"School Fight" of 1932-34 - Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society

SEGREGATION ON THE UPPER MAIN LINE
The "School Fight" of 1932-34
Roger D. Thorne
INTRODUCTION
an incriminating sign to that effect; it was simply
the "understanding."
In 1932 you would find no black-owned businesses along the Lincoln Highway, and there was
only a single small black-owned business in all of
Berwyn. Boy Scout troops would not allow black
boys to join them. The meeting halls would not
be rented to "people of color," ultimately forcing
the local black community to build the Robinson
Wellburn Lodge 794, the Berwyn branch of the
Improved Benevolent Protective Order of Elks of
the World near the intersection of Lancaster Avenue and Bridge Street in Berwyn.
But despite these "understandings," the schools
of Tredyffrin and Easttown Townships were open
to every student in his or her respective township
without prejudice to color or
/ remember the Berwyn movie theater on
nationality. In the early 1930s
many years,
each grammar school held
Cassatt Avenue. We'd walk over, both
the Berwyn
classes for grades 1 to 8. There
white and colored boys. The colored boys
Theater.
were few kindergartens at that
During the
would go sit on the left hand side in the
time. Students from either
1930s,
back and the white boys would go down
township entering 9th grade
black and
on the right side near the front. It was a
would attend the then consoliwhite chilalways a cowboy show and we all took our
dated Tredyffrin Easttown High
dren would
cap pistols and cowboy stuff. After the
School, dedicated in February
walk toshow we would all join up on the railroad
1909 and located on the southgether to
bank and reenact the whole movie, the
watch the
west corner of present day
colored boys and the white boys all toSaturday
Conestoga and Howellville
gether
again.— Ed Hayes, lifetime resident of
afternoon
Roads.
Berwyn.
matinees,
The oversight of this arrangebut the chilment had been cumbersome,
dren knew that once they bought their ticket they
with each township having its own elected school
would be expected to split up during the show.
board obligated specifically to its taxpayers. Each
White children were allowed to sit anywhere, but
school board was solely responsible for the adblack children were allowed to sit only in the
ministration of the grammar schools within their
respective township, although in 1908 the two
theater's last three rows on the left hand side as
boards had agreed to join together to administer a
they walked in. Farther east, at the Wayne Theaconsolidated high school. In May of 1931, howter, the only other movie house in this area at that
ever, in order to substantially increase the effitime, blacks were only allowed to sit in the first
ciency of the overall administrative process, both
five rows on the left. And you would never find
For many, the word "segregation" conjures up
images of dogs, flames, and violence. Certainly
these graphic images of intolerance and hatred
would not, in any way, describe the relationships
between white and black residents on the Upper
Main Line during any period, and in particular
within the townships of Tredyffrin and Easttown.
Yet, if one could turn back the clock 72 years to
the Berwyn of 1932, subtle—and in some cases
not so subtle—evidences of segregation and discrimination between the powerful and the weak
were common. Across the pedestrian bridge connecting Lancaster and Cassatt Avenues next to
the Berwyn railroad station is a structure called
"Cassatt Crossing." Built in 1917, this building
was, for
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"Negro pupils of Tredyffrin and Easttown townships to have their own grade school." The article
continued:
According to Norman Joy Greene, president of the Tredyffrin Township school
board, the negro school, which is to be
taught only by negro teachers, will offer a
number of advantages to the colored residents of the community.
Easttown and Tredyffrin townships are two
of the few townships in the State which
have not had colored schools, Mr. Greene
explained. This has probably been due
to the fact that neither township has heretofore had a sufficiently large negro population.
The Robinson Wellburn Elks Lodge 794, on Lancaster Avenue near Walnut Avenue in Berwyn, operated strictly for people of color for over 70 years.
In my opinion, this is the largest step forward that Berwyn has taken in the last 25
years. Our community is one of extreme
natural beauty and it is a shame that the
building-up process has been stagnated
by inadequate schools and the policy of
mixing the races therein.
school boards voted to place all educational affairs for the two townships under the direction
and oversight of a veteran school administrator,
Wilmer K. Groff. Mr. Groff s official title was
Supervising Principal for Tredyffrin and Easttown Townships.
Wilmer K. Groff came
to Berwyn in 1926 as
principal of the Easttown Elementary
Schools. In 1931 he
became the Superintendent for the joint
Tredyffrin and Easttown school boards
and the Tredyffrin/
Easttown High School.
In explaining the proposed plan, Mr. Greene, a
prominent investment banker from Tredyffrin,
who joined the School Board in January 1931,
outlined two principal agreements reached by the
two boards:
Agreement No. 1 - Provides that the two
townships will jointly operate a colored
school in what is now the comparatively
new brick building [a 1912 structure then
called the Berwyn Primary School and to
be renamed the Lincoln Highway School]
now being used by Easttown Township. It
is anticipated that the property will be made
attractive by the addition of suitable fencing and shrubbery. Teachers will be colored, as will also be the janitor. Experienced educators, with whom Mr. Groff,
joint supervising principal, has been in
touch, tell us that the colored children progress far more rapidly under colored teachers. It seems that the colored teachers are
better able to understand the natures of
their children and very often mix with the
THE BEGINNING OF THE "SCHOOL
FIGHT"
It was into this social and administrative context
that an article appeared in a major suburban
newspaper that would change everything. On the
front page of the March 10, 1932 Main Line
Daily Times, published in Ardmore, was a piece
entitled "Townships Will Provide Exclusive Colored School - Tredyffrin-Easttown to Support
Institution With Negro Teachers In Charge." The
article informed the reader that plans had just
been completed by the joint school boards for
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parents socially and know intimately the
home conditions.
School—at the southeast corner of Conestoga and
Howellville Roads—and send its white grammar
school students to the new, state-of-the-art Easttown Elementary School—at the intersection of
Bridge Street and First Avenue in Berwyn—then
under construction, for a specified fee per pupil,
effective for three years beginning July 4, 1932.
Mr. Greene described the financial arrangements between the two townships, including proportional rental fees for their use of the brick
school building, and that the "expenses of the
(colored) school would be divided by the two
townships in proportion to the number of their
students enrolled." Agreement No. 1 was to run
for three years, beginning July 4, 1932.
Opened in October 1932, the new whites-only
Easttown Elementary School at Bridge Street
and First Avenue in Berwyn became a symbol of
inequality when compared to the old Lincoln
Highway School for black children.
Mr. Greene is quoted, saying that the array of
advantages of this plan for both townships:
Originally called the Berwyn Primary School, the
Lincoln Highway School, built in 1912, was brought
out of retirement in 1932 as a blacks-only facility.
During the intervening 20 years its condition had
deteriorated badly.
The Main Line Daily Times article then proceeded to outline Agreement No. 2 , in which the
Tredyffrin School District would discontinue the
use of its old and obsolete North Berwyn
The North Berwyn School was built in 1892 as a oneroom schoolhouse on the southeast corner of present
day Conestoga and Howellville Roads. Later additions enabled it to operate until 1932, when it was
closed to facilitate the agreement between the townships leading to the school board's segregation decision.
