John Shearer: The Brainerd High Crisis Of 50 Years Ago And The Road To Wholeness, Part 6 – Reflections From Miss Brainerd High, Barbara Cook Grimes

As the head cheerleader, or captain, at Brainerd High School in the fall of 1969, Barbara Cook Grimes had a great vantage point for the memorable Rebel football team that finished 10-0. 

 

As a senior class treasurer and member of the Student Council, she also had a 50-yard-line-like perspective on all that was taking place regarding the racial conflict among students over the school’s Confederate symbols and fight song.

 

“I found it a year that helped me grow as a person, student and leader,” she recalled.

 

Ms.

Grimes sent an email to chattanoogan.com after a note was posted at the end of the part 5 story in the series seeking the memories of more female students. In two heartfelt emails, she tried to point out her and other student leaders’ seemingly futile efforts to keep the peace.

 

A white student at the school that had a growing, but-still-small number of blacks, she felt that, during the group’s underclass years, a good relationship had existed between everyone, and that a black student, Alfonso "Chip" Overton, had even served as the junior class president.

 

However, over the summer of 1969 before their senior year, something started not to seem right from her vantage point. She began to wonder if some of the black students were being pressured to not believe that the white students wanted to be their friends. The blacks also seemed to be standing up against being Brainerd Rebels, she said.

 

“I attended a meeting that summer, and we were told rumblings were being heard of discontent in the black community, and we tried to prepare for what might happen, not expecting what did happen,” she said. 

 

What took place that fall was an unfortunate confrontation that set the school and even much of the community on edge. Black and white students and even others clashed verbally and even physically over symbols of a Southern past, which the blacks saw as derogatory and many white students saw simply as school pride.

 

In many ways, this situation was more like what is still being battled over today regarding issues like old Confederate monuments. In the 1960s, most of the civil rights battles had been held primarily over blacks seeking the basic opportunities that had been assured in the Constitution but had often been denied.

 

In 1969, the larger outside world was also changing, even from the early 1960s, and blacks everywhere were not afraid to begin to voice their complaints more vocally about wrongs they perceived. 

 

That is how former black Brainerd students James Sears and Greg Walton described the situation in past stories in this series. To them it was initially not personal, but a larger issue that they felt was important.

 

And that issue was pushing for the elimination of the Confederate flag as a school symbol and “Dixie” as a school fight song. To black people, both brought back memories of a more repressed time, they felt.

 

Among Ms. Grimes’ general memories of that year, she recalls being involved in student council meetings held to help everyone come together better. And she genuinely wanted the conflict to end in a satisfactory manner for everyone.

 

“As class leaders, we attempted to hear what our fellow students were expressing and I, too, felt if the students were allowed to, we could have worked things out,” she said, expressing the sentiments of classmate David Everett in the part 5 story.

 

What became a detriment, she said, were not the students, but others, including those with no direct connection to Brainerd High other than an interest in the controversy or its causes.

 

“Too many outside groups and pressures were coming against us all that finding common ground became difficult,” she said. “I was yelled at by white students for trying to compromise and by black students for being a ‘Rebel.’ ”  

 

Ms. Grimes recalled being caught off guard at that first pep rally, when the changing attitudes among many black students first became apparent.

 

“I remember some black students bringing in a Rebel flag to our first pep rally and setting it on fire,” she said. “I ran to them pleading, ‘What is happening, why are you doing this?  Y’all are friends!’ ”

 

The situation only got worse as September moved into October, and it came to a head in the game against the historic black high school, Riverside, on Oct. 3 at the Brainerd field next to the school. 

 

“I remember getting up to cheer at the Riverside football game, and the student section was filled with some black students wearing black gloves,” Ms. Grimes said. “I jumped down and went to my friends saying, ‘Hey guys, what is going on? Let’s work this out!’ Later several stormed our cheerleading stand trying to throw us off.  I was so shocked.”

 

And the conflict was not relegated to just pep rallies and football games, when the students were not totally under the control of the teachers. She also recalled an incident happening in one of her classes.

 

“Every Wednesday at 10 when I was in Mrs. Turner’s world history class, the black students would get up, walk out and march the halls chanting ‘We shall overcome’ (a popular black civil rights anthem written in part by Zilphia Horton of the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle).

 

“The teachers would lock us in our classrooms, send buses for the black students, and then we would be out of school until the next Monday.”

 

Ms. Grimes does not believe personally that such actions accomplished anything toward ending the conflict and unrest.

 

In fact, she remembered being disillusioned overall by the actions and inactions of adults, students and city leaders. 

 

“The entire city was in turmoil,” she said.

 

She was, however, able to see both sides, which not everyone was able to do at that time.

 

“To many of us, ‘Dixie’ and the Rebel Flag were symbols of pride, not racism,” she said. “But it helped me to step back and try to see things from the black student perspective, and I was able to see how our symbols were offensive.”

 

She also remembered taking the diplomatic and peacemaker approach as the student representative who had the opportunity to speak at graduation. 

 

“I remember encouraging us all to learn from our experiences, both good and bad, and to press on for unity, wisdom and maturity,” she said.

 

Ms. Grimes’ efforts to be a positive leader had come naturally, as her father, Mack Cook, was the school PTA president. She remembered how hard he worked to protect students and support principal Ray Coleman and later Billy Von Schaaf, and that work led to his election to the Chattanooga city school board the next year.

 

While Ms. Grimes realizes the past and all the conflict that occurred at Brainerd High during that time cannot be undone, she hopes at least some more positive closure can take place next year in what might be the last formal opportunity for healing.

 

That is when the Brainerd Class of 1970 will hold its 50-year reunion, and she would love to see more black class members come to the reunion. She recalls that maybe three or four came to the 10-year reunion in 1980, but she is not sure if many have come to class reunions since then.

 

If some do come, it would likely not be just a black and white gathering, but also a red and blue one of united Brainerd High graduates. And that would be wonderful for Ms Grimes.

 

“I have no hard feelings toward anyone and would love for all to reconnect at our reunion,” Ms. Grimes said. “We had a great class and won so many awards athletically as well as academically.  I value the lessons I learned during that time. 

 

“Our class became strong, united in diversity and are very close to this day,”  

 

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To see the previous story in this series, read here.

https://www.chattanoogan.com/2019/9/21/396659/John-Shearer-The-Brainerd-High-Crisis.aspx

 

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jcshearer2@comcast.net