White Knight

19.

The true test of my political mettle as an independent activist was not long in coming. In November 1978, the voters of California passed Proposition 13. I campaigned against it, but once Governor Jerry Brown saw the writing on the wall and came out in favor of it, I knew our goose was cooked as far as school funding went. Little did I know how cooked, that 30 years later, we’d still be struggling just to keep our position as 49th out of 50 in per pupil spending.

Geneva Towers Children’s Center had been open for 3 years, and by the spring of 1979, it was on the chopping block as one of the cuts mandated by the new Prop. 13 fiscal environment.

Just a year earlier, Children’s Center teachers had won salary parity with elementary school teachers, a tremendous victory, sullied only slightly by the fact that it was done in order to transfer “surplus” elementary school teachers into the Children’s Centers. Finally, Early Childhood Education was being treated with the respect it deserved.

Earldean and I swung into action around this struggle. I had persuaded her awhile back to get a job in Children’s Centers herself. She was a natural for the job. It had bothered me that she was essentially a maid for a liberal doctor. “They treat me like an equal,” she said.

“Oh, yeah? What do they call you?”

“They call me Earldean”

“And what do you call them?”

She got quiet. “Dr. So-and so. Mrs. So-and-so.”

“My point exactly.”

It didn’t make sense for her to quit after 20 years, since they had provided her with medical insurance and a generous retirement plan. But she did adjust her hours so that she could work in Children’s Centers part time.

We called a meeting of the parents to discuss the closing. I had chosen a woman, Tessie Ester, to be the parent chair, I suppose in all honesty because I was attracted to her. She had creamy caramel skin, a fine thin body, and wore her hair with a Donna Summer “fall,” a wig-like thing that hung halfway down her back. She came to the meeting high as anything, and the other parents had to take over for her.

But we, Earldean and I, developed a team of parents willing to fight for the center.
Over the summer, we put together a coalition to keep our center open, Parents for Quality Education. We have a founding meeting in the Towers rec room with Rev. Cecil Williams speaking. We develop a resolution for the school board to exclude Geneva Towers from the school closings. We find sponsors on the board. We call for a rally at the board. Much of this struggle I’ve already written about in my novel, White Knight, or How I Came to Believe that I was the One Who Caused the San Francisco City Hall Killings and the Jonestown Massacre. Obviously, the “I” in the title wasn’t me, but a character, Barney Blatz, based on me. But the school board meeting was true to life. Here is how the novel portrayed it:

The evening of the rally, the fog fails to come in, and the mid July dusk is balmy. The rally is huge, wildly exceeding my expectations, and I'm giddy with excitement. I am the Leader. I can't believe this. I have always wanted to be popular, and now it seems I can do no wrong.

[Earldean] tries to warn me. "It's just a rally, [Henry]. It's not the revolution," she says as she sees me flitting about the various constituencies like a mad general.

We form a long picket line in front the decaying old school building that houses the administration offices and the auditorium where the board meets. "Building does not meet earthquake safety standards," says a sign on the door.

Our center has turned out in force. Latricia, our spokesperson before the board, her natural cut sharply, styled so it sits on her head like a helmet, is ecstatic. "We've won, [Henry!]” she beams at me.

It does feel like we've won. We've been spending the weeks before this meeting lobbying board members, and we have assurances from four out of the seven that they will vote to keep our center open.

Alice, the deep voiced militant, overweight,sloppy, rough, and irrepressible, is leading the chants with her baby in a stroller. Her twins, along with the other Towers' children are upstairs in the childcare arrangement we organized in a room next to the auditorium. "Keep the center open!" she shouts into the bullhorn, a device I "liberated" from the Party in the course of the split.

Sue Ann, from the South, slow and solid, light skinned with reddish permed hair, and [Tessie 's] buddy Charlene, dark, with a permanent scowl, are also taking leading roles, passing out fliers and picket signs, many of which were painted by the children in the school during the previous week.

We march up the stairs and into the board room singing "We Shall Not Be Moved." We sing it over and over again, in defiance of the board president's gavel. Finally we decide to let them conduct their business. It's a reflection of our power and our imminent victory that they vote immediately to hear our motion first, put forward by the one black board member, to exclude Pacific Towers Children's Center from a previously adopted resolution calling for the closure of several sites.

Our first speaker is [Henry, Tessie's] son, probably the youngest person to ever address the board. "Don't close our school because I like to play in the doll corner," he says to wild applause.

We rehearsed each of our three child speakers to say something different, but in the heat of the TV lights, Clarisse and Ronnie get nervous and just repeat what [Henry] has said, "I like to play in the doll corner."

Then Latricia speaks, graciously thanking the board in advance for its rational approach to the problem.

[Tessie] informs them in no uncertain terms, that "our center will not close."

I speak next, delivering what I consider the piece de resistance: "Members of the Board of Education, I am pleased to inform you that we have met with the management of Pacific Towers Apartments, and they have agreed, in writing, to waive all rent for the facility, and to provide maintenance free of charge." We have kept this nugget secret to enhance the effect of the surprise. The crowd, our crowd, cheers tumultuously.

Following our presentation, the board's legal adviser, a black man who talks as though his mouth were full of gravel, speaks. "It is not possible to reconsider this motion at this time. The resolution which this present motion seeks to amend was a subsection of the resolution which passed the budget for the entire school district. The only way to consider such a motion would be to rescind the vote on the budget resolution and that would be illegal because the deadline for approving the budget has already passed."

The board acts as if nothing has happened and moves onto the next agenda item, a surprise resolution to send emergency layoff notices to about 200 teachers.

"What happened?" [Tessie] asks me frantically.

"I think we just got shafted." I run up to talk to our staunchest ally, the black woman on the board. She tells me she's sorry, but she has done all she can.

My spirits suddenly plummet from stratosphere to substrata. By the time I figure out that the only thing for us to do is to disrupt the meeting, the union president is making his own urgent plea for the board not to lay anybody off. It's too late to do anything. We all trickle out of the meeting so disconsolate that no one notices that my name is among the list of those to be laid off, even though I have nine years seniority with the district.