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. . . become obvious with a little study. The
growth of the two townships has been retarded by the fact that we mix the colored
and the white in our schools. Prospective
home owners will undoubtedly be attracted
to the communities and real estate values
should be very much improved. . . . Easttown Township will benefit by being able
to open their new school as an all-white
school, and their per capita costs will be
materially cut down by the fact that Tredyffrin Township will be sending them and
paying for more pupils than they will find
it necessary to send to the colored school. . . .
A colored school in the location of the brick
building [at the corner of the Lincoln Highway and Walnut Avenue in Berwyn] will not
lower the tone of the neighborhood because
the brick building backs up to Walnut Avenue, which is already a colored district. The
change will give the colored of the district
a fine school with the finest colored teachers,
and the best equipment that can be procured.
The article ended with the statement that this
agreement "has been highly commended by the
Business Men's Association and by the Berwyn
presided over this planning session. By the close
of the session a petition had been drafted upon
which signatures would be affixed to be taken by
a committee of three black Berwyn residents to
the Easttown School Board. The first small response to what the black community came to refer to as the "school fight" had been taken.
Civic Association."
THE RESPONSE OF THE LOCAL
BLACK COMMUNITY
Within hours of the distribution of that Main Line
Daily Times on March 10, 1932, disbelief within
the black community along the entire Main Line
had turned into a firestorm of disappointment and
anger, especially from the black parents within
the two affected townships. Many of these residents had grown up in the South, had experienced
hostile segregation first hand, and had moved,
believing they had left segregated schooling behind.
A meeting to plan a several-pronged response
to the joint school board's decision took place
just days later on the second floor of the United
American Protestant Association Hall at the
We attended that very first meeting and in
that small upper room we had about 10
people . . . I remember one white man who
had the reputation of being the town drunk,
sort of a "nobody." But he attended that
meeting and he spoke up that night and
said, "This is all wrong. I've only got $5.00
but here it is." He was the first man to
contribute money to the defense fund of
the "school fight."— Mrs. Essie Crosby Brock,
as a 17 year old twin daughter, accompanied
her father, Primus, to that first meeting in March
1932 at the APA Hall. She was "called home" in
November 2004, just a few weeks after relating
this memory.
Located next to the Elks Hall, the "APA Hall" was
owned by the United American Protestant Association. It was one of the only places in Berwyn where
people of color were allowed to hold meetings. The
first "school fight" planning meeting was held upstairs. It is presently a nail shop.
corner of Bridge Street and Lancaster Road in
Berwyn. Mr. Primus Crosby, a printer and owner
of the only black-owned business in Berwyn,
Primus L. Crosby was born
in Alabama in 1884, attended Tuskegee Institute,
and studied under Booker
T. Washington. He came to
Pennsylvania in 1918, and
his wife Jesseye and twin
daughters, Bessie and Essie, joined him later. During
the "school fight" he assumed a significant leadership role in local black opposition to segregation.
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On March 16, 1932, the Main Line Daily Times
reports the first mass meeting in Easttown Township to protest the joint school board's decision.
Held at the Robinson Wellburn Lodge No. 794 in
Berwyn, the meeting was attended by several
hundred black residents as well as the leadership
from the Bryn Mawr Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. David E. Long, secretary of the Robinson
Wellburn Lodge, expressed his opinion that the
decision of the school boards "tends not toward
the betterment and benefit of the conditions surrounding the negro school children, but rather
toward the degradation and segregation." Mr.
Long went on to say that, "the main argument
against the proposed new school... is that the
colored people cannot see why they should be
forced to use an old school building no longer
wanted by the school board, when they, like the
white residents of the same section, have paid
taxes to support the building of the new $250,000
grade school in Berwyn."
In the Minutes of the Easttown School District
dated April 26, 1932, a notation states: "The
president of the Easttown School District received a petition from certain voters of Easttown
town school boards, made up of well-educated
and astute leaders of their communities, made
their decision to segregate the township's elementary schools.
Three previous legal actions had laid the seminal framework upon which the local boards made
their pivotal school decision. The first of these
was an act passed in Pennsylvania on May 8,
1854. Entitled "An Act for the Regulation and
Continuance of a System of Education by Common Schools" (Laws of the General Assembly of
the State of Pennsylvania Passed at the Session
of 1854, No. 610), it created a state-wide system
of separate education based on race within public
schools and both authorized and required all
school districts within the commonwealth "to
establish within their respective districts separate
schools for Negro and Mulatto children . . . so as
to accommodate twenty or more pupils; and
wherever such schools shall be established and
kept open four months in every year the Directors
and Controllers shall not be compelled to admit
such pupils into any other schools of the district."
Twenty-seven years later, a second legal action
overrode the 1854 act. In 1881, several challenges to segregation in the schools resulted in an
amendment to Pennsylvania law making it
unlawful for schools or teachers "to make any
distinction whatever on account of, or by reason
of, the race or color of any pupil or scholar who
may be in attendance upon, or seeking admission
to, any public or common school maintained
wholly or in part under the school laws of this
commonwealth."
But a third action, a decision at the national
level by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1896, overturned any gradual gains in the civil rights of minority citizens. A landmark case, Plessy v. Ferguson, (163 U.S. 537, 1896), ruled by a significant
majority of the Court that separate but equal accommodations are permitted under the Constitution. Further, distinctions based upon race did not
run contrary to either the Thirteenth or Fourteenth Amendments, two Civil War-era amendments passed to abolish slavery and secure the
legal rights of former slaves.
Although nowhere in the Court's opinion will
one find the phrase "separate but equal," this ruling allowed legally enforced segregation as long
as legal jurisdictions did not allow facilities for
blacks to be inferior to those of whites. In the
Township, headed by Primus L. Crosby, Chairman, Harvey Tyre, and Edgar R. Powell, in regard to the school arrangement with Tredyffrin."
On May 5, 1932, ten days after receiving the
petition, an entry in the minutes of the Easttown
School Board records a response to the black
community:
After consulting with members of the
Tredyffrin and Easttown Boards prior to
the meeting, the Easttown School District
instructed the Secretary 'to notify Mr.
Primus L. Crosby, Chairman, also Mr.
Powell and Mr. Tyre as follows:'
The action of this Board in adopting
the plans which you protest was taken
only after careful and mature consideration in the sincere belief that ultimately
they will work to the best advantage of
every pupil.
We feel that you should show sufficient confidence in your Board to enable it to make a fair trial of this plan
for the three years to which it is committed.
Once the plan is in operation your
Board believes that the results will
prove entirely satisfactory to all our
citizens.
Relying upon your cooperation, we
remain. .. .
Also, under the segregation plan, a front page
article in the Saturday, May 7, 1932 Main Line
Daily Times reported that pupils of the new
school would be taught entirely by colored teachers and that the board had announced the receipt
of more than 250 applications for the eight positions that were expected to be open.
A LEGAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE
JOINT SCHOOL BOARD'S DECISION
It is easy to look back at this or any historical
event without taking the time to place those decisions and actions within the legal, political, and
social context of the time. So let us review the
legal footing upon which the Tredyffrin and East7
delivery of the Court's opinion, Justice Billings
Brown stated:
Devon and for whom Primus Crosby also
worked, Mr. Crosby was able to meet with the
very influential Judge Buck of King of Prussia to
explain the dilemma of the black parents.
Through Judge Buck's personal introduction,
several men including Mr. Crosby and Mr. O. B.
Cobb, president of the Bryn Mawr Branch of the
NAACP, were invited to Philadelphia to present
their case to the well-known attorney, Raymond
Pace Alexander, at his office at 1901 Chestnut
Street. Formidable talent and influence would be
required for the fight ahead, and such strengths
were to be found within Alexander's firm.
Mr. Alexander was a Philadelphian, born in
1897. He was the first black graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, Class of
1920, and a 1923 graduate of Harvard Law
School. By 1932 he had been in private practice
for 9 years.
Legislation is powerless to eradicate racial
instincts or to abolish distinctions based
upon physical differences, and the attempt
to do so can only result in accentuating the
difficulties of the present situation. If the
civil and political rights of both races be
equal one cannot be inferior to the other
civilly or politically. If one race be inferior
to the other socially, the Constitution of
the United States cannot put them upon
the same plane . . .
Justice John Marshall Harlan of Kentucky offered the sole dissenting opinion, prophetically
stating in part:
If evils will result from the commingling
of the two races upon public highways
established for the benefit of all, they will
be infinitely less than those that will surely
come from state legislation regulating the
enjoyment of civil rights upon the basis
of race. We boast of the freedom enjoyed
by our people above all other peoples. But
it is difficult to reconcile that boast with a
state of law which, practically, puts the
brand of servitude and degradation upon
a large class of our fellow citizens, our
equals before the law.
SUMMER 1932
Clearly, in light of the overwhelming legal setback on civil rights from the highest court in the
land, any chance of a successful legal response
by the township's black parents would require a
legal resource of substantial influence and tenacity. Not only would such a resource be expensive
to working people, but in 1932 there was not a
single black attorney licensed to practice at the
Chester County Bar. And the president of the
Chester County Bar Association, the powerful
Colonel A. M. Holding, also acted as chief counsel for the joint school directors. What could the
parents do?
An initial contact for assistance to the NAACP
in Philadelphia proved unhelpful. It is recorded,
however, that through an introduction by Mr. C.
A. Loeb, owner of a large lumber company in
Raymond Pace Alexander was a Philadelphian born
in 1897, the first black graduate of the University of
Pennsylvania's Wharton School, and a 1923 graduate of Harvard Law School. He led the black community's legal response during the "school fight."
Practicing with Mr. Alexander were three
young attorneys:
• John Francis Williams - Yale Law
School, Class of 1922, and a former editor of the Yale Law Review
• Maceo Hubbard - Harvard Law School,
Class of 1926
• Sadie Tanner Alexander-Raymond's
wife, the country's first black female
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Ph.D. in economics (University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, Class of 1921),
University of Pennsylvania Law School,
Class of 1927, and a former editor of the
University of Pennsylvania Law Review.
After considering the case facing the black
families of Tredyffrin and Easttown, Alexander
offered his services pro bono. This offer of diminished fees for the public good was gratefully
accepted, and Alexander soon began visiting the
black communities in Berwyn and the Mt. Pleasant section of Tredyffrin, establishing trust
among families and taking depositions for the
fight ahead.
The July 2, 1932 Main Line Daily Times reports that "the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People will file suit in the
Chester County Courts at West Chester .. .
against the proposed exclusive school for negro
pupils of Tredyffrin and Easttown townships."
Mr. Alexander is quoted: "The pleadings are under preparation and will be ready during the early
part of next week." Mr. O. B. Cobb, president of
the Bryn Mawr Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,
called the segregation plan a "great injustice." He
said, "This plan can do only one thing. It will
perpetuate race prejudice, something that we
have been trying to overcome for the past 60
years."
This litigation would clearly be an uphill legal
battle of major consequence.
Meanwhile, by the summer of 1932, the new,
ultra-modern Easttown Elementary School at
First Avenue and Bridge Street in Berwyn had
been completed. New furniture had been moved
in and the building was ready for occupancy in
the fall term starting in September. At both the
Mt. Pleasant School on Upper Gulph Road in
Tredyffrin—now also designated as a blacks-only
school—and the Lincoln Highway School, bids
had been accepted for repairs and modifications
to these structures. The school board minutes record that: "the school building(s) will be put into
first-class condition . .. preparatory to [their]
opening in September. This work will be done in
line with the recent statement of the board that
[these] building(s) will be in the best of repair, on
a par with all of the other buildings in the township, when school opens for the fall term."
This school building on Upper Gulph Road in the
Mt. Pleasant section at the extreme eastern end of
Tredyffrin Township was designated one of the two
blacks-only schools during the "school fight" of
1932-34.
In August 1932, it is recalled that the joint Tredyffrin-Easttown school board issued official notices to all black parents and guardians in the two
townships that their children would be attending
schools specially designated for them in Mt.
Pleasant and Berwyn. Busing instructions were
provided.
All during that summer and early fall of 1932—
and for the next two years—the old Mt. Zion
A.M.E. Church, built in 1861 and located on Berwyn-Baptist Road in Devon, was continually
used as a meeting place for the black community.
Built in 1861, the old chapel of the Mount Zion A.M.E.
Church on Berwyn-Baptist Road in Devon originally
served an African-American enclave known as Quigley
Town and acted as a continual meeting place during
the "school fight."
9
It is recalled that the church "served as the place
where people would gather together and vote on
their actions. It was a natural meeting place, and
there were times when you could hardly find a
seat. It was a magnet for the black families. Primus Crosby would call a meeting and when he
arrived, he often could hardly make his way to
the front."
FALL 1932
The fall school term of 1932 was scheduled to
commence as usual immediately after Labor Day.
However, on September 1 st, the Tredyffrin
School District minutes simply state that due to
"'the prevalence of infantile paralysis," both
school boards recommend that the opening of
school be deferred until further notice—a peek
into the days before Dr. Jonas Salk, when even
the threat of this incurable disease brought dread
to a community.
One month later, on Monday, October 3, 1932,
the public schools of Tredyffrin and Easttown
townships did open. O. B. Cobb's memoir states:
On the opening day of the new semester, both
schools intended for Negroes [the Lincoln Highway School in Berwyn and the Mt. Pleasant
School in Wayne] were carefully guarded by parents and officers of the NAACP. Most children
did not enter, and parents held firm to their resolve to keep their elementary children out of the
segregated schools." The "school fight" had begun in earnest.
