First among equals
AFT paraprofessional made history integrating Mississippi schools

Ruth Carter Whittle calls her mother the brave one, but it was Whittle—an AFT member who retired last July after 32 years as a special education paraprofessional for the Toledo schools—who in 1965 led six of her sisters and brothers to integrate the schools in Sunflower County, Miss. As an 11th-grader, Whittle says she "felt responsible for them. I was there to protect them ... even though I couldn't."

It was a tough fight for the Carter family, sharecroppers on a cotton plantation who wanted nothing more than a better education and a decent life for their 13 children. When the Carters exercised their right to attend the local, all-white public schools, their house was riddled with bullets and the plantation overseer told them to withdraw. When they refused, he evicted them, taking away their livelihood and their home.

But the family held firm. From 1965 to 1968 while the Carters challenged state law in court, they had the only black children in the county schools. Eventually, they won, and the eight younger Carters graduated from Drew High School (five older children had already graduated from black schools). Eleven of the 13 earned college degrees.

Ruth was "the leader, you know, the oldest of the children who integrated those schools," says Constance Curry, a civil rights activist and Fulbright scholar who wrote the book Silver Rights (a common mispronunciation of "civil rights") recounting the family's story, including how Ruth alternately was taunted and shunned by classmates. "They treated her so badly." Within five years of being integrated, Drew High School switched from all white to all black.

Ruth just wanted out of the whole scene. She hated the cotton fields. "It was my dream to leave Mississippi," she says. "I'd wake up in the morning and say, ‘Oh my gosh, am I still here?' "

In that respect, she feels that some of her dreams have come true. She settled in Ohio, going to work part time in 1974 for the Toledo schools and joining the union around 1981, when she began working full time. Over the years, she's been honored for excellent attendance at union meetings and tapped to attend the Ohio Federation of Teachers convention and the AFT Paraprofessionals and School-Related Personnel conference.

Whittle and her family have had a profound effect on the education of children. A second book about them, The School Is Not White!, was written for children by Doreen Rappaport. The Carter family also helped inspire the Pen or Pencil social studies curriculum, which teaches that education is the best way up and out.

"It was Ruth who encouraged all the rest of her brothers and sisters that they could do other things than staying in the cotton fields," says Pen or Pencil sponsor Addie Richburg, president of the National Alliance of Faith and Justice. "We're trying to encourage kids that they can do other things than stay in the street and go to jail."

Along with everything else, Whittle credits her mother with teaching the children to hold their heads up and not to hate. "Mama was right about hate," she says in Silver Rights, "because you don't feel good about yourself when you hate someone else."