A Local Profile in Courage and Persistance : Santa Ana’s First African American Schoolteacher Endured Scorn--and Worse

The civil rights battles that were fought in Mississippi and Alabama three decades ago are easily recalled. The horrific photographs still get reprinted, reminding us of the police dogs, water cannon and bullets some whites used to oppress African Americans. The racism may have been less overt but could be equally poisonous in cities in the North, the Midwest and even California.

For a profile in courage, we need look no farther than Barbara Lawrence Hill, the first African American public school teacher in Santa Ana. This month Hill remembered that when she entered the teachers’ lounge at Diamond Elementary School on her first day in 1963, everyone got up and left. But she went on eating in the lounge daily for months. Eventually the other teachers returned.

But as the months and years went by, Hill endured other insults and even threats. As remarkable as was her perseverance, so is the ignorance of what she went through. Current teachers interviewed this month did not know about Hill’s difficult pioneering role. Minority teachers especially should be aware of it, and realize their path was smoothed by a courageous woman.

African Americans account for less than 2% of Orange County’s population, yet they were the target of 29 hate crimes or hate-related incidents in 1993, according to the Orange County Human Relations Commission, ranking only behind gays and Jews as targets. Clearly the struggle to improve relations among the many races and ethnic groups in Orange County has far to go.

A Times Orange County poll about ethnic relations, conducted little more than a year ago, found that when individuals from different races did not mingle, they were more likely to hold harsh views on racial issues. The poll said friendships across racial lines were most important in softening the views members of one group had of another. Students fortunate enough to have had Barbara Lawrence Hill as a teacher undoubtedly have learned many things from her, too. She was a role model as well as educator, and an example of persistence paying off.