At the start of the school term, my Mother
took my sister, Edith, and me, and my brother
Andy, not to the Lincoln Highway School
where we had been assigned to attend, but to
the new Berwyn [Easttown] Elementary
School, which was a "whites-only" school. We
all stayed together the whole day at the new
school - the teachers ignored us - and then
we all walked home again to Greene Road.
My mother was a very strong-willed woman,
and it is quite probable that despite the letter,
she and her children went to the new school
as a form Of protest.— Miss Esther Long lived
with her family in a largely black community on
Greene Road in Tredyffrin Township, approximately 1/2 mile north of the present Tredyffrin/Easttown Middle School. She would have entered the
2nd grade in the fall of 1932, but instead spent the
next two years at home, for which her father was
put in jail.
On the legal front, we have stated that there
was not a single black attorney at that time admitted to the Chester County Bar. And no lawyer,
white or black, could practice or plead a case in
this or any other county in the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania unless he or she was admitted on
motion of an attorney licensed in that particular
county.
Raymond Pace Alexander and members of his
firm had prepared two restraining writs of mandamus against the joint
For the first week or so of the 1932 school year, we followed
school board decision, and
the rules and took the bus to the Lincoln Highway School.
Alexander now personally
The room to which I was assigned had nothing but black kids. carried these documents
Then the local NAACP representative, Primus Crosby, conto the Court House in
tacted my dad and told him that they were trying to segregate West Chester. Not unexthe kids, and that he must go and get us out of school. My
pectedly, the Clerk of the
Court of Common Pleas
father said he didn't know that we shouldn't come to this
promptly refused to acschool. Mr. Crosby said to my dad, "We'll go down there tocept them because Alexgether and you get them." So Crosby rode my father over to
ander was not a member
the school. My father opened the door [to the classroom],
of the Chester County
looked around, saw us, and wiggled his finger, motioning us
kids to come out, and he took us home. [A year later] they put Bar.
Alexander attempted to
him in jail for 5 days for doing that, but we never came back
persuade several members
to Berwyn to be segregated. The next time I went to school
of the Chester County Bar
was two years later in Paoli.— Mrs. Bessie Marshall Cunningham
to move his admission,
had moved with her family to Minor Avenue in Paoli in the summer
but all requests were reof 1932 from the segregated school district of Willistown Township.
fused. In his memoir,
At the start of the new school year she was planning to enter the 5th
grade at the integrated Paoli Elementary School.
10
Alexander recalls, "I took my case to the press,
publicizing the inability of a Negro lawyer to
even have a 'just and proper' complaint filed in
court. But one single solitary gentleman of the
bar, a [white] former District Attorney of Chester
County, came to my support. Thank God for
him!"
And so, on October 8, 1932, under the auspices
of this heroic former District Attorney, and with
Alexander by his side, the two writs of mandamus were filed against the Tredyffrin and Easttown school directors and the supervising principal. "Mandamus," a Latin term meaning "we
command," is an extraordinary order of the court
commanding an official to perform an act that the
law recognizes as an absolute duty rather than
one for discretion.
The two writs of mandamus, filed by Mr. Alexander and the former District Attorney—who
remains unknown to this day—were filed on behalf of Harvey Tyre, a resident of Maple Avenue
in Berwyn and the father of 11-year-old Lilly
Marie Tyre, and Elizabeth Temple, a resident of
IN THE COURT OP COMMON
PLEAS OP CHESTER COUNTY
TERM, 1 9 3 2
NO.
58
TEMPLE
VS.
THE SCHOOL DISTRICT OP
TREDYFFRIN TOWNSHIP a n d
NORMAN J. GREENE, ROBERT
C. LIGGET, SIDNEY S. MORRIS
WILLIAM T. VAN DEVER, C.
COLKET WILSON, J R . , WILLIAM Y. BARTLE a n d RAY L.
WILLIAMS, S c h o o l D i r e c t o r s
of the School District of
Tredyffrin Township and
W. K. GROFF, Supervising
Principa1
Centerville—a small community in Tredyffrin
Township near the intersection of Swedesford
and Devon State Roads, just south of the present
Gateway Shopping Center—and the aunt of
Priscilla Temple. The first writ alleged that when
the new elementary school was erected in Easttown Township, the Tyre girl was not permitted
to attend classes there and was forced to attend
sessions at the old Lincoln Highway School with
only negro pupils. The second writ charged that
the same conditions existed in Tredyffrin Township, and that the Temple girl was being compelled to transfer from the new Strafford School
to the older and more distant Mt. Pleasant
School. Both girls were recorded as "straight A
honor students."
The writ of mandamus, filed on
behalf of Elizabeth Temple,
sought to reverse the school
board's position
on segregation.
It was signed by
Raymond Pace
Alexander and
submitted to the
Chester County
Court of Common Pleas.
An old school at the corner of Upper Gulph and
West Valley Roads was replaced in 1930 by the
new, larger Strafford School built on a piece of adjoining property. It remained a whites-only school
during the "school fight." It is now the private
Woodlynde School.
Although the proceedings were initiated on behalf of only two pupils, the wording of each writ
indicated that all black pupils within the two
school districts were affected by the alleged actions of the school directors in segregating all
Negro pupils from schools attended by white pupils. Alexander charged that the two school
boards made an agreement whereby "certain"
pupils would be sent to separate schools and
would not be permitted to enter the new schools
in Berwyn and Strafford. The "certain" pupils, he
said, were all colored children.
In early December 1932 the case was finally
argued in the Chester County Court of Common
Pleas before Judge Hause, with testimony taken
at two hearings. Colonel Holding, representing
Mr. Groff and the school directors, argued to
PETITION FOR MANDAMUS
(COPY)
LAW OFFICES
RAYMOND PACE ALEXANDER
19OI CHESTNUT STREET
PHILADELPHIA. PA.
11
State Attorney General
William A. Schnader refused to become involved
in the "school fight" until
he needed the black vote
because he wanted to be
governor of Pennsylvania.
He paved the way to end
the segregation, but,
ironically, lost the vote for
governor to George H.
Earle in a very close
election.
quash, or annul, both writs on the basis that the
Court of Common Pleas had no jurisdiction in
this case. He further argued that the mandamus
action should instead have been initiated by the
Chester County District Attorney's Office or,
preferably, by the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Alexander argued against the motion to quash
these injunctions, stating that Colonel Holding's
motion was merely taken for the purpose of delaying the final outcome of the case, and that
such a delay would work a hardship upon the
more than 200 black pupils of the two townships
who had received no schooling so far in 1932 as a
result of the alleged segregation.
The December 6th Coatesville Record records
that "while arguments were heard in court on the
motion to quash the mandamus writs, upwards of
one hundred and fifty colored residents of the
school districts were present."
On December 11, 1932, the Chester County
Court of Common Pleas, in an opinion signed by
Judge Hause, refused to judge the case on its
merits and ruled to quash the writs of mandamus.
