995, roughly twenty years after all public schools nationwide were ordered to desegregate. It is to talk about taking children of mixed skin color to places in rural Alabama with signs posted that read, “no niggers after dark.” It is to talk about bringing these same children into daily contact with white people who spent much of their own child and adulthoods in Montgomery, Alabama where they were served by black maids on a daily basis and rode with their mothers to what was dubbed, “nigger-town,” to shop. Similarly, the integration of my school cannot be discussed without also talking about the integration of my family—for they are one and the same. Home schooling brought these two worlds together, and during those years of elementary and middle school education I was taught at home by my mother and attended her classes with my siblings. The integration of my school and family came officially in the form of the adoption of my younger sister, Josie Love Roebuck, and my younger brother, Dawson Stone Roebuck. It may be thought that to discuss this subject will be nothing more than an exposition about my family’s adoption of my brother and sister, or that discussing integration at my “school” is not valid because the time spent home schooling was not real education at a real school. This simply is not so. Proof of the credibility of my school may be found in the fact that after home schooling, I went on to attend a private, college-preparatory high school, and am now a student at the University of Georgia. Yet because my school was made up exclusively of the members of my family I will take liberty in interchanging the words “school” and “family.” I will give a history of the integration of my school and family by drawing upon the people who directly shaped the formation of my school and family as well as my own experience as a member of these synonymous groups.

My grandfather on my mother’s side, John DeBardeleben, is a man who has directly shaped the outcome of our family integration. Raised as the son of an army chaplain, Mr. DeBardeleben describes his interactions with blacks growing up as being more frequent and less stratified than those of individuals outside of the military. There were a few black officers, noncommissioned officers, and numerous privates whom he was exposed to as a result of the nature of his father’s work. Because he was brought up as he was, Mr. DeBardeleben feels that he was spared from any negative experiences with African-Americans that would leave a lasting, negative impression upon his ideology. But he is also willing to admit that although less hostile than perhaps other contexts, the army was not free from segregation, and that he was not free from picking up the beliefs and practices of those around him. Yet his father was not a proponent of white supremecy, which left him free from being firmly indoctrinated in the inferiority of blacks. For the most part in his childhood, Mr. DeBardeleben characterized his relations with blacks as lacking any sort of shocking or explicit confrontation. It should be noted here however, that Mr. DeBardeleben’s first response when asked about his prejudices and or experiences with race relations was to admit that he was not beyond struggling in this area. Although he believes he has been able to work through much of his previous stereotypes and biases, he acknowledges that he still has lingering negative sentiments towards other ethnic groups and recognizes this as a harmful ideology. He is also willing to admit that during the times when race relations were volatile he was far more prejudiced and insensitive to the concerns of black people. Be that as it may, there are several instances that seem to give weight to the argument that Mr. DeBardeleben did not simply give in to his prejudices but sought to examine his own thinking.

As a member of the session of the Presbyterian Church in Montgomery, Mr. DeBardeleben was present when the issue of admission of blacks to worship services was discussed by the pastor and other elders. Mr. DeBardeleben voted against the decision to prohibit blacks from being welcomed by the church which ended up being passed, and ultimately came very close to leaving the church as a result of the issue. After speaking to his pastor and explaining that he felt him to be clearly in the wrong, he eventually decided to stay on as a member of the church.

Also, as a businessman, and more specifically as a General Agent for New York Life Insurance Company, Mr. DeBardeleben was faced with economic biases he possessed about the civil rights movement in his city. At the time of the marches and demonstrations, he admits that he was concerned primarily with the economic harm it was bringing the town collectively and to him individually. My uncle and his son, Chuck DeBardeleben, who was in high school at that time, remembers that the demonstrators once littered the downtown area with their own urine and feces. The hassle and inconvenience he experienced were, for the most part, the only issues present in my grandfather’s mind during those times. He believes that he allowed the actions of the small group of protestors to manipulate how he felt about blacks in general, and the attitude of the white community, himself included, was that they were beneath them. The only roll my mother's family ever saw blacks in on a constistent basis was as servants--which my mother and uncle both confirm. Retrospectively, Mr. DeBardeleben expounded that he was completely immune and unsympathetic to the struggle of blacks to gain equality. Equality was not a concern for him at the time but he now sees it as being entirely worth fighting for on their part. Yet he also asked during our interview if such negative encounters with blacks were not cause for justifiable dislike of the movement and its participants. This statement does deserve merit, as not all of the actions participated in by civil rights proponents may be said to have been admirable or necessary. Despite his unflattering encounter with the economic side of integration, Mr. DeBardeleben was the first manager in the history of New York Life to hire a black insurance agent. When asked about the incident, my mother and his daughter, Eve Roebuck, said she vividly remembers him stating one night at the dinner table that this new, black agent was a man just like the rest of them, and there should not be any issue in his hiring him. These examples have not been given to show that my grandfather was either a moral hypocrite or an infallible saint. Rather, it seems that my grandfather is one example that illustrates my family’s general struggle with prejudices and subtle racisms. He was by no means beyond racial stereotyping and prejudices; he admits that he struggled then with it, and still struggles with it today. But he did not simply go along with the thinking of the times either; rather, he sought to work out on his own what he genuinely believed to be right. My Grandfather has been discussed to such great links because he, as the father and leader of his family, was in a position to have the greatest influence on my mother. And while he did not completely shelter her from forming racial prejudices of her own, the upbringing he received coupled with his lack of negative interactions with blacks seem to have allowed for her as well to grow up in a household in which racial tensions were less than stressful.

To move ahead to my father, Buck Roebuck’s, background and experience with segregation and integration, he believes that he was largely untouched by the issues of integration because of where he was brought up. Living in Cobb County, Georgia in the city of Marietta, he stated that it was a county that was over 90% white. So that when it came to issues of race growing up, the only time he ever interacted with them was through youth sports leagues. Being athletic as a child and through high school, he believes that he, like my grandfather, had a less than strained interaction with blacks because of the unique environment he saw them in. Sports teams made no distinction between colors. Glenn Roebuck, his father and my grandfather, was often the commissioner of the sports leagues that Buck participated in, and my father remembers numerous occasions when coaches of the various teams would meet at their house. These coaches were both black and white, and my father remembers there being no issue of their being allowed in our house at anytime. Also, Glenn Roebuck worked for a large company in Atlanta in which blacks made up a significant portion of the work force.

Again, these examples have not been given to cast my family in a favorable light, rather, it seems that the upbringing of my parents and the attitudes of their parents concerning racial issues perhaps paved the way for the acceptance of biracial children into our family. Thus while my family has been brought up in the South, “sheltering” from the truly horrific confrontations with racial tensions allowed my parents to form more moderate feelings towards African-Americans, which in turn may have made it easier to think about integrating our own school and family.

City of Montgomery, Alabama Website

This is where my Grandfather, John Debardeleben raised my mother and her siblings during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. It might be of interest to look at the website of the city and see how far it has come since the violent times it once face.

City of Henagar, Alabama News Website

This is where my father’s parent now live. Within my own lifetime, there was a sign post on the city limits of Henagar that stated, “welcome to Henagar: no Niggers after dark.” The issues and concerns of this area, where few if any black people live today, would be worth looking into.

City of Lookout Mountain, Georgia and Tennessee Website

This is where my family currently lives. My two biracial siblings have experienced little if any open, racial prejudices. But there is an undercurrent of racial tension even to this day that exists on the Mountain. A case in point is that there is the large, white Presbyterian church, and not a mile down the road is the much less fancy and well kept Black Presbyterian church. There are still issues being sorted out today in the midst of our family’s raising of these to biracial children.