The opinion upheld the contention of Colonel
Holding that the mandamus action should be declared invalid on the grounds that the Chester
County District Attorney or the state Attorney
General must bring such a suit in order to give it
proper legal status. Round One of the legal battle
had just ended in favor of the school boards.
Dr. James N. Rule was the
Pennsylvania Superintendent of Public Instruction
during the period of the
Tredyffrin-Easttown segregation case, and applied
significant pressure on the
joint school board by
threatening to cut public
funding from Harrisburg.
150 black residents from the two townships, was
the Pennsylvania Superintendent of Public Instruction, Dr. James N. Rule. Since school had
begun the previous October, no legal attempt had
been made by the townships to force the black
children to attend their assigned school.
On March 9, 1933, the following letter to the
Tredyffrin Township School Board was received
from Dr. Rule:
WINTER 1933
Round Two of the legal and increasingly political
battle began on February 15, 1933 with a hearing
and mandamus application held in the Senate
Chamber in Harrisburg before an assistant attorney general of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Raymond Pace Alexander sought to have
Attorney General William A. Schnader join the
proceedings against the school boards. Colonel
Holding argued that the school directors for Easttown and Tredyffrin Townships had, in fact, no
power to effect segregation. About one hundred
witnesses from Berwyn, who had rented buses to
transport them to and from Harrisburg, testified at
this proceeding.
On March 2nd, hearings were continued in Harrisburg, and testimony by both sides was given
before Deputy Attorney General Harris Arnold.
Attending with the spectators, which included
Mr. Robert G. Ligget,
Secretary, Tredyffrin Township School Board
Berwyn, Pennsylvania
Dear Mr. Ligget:
It has come to my attention that since about
the first day of October 1932, your school
district has refused or neglected to enforce
the compulsory attendance provisions of
the school laws in the district, and that as a
result a large number of children of compulsory school age in your district have not
attended school since that date.
Therefore, you are hereby notified
12
was recorded.
In May, after months of delay, Attorney General William A. Schnader issued a ruling stating
that there were no grounds for his intervention in
this issue. Mr. Alexander immediately filed a petition in the Dauphin County Court of Common
Pleas in Harrisburg to order Mr. Schnader to join
the mandamus action against the boards.
Meanwhile, widened community support continued in favor of the black parents. In May the
Bryn Mawr and Philadelphia branches of the
NAACP sponsored a mass meeting at Union
Baptist Church at 19th and Fitzwater Streets in
Philadelphia. At the rally, which drew some
2,000 white and black participants, the crowd
urged Attorney General Schnader to "join with
the Berwyn parents in their fight for basic American principles." At Mt. Olivet Tabernacle Baptist
Church at 42nd and Wallace Streets in Philadelphia, the congregation passed a resolution urging
the Attorney General to protect the black parents
in the Berwyn district, and forwarded their message to him via telegram. The NAACP even picketed Schnader's home in the Germantown section
of Philadelphia in support of the Berwyn parents.
that on Monday, March 27, 1933, at 3:50
o'clock, P. M., I will hold a hearing in my
office in the Education Building, State
Capitol, Harrisburg, at which your Board
is required to appear and show cause, if
any you have, why the State appropriation
allotted to your school district should not
be forfeited . . .
SPRING 1933
No record exists of a March 27, 1933 meeting or
of the "'cause" which was requested to be shown.
On April 3rd, a more formal letter from Dr. Rule
to Mr. Ligget concludes: "it is my duty as Superintendent of Public Instruction to require your
district to enforce the attendance of all the children of compulsory attendance age residing
within Tredyffrin Township School District and
to advise you that a failure to comply within a
reasonable time will necessarily mean a withholding of the State appropriation in whole or in
part as may be determined advisable." Obviously,
with any local district relying heavily upon the
financial assistance of the state, such a letter
would have a sobering effect on their school
board.
During the week of April 9th, notices were sent
to all parents and guardians of absent black pupils
by the Tredyffrin and Easttown School Boards
stating that the state compulsory attendance rules
would be enforced. An April 13, 1933 article in
the Coatesville Record records that Mr. Alexander was consulted by some of the parents concerning these notices. He is said to have told the
parents to disregard the notices and as the days
passed these warnings were not heeded. Therefore, beginning on Monday, April 17, 1933, warrants signed by the President of the Joint Board,
the Board Secretary, and the Truant Officer of the
School Board were distributed to all parents and
guardians of absent black pupils.
Anticipating trouble from this warrant distribution, a member of the school board had gone to
West Chester to confer with the district attorney
and the Chester County Sheriff. He requested that
additional law enforcement officers be sent to the
Lincoln Highway School on April 17th to augment Officer Harry Lewis, Berwyn's only police
officer. It is recorded that order was maintained
as usual during the period for when the warrants
were issued, and that no disruption of any kind
SUMMER 1933
On July 18, 1933, Mr. Norman Greene, the Joint
School Board president whose quote in the Main
Line Daily Times in March of the previous year
had sparked such resentment, and who had been a
lightning rod for opponents of segregated schools
in the ensuing 16 months, resigned from the Tredyffrin School Board. His resignation, citing "the
pressures of my personal affairs," was accepted
by the Board "with regret."
On July 31 st, Raymond Pace Alexander participated with several associates in yet another meeting in the office of the Attorney General to seek
his support in issuing mandamus. O. B. Cobb's
memoir recalls Attorney General Schnader's attitude as "mean and insulting."
FALL 1933 - YEAR TWO
Opening day for the new school year in the consolidated districts of Tredyffrin and Easttown
Townships was Thursday, September 7, 1933.
White and black students alike in grades 9
through 12 registered without incident or apparent prejudice at Tredyffrin Easttown High
School. For the many parents and guardians of
13
the black children of grammar school age, however, solidarity with the school boycott continued
strong—but not absolute.
In order to attend school full time and wishing
to avoid the lapse, with no apparent end, in formal education in their own local schools, many
black parents had sent their children to live with
friends or relatives in adjacent Delaware or
Montgomery Counties, or in Philadelphia. Some
black children of grammar school age had even
been sent to live in New Jersey or Delaware to
avoid the ramifications of the "fight."
registered at the Mt. Pleasant School, 11 pupils
were attending classes. Four of these children
lived in Montgomery County and crossed the
county line to attend. Four were boarders whose
parents lived elsewhere and had been enrolled in
the schools by their guardians. The remaining
three had parents in Tredyffrin Township.
The Coatesville Record also reported "a most
peculiar condition existing at the Lincoln Highway School where one 6-year-old girl, Margaret
Hill, gets the entire attention of a principal and a
teacher each day. This little girl has been placed
in school by her
guardians, since her
/ started high school in the fall of 1932, so the "school fight"
parents
work as donever affected me directly. But my younger brothers, one 2 years
mestics on the Main
younger and the other 4 years younger, definitely had looked
Line. She is the only
forward to attending the beautiful new [Easttown Elementary]
pupil in this school
school, and were now scheduled to attend the old Lincoln Highwhere there should be
way School. When the fight started, my father got someone to
more than 100 chilboard them in Philadelphia so that they could attend the Philadren."
delphia schools. On Sunday night or Monday morning they
At the small, remote
would travel in to Philadelphia and stay for the week with a
Salem School, located
woman who provided a "home away from home" while they aton west Yellow
tended school. Then every Friday night or Saturday morning my
Springs Road in the
Cedar
Hollow area of
father would return them back to our home where we would
Tredyffrin
Township,
wash and iron their clothes. This routine involved not only my
black children of
two brothers, but also the sons of several other families in the
mostly quarry workarea for two years. This solution enabled my brothers to not lose
ers had traditionally
two years of their education. I remember my parents attending
represented one-third
these meetings, and they supported the fight, but fortunately
of the 60 or so pupils
they found this Other way.— Mrs. Elsie Holly Fuller had just graduin the student body.
ated from 8th grade in the spring of 1932 and was entering the fully inteDuring the 1932-33
grated Tredyffrin/Easttown High School.
school year, black
In the first year of the "school fight," the Mt.
Pleasant School, staffed by principal Miss Mazie
Hall and several black teachers, and the Lincoln
Highway School, similarly staffed by a core of
black educators, had virtually no black children
attending classes after the first few days in October 1932. By the start of the 1933-34 school year,
all the black teachers and staff had been fired and
replaced by white teachers. A trickle of black
students were returning to the two segregated
schools, but the majority of the black children
continued to remain at home without any formal
education for a second year.
The Coatesville Record reported on October 10,
1933 that out of the 125 children who should be
The Salem School, built in 1863 on the western
end of Yellow Springs Road, was one of two
schools built to replace the Diamond Rock School
which closed the same year.
14
children had been barred from attendance at the
school. For unexplained reasons, at the beginning
of the 1933-34 school year, at least 10 black pupils living in that jurisdiction had enrolled for,
and were attending, classes at the Salem School.
As the second year of the boycott started, however, no black students attended the Easttown
Elementary School, the Strafford School, or the
Paoli Elementary School. For the majority of the
affected children of grammar school age, the fall
of 1933 was the harbinger of yet another year
without a formal education, save for those few
parents suitably educated themselves to teach
their own children, or with the means of finding
others to provide an appropriate home school
program.
The Paoli Elementary School, built in 1927, was
located on the north side of the railroad at the corner of Fennerton Road and Central Avenue in
Paoli. It served as a whites-only school during the
"school fight."
THE FINES AND ARRESTS OF
BLACK PARENTS AND GUARDIANS
Round Three of the "school fight" began on October 5, 1933 with a protest rally outside the
Easttown Elementary School from which black
pupils had been barred for over a year. Many of
the 225 black pupils of the two townships attended the meeting with their parents. The meeting is both recorded and remembered as being
peaceful.
As October continued, it appeared probable that
a number of black parents would be fined, or
jailed for five days in lieu of paying their fine, for
These black children, who could not attend public
failing to send their children to school as ordered.
school classes, were provided with home-school
Truant officers from the school district called on
education at the Mt. Zion A.M.E. parsonage in Bereach black home asking why the children there
wyn.
were not attending school. They explained that if
the children remained truant, the parent
would be issued a fine until the child once
My parents did not have the opportunity to get
any [educational] help for me, so I was forced to again returned to classes in his or her segstay home. I helped around the house and read regated school. The fines for violation
were $1.00 for the first offense and $2.50
books as we had them, but I sort of became a
for each subsequent offense; this is equal
loner. I just can't explain to you in words how I
to
$43.00 and $105.00 in 2004 dollars.
felt when my parents explained that I could not
Two
Justices of the Peace, one from
return to my school like the other kids. I was
Devon
and one from Berwyn, instructed
hurt because I couldn't go, but I tried to make
Raymond Pace Alexander that they were
the best of it. I felt that, sooner or later, right
prepared
to carry out their threats of imwould be right.— Mrs. Estelle King Burton was
prisonment
under the commonwealth
looking forward to returning to the Strafford School
school
compulsory
attendance law. Alexto begin 5th grade in the fall of 1932. Instead, she
ander
was
given
five
days to file an apspent the next 2 years at home, for which her father
peal. He announced, however, that he
spent time in jail.
15
would not appeal the fines, and would delay any
further action to determine whether the prison
threats would actually be carried out.
On October 19, 1933, the first four black men,
all from Berwyn, were arrested and transported in
handcuffs to the Chester County Prison to begin
their 5-day sentences following their refusal to
pay a $2.50 fine imposed upon them for failing to
send their children to school. They were: Andrew
Hearn, his son Virgil Hearn, Walter Harrison, and
the Rev. Charles Shepard, lay minister at the Mt.
Zion A.M.E. Church in Devon. It was recalled
that these four volunteered to lead those still to be
jailed, and said of the jailing: "Someone has to go
first - let it be us."
Dozens of parents and guardians were fined or
jailed, but no individual was jailed more than
once. O. B. Cobb recalls in his memoir that,
"some paid fines for others. Many, while in
prison, were supported by their neighbors."
sition unanimously approved on November 14,
1933 by the Joint Board whereby a personal solicitation would be made to have all absentee
children in the Tredyffrin and Easttown School
Districts return to school by Monday, November
20th. A member of the black community, Mr.
Morris Ray, would be appointed "to a Committee
who shall pass upon all applications that may be
made for reassignment." Further, all pending
prosecutions against the parents or guardians of
all children returning to their classes by November 20, 1933 shall be suspended during the period
necessary "to pass upon any applications for such
reassignment." The Joint School Board's plan
was found unacceptable by the local black community and the Bryn Mawr Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and further consideration was refused.
WINTER OF 1933-34
What about the ongoing legal battle to resolve the
"school fight." As Alexander himself describes in
his memoir: ". . . for two long years, battling in
Chester County, rebuffed; then to Harrisburg to
the Attorney General of Pennsylvania for state
supported mandamus, then returning to Chester
County, back to Harrisburg and innumerable trips
- all at night - at least 50 in all - to take testimony in various churches."
The second year of the struggle had turned very
political. Pennsylvania Attorney General
Schnader had political ambitions—he wanted to
occupy the governor's mansion. The second term
of Republican governor Gifford Pinchot was due
to expire in January 1935, and Schnader wanted
the nomination to succeed him. To do that he
needed the widest possible support, including the
state's black vote. Although Schnader had repeatedly declined to cooperate up to now in the mandamus action, on March 8, 1934 he told a delegation including lawyers and ministers that he
would consider their request for assistance to end
segregation of black and white children in Berwyn.
/ remember that my mother would cook
food for people who had lost their job —
their way of earning—and an older man,
Mr. Horace Young, would deliver it. My
mother would cook all kinds of food and
give it to people, because they didn't
have enough food or they didn't have
money.— Mrs. Bessie Crosby Whitney is
one of the twin daughters of Primus Crosby.
She remembers the many kindnesses
extended by her mother and others as
neighbor supported neighbor during the
struggle.
Raymond Pace Alexander told the black parents
that, "when the next person goes to jail, you bring
your children. Tell them: 'I don't have anybody
to care for them, and my children must go to jail
with me.' "
It is recorded that one mother with an infant in
arms finally broke the jailing cycle. Rcollection
names this woman as a Mrs. Williams, who refused, on principle, to have her fine paid by the
NAACP, and, knowing that her husband would
be fired from his job if he did not show up for
work, agreed to go to jail in his place so he could
keep working to support their family. At this
point the court ceased arresting parents.
Easttown School District minutes note a propo-
THE FINAL ROUND
With his hat in the gubernatorial ring, Attorney
General Schnader now sought a way to favorably
settle the segregation case. O. B. Cobb describes
how Schnader appointed two Deputy Attorneys
16
It was the first time since June 1932, that
the Negro and white children in the two
townships were in the same school buildings. In Tredyffrin township they were
attending Mt. Pleasant School, and for the
first time since the new Berwyn School
was built in Easttown township, white and
Negro children were in the same classes
yesterday morning.
General who were to confer with the School
Board for the purpose of settling the case. The
Bryn Mawr Branch of the NAACP wrote
Schnader a letter reminding him of his former
negligence and asking him to recall the deputies
and to contact the school authorities himself.
On March 17, 1934, the following letter was
received by the Bryn Mawr Branch of the
NAACP:
The old Berwyn School, on Lancaster Pike . . .
was closed yesterday and will remain closed
for the remainder of the term.
Dear Mr. Cobb:
I hope you will forgive my long delay in
replying to your very kind letter of March
10. I am willing to do anything in my
power to try to settle the unfortunate difference between the School Board and the
parents. I am today writing to the Attorney
for the School Board to see what can be
done. I appreciate immensely the spirit of
your letter and would be more than delighted if I could be of real service in bringing about an adjustment.
Sincerely,
William Schnader
State Attorney General, (Pa.)
EPILOGUE
The struggle for equality of education had finally
ended successfully. It is reported that in the remaining month of the 1933-34 school year, the
approximately 225 black pupils reported to their
nearest grammar school to be reintegrated with
the rest of their class and grade. Over the seven
decades since that time, participants remember
the crowded classrooms during that final month
of classes, and nothing but kindness on the part
of both teachers and pupils as former classmates
were reunited. By the following September, at the
start of the 1934-35 school year, class balancing
had been completed and normalcy had returned.
The price of victory had been high, leaving
casualties from the struggle. Many black children, whose parents were without the means to
provide suitable and ongoing education during
the two-year boycott, had fallen behind academically, requiring them to leave their old classmates
and be reassigned to another grade. As happened
to many, a student scheduled to enter the third
grade in 1932 would now be obligated to enter
the third grade in 1934 even though the child was
two years older than his or her classmates. Children can be cruel about such things, and those
insults are recalled over the decades. Of particular concern, were students who would have entered 7th or 8th grade in 1932, and who would
now be forced to catch up academically in the
grammar schools even though they had grown to
near-adulthood physically. Many individuals recalled leaving school permanently rather than
face taunts of alleged retardation.
Furthermore, because the case had been settled
on legal and political fronts rather in the courts,
no clear precedent had been established for others
Forty-four days later, the Berwyn "school
fight" was over. The May 1, 1934 Coatesville
Record records the end:
Tredyffrin township's segregated school
controversy ended yesterday when Negro
boys and girls and white children attended
the same schools.
Announcement was made by Raymond
Pace Alexander, colored attorney representing the parents of more than 220 Negro children who refused to attend schools specially
designated for them, that the joint school,
boards of Easttown and Tredyffrin townships had notified him yesterday that the
segregated system would be done away
with at once.
Alexander, in turn, sent notice to the parents that they should send their children to
school yesterday morning, and a check up
showed that nearly all of the parents had
complied.
17
to follow. When a group of black parents sued the
Chester, Pennsylvania, School Board for maintaining segregated high schools, the school board
retaliated by failing to renew the contracts of 50
black teachers.
School segregation remained pervasive in much
of Pennsylvania well into the 1940s. In 1948 the
NAACP conducted an extensive survey of school
segregation in the state, and found that more than
a quarter of the surveyed school districts maintained some form of formal separation between
black and white students. They had either segregated schools or segregated classes within
schools. The towns of Chester and West Chester
continued to operate all-black elementary
schools. Willistown Township, Downingtown,
and Kennett Square continued to operate segregated classrooms within integrated schools, with
black teachers teaching only black children. In
some of these segregated classrooms, black children of various ages and ability were combined in
a single room, called a "union room," resulting in
an educational experience not only separate but
inferior to that offered to white students.
It would be another 20 years until the case of
Brown v. Board of Education was heard before
the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954, and the
"separate but equal" doctrine previously adopted
in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson was unanimously struck down and found to have no place
in public education. Chief Justice Earl Warren,
reading the decision of the unanimous Court on
May 17, 1954, underscored that segregation of
children in public schools based solely on race
deprives children of the minority group of equal
educational opportunities, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be
equal. The Court's decision was a major step toward complete desegregation of public schools.
And yet, two decades before this sweeping decision from the highest court in the land, a lawyer
of uncommon brilliance, and hundreds of brave,
local men, women, and children acted upon their
conviction that a line had been crossed, and
started a "fight" that served as a precedent of
what could be done when equality was compromised.
APPENDIX
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS INVOLVED
IN THE "SCHOOL FIGHT"
18
•
A new Berwyn Primary School had been
built in 1912 on Lancaster Avenue at
Central and Walnut Avenues in Easttown
Township, one block west of an older
grammar school, the Easttown Primary
School, that closed in 1926. In 1932 the
Tredyffrin School Board leased the vacated Berwyn Primary School from the
Easttown authorities. The school was
refurbished and renamed the Lincoln
Highway School and continued in operation until 1939. It is currently a private
office building.
•
In 1930 the school authorities in Easttown decided to build a modern consolidated grammar school. They acquired a
tract of land on the south side of First
Avenue, east of Bridge Street in Berwyn
and two blocks southeast of the Berwyn
Primary School, and construction of a
new Easttown Elementary School began
later that year. The new school was first
occupied in the fall of 1932. It closed in
1977 and the building was converted to
administrative space for the Tredyffrin/
Easttown School District.
•
An original school building in the Mt.
Pleasant section of Wayne was built in
1867 and razed in 1903. The new, stone
Mt Pleasant Schoolbuilding was built
the same year on the same site, at the
extreme eastern end of Tredyffrin Township. This school was used until the
1940s. The building, located at 1008
Upper Gulph Road across from the
Radnor Country Club, has been renovated and is now an office complex.
•
An old school at the corner of Upper
Gulph and West Valley Roads in Tredyffrin Township was replaced in 1930 by
the new, larger Strafford School built on
a piece of adjoining property. The school
Bessie Marshall Cunningham
Irma Dennis
Christopher Densmore, Curator, Friends
Historical Library, Swarthmore College
Elsie Holly Fuller
Mazie Hall
Helen and Ed Hayes
Esther Long
Josephine Morgan
Diane Mastrull, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Dale Mezzacappa, The Philadelphia
Inquirer
Alberta Carter Shepherd
Bessie Crosby Whitney
Robert Wright
served for fifty years until it closed in
1981. The private Woodlynde School
now occupies the site.
•
Salem School, built in 1863 on the western end of Yellow Springs Road in Tredyffrin Township, was one of two
schools built to replace the Diamond
Rock School which closed the same year.
This school consisted of an original onestory structure and an adjoining twostory frame building. The Salem School
was closed in 1939. The buildings are
now privately owned.
•
Paoli Elementary School was built in
1927 and located on the north side of the
railroad at the corner of Fennerton Road
and Central Avenue in Paoli. It remained
in service until 1981, and is now operated
as the Delaware Valley Friends School.
•
I also wish to thank members of the Tredyffrin/
Easttown School District, and members of the
School Board, including, but not limited to, Dr.
Peter Motel, Mrs. Liane Davis, Dr. Dan Waters,
Dr. Mary Lou Folts, and Mrs. Nancy Letts.
Thank you for your interest and guidance.
The North Berwyn School was built in
1892 as a one-room schoolhouse on the
southeast corner of what is today Conestoga and Howellville Roads. Later additions enlarged it to contain four classrooms. The school operated until 1932,
when it was closed. The old school building was then renovated and a second
floor was added. In 1936 it was used
again, this time by the Tredyffrin/
Easttown High School for its vocational
and art departments. Today it houses the
Maintenance Department of the Tredyffrin/Easttown School District.
SOURCES
Davison M. Douglas. "The Limits of Law in
Accomplishing Racial Change: School Segregation in the Pre-Brown North." UCLA Law
Review, vol. 44, no. 3 (February 1997).
p. 727-28.
Joseph H. Rainey. "Segregation Ends in Public
Schools of Two Townships." Philadelphia
Record, May 1, 1934.
Raymond Pace Alexander. "Outline of the School
Situation in Easttown and Tredyffrin Townships" (October 18, 1933). NAACP Papers,
Box 1-D-48, Library of Congress.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In preparing this narrative I received extraordinary assistance from many individuals to whom I
wish to express my sincere gratitude for their
ideas, information, and encouragement during the
research of this seminal, yet little-known, civil
rights struggle:
Essie Crosby Brock
Estelle King Burton
Ernestine Corbin Woods
Matthew Corbin
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Race Relations
Committee. Minutes for 1929-36. Friends
Historical Library, Swarthmore College,
Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.
Easttown School District. Minutes for May
5, 1932 through June 14, 1934.
Tredyffrin School District. Minutes for January
29, 1931 through September 25, 1934.
19
Tredyffrin Easttown History Club, Berwyn,
Pennsylvania. Newspaper clipping files.
Frederick Douglass Institute, West Chester
University, West Chester, Pennsylvania.
Newspaper clipping files.
Robert L. Ward. "Public Schools of Easttown and
Tredyffrin Townships - Part II." Tredyffrin
Easttown History Club Quarterly, vol. 35, no. 3
(July 1997). p. 81-96.
A Short Summary of the Life and Activities of
Raymond Pace Alexander. (Judge, Common
Pleas Court #4, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).
May 1966. Paper provided to the author by Mr.
Robert Wright.
Oscar Bullock Cobb. A Brief History Of The Bryn
Mawr, Pa . Branch Of The National Association
For The Advancement Of Colored People. Bryn
Mawr, Pennsylvania, 1934. Paper provided to
the author by Mr. Robert Wright.
Chester County Court of Common Pleas. Legal
documents filed with the court pertaining to the
"school fight." Provided for review by the author
by the Tredyffrin/Easttown School District.
Lisa Cozzens. "Brown v. Board of Education."
African American History. 1995.
http://fledge.watson.org/-lisa/blackhistory/
early-civilrights/brown.html
Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483
(1954).
http://www.nationalcenter.org/brown.html
U.S. Department of State. Basic Readings in
U.S. Democracy. Introduction to the Court
Opinion of the Plessy v. Ferguson Case.
http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/
democrac/33.htm
Roger Thorne, a retired executive for an international services company, became president of the
Tredyffrin Easttown History Club in 2003. A May
2004 Philadelphia Inquirer article first exposed
Thorne to the "Berwyn school fight," and provided
the catalyst to pursue the details and context of this
little-known event in our local past. This talk was
presented at the October 24, 2004 meeting of the
Tredyffrin Easttown History Club.
Main Line Daily Times. Various issues for the
period March to July 1932. Microfilm collection,
Free Library of Philadelphia.
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
Front cover Courtesy Matthew Corbin. p. 4 Top, Roger Thorne, photographer, 2004. Middle, Courtesy Coatesville Record, p. 5 Top left and right, Roger Thorne, photographer, 2004. Bottom left, Courtesy Tredyffrin Easttown History Club. p. 6 Middle, Roger Thorne, photographer, 2004. Bottom, Courtesy Essie Crosby Brock,
p. 8 Courtesy University of Pennsylvania, p. 9 All photographs Roger Thorne, photographer, 2004. p. 11 Left,
Courtesy Tredyffrin/Easttown School District. Right, Roger Thorne, photographer, 2004. p. 12 Top, Courtesy
Archives and Special Collections, Franklin and Marshall College. Middle, Courtesy Main Line Daily Times.
p. 14 Courtesy Coatesville Record, p. 15 Left, Courtesy Esther Long. Right, Roger Thorne, photographer,
2004. p. 22 Left, Courtesy Matthew Corbin. Right, Courtesy The National Air Tour. p. 23 Courtesy Eleanor
Roosevelt National Historic Site. p. 24 Courtesy Colonel Roosevelt J. Lewis Collection, Moton Field, Tuskegee, Alabama, p. 27 Top left Courtesy Rare Book Department, The Free Library of Philadelphia. Bottom left,
Courtesy Tredyffrin Easttown History Club. Right, Atlas of the Properties of Main Line Pennsylvania Railroad. . .. Philadelphia: Muller, 1912, plate 9. p. 28 Top left, top right, and bottom right photographs, Courtesy
Rare Book Department, The Free Library of Philadelphia. Bottom left, The A. Edward Newton Collection of
Books and Manuscripts. Parke-Bernet, 1941. part of front endpaper, p. 32 Top, Courtesy Tredydffrin Easttown
History Club. Bottom, Joyce A. Post, photographer, 2005. Back Cover The A. Edward Newton Collection of
Books and Manuscripts. Parke-Bernet, 1941. part of back endpaper.
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