It Takes a Village: The Integration of the Hillburn School System

By Leonard M. Alexander

When people think of segregated schools in America, particularly before the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision, cities and towns in the South immediately come to mind. There were, however, segregated schools districts in the North as well.

Hillburn, New York is a quiet little village with approximately one thousand residents, just forty miles northwest of New York City. For decades, it was also a community divided by race with two grammar schools. The two schools were dramatically d

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781634173322

Book preview

Acknowledgments 

We are especially grateful to Muriel Alexander for reading earlier versions of this book and to Paducah, Kentucky, attorney R. Brent Vasseur for giving the manuscript a fresh set of eyes. 

We also thank the Rockland County (New York) Commission on Human Rights for honoring the civil rights contributions of our patriarch, Thomas Ulysses Alexander, and for making available to us the correspondence between him, the NAACP, and the New York State Education Department; access to that information was invaluable. 

Introduction 

Everyone has studied the twentieth century struggle to integrate the public schools in the United States and to move the civil rights agenda forward. The United States Supreme Court’s historic decision in the Brown v. Board of Education case changed the course of events for families of color forever because separate schools, divided by race, were declared to be unconstitutional. After Brown, white schools were no longer just for white students.  

Most people believe that the problem of segregated schools was unique to the southern states, but that belief would be incorrect. Segregation existed throughout the United States, and school systems that were separated by race were often as easy to find north of the Mason-Dixon line as they were south of the Mason-Dixon line.  

I am a mixed-race, brown-skinned man who was born and raised in suburban New York City. For most of my life I was considered either colored or Negro. In fact, my heritage is quite diverse. My ancestors are African, Dutch, and Native American. I’m sure that I have other ethnic roots, but I’m still discovering them. For purposes of attending elementary school, however, I was just one of the colored kids, and colored kids in Hillburn, New York, had to attend the colored school. 

This book is the story of one of those segregated northern schools. It is my story, told with the help of my oldest son so that a more complete history of race in our country may be recorded for future generations. 

Chapter 1 

Hillburn, New York 

Just forty miles northwest of New York City lies a sleepy little village called Hillburn, New York. It is the first community on the busy Route 17 state highway as you enter New York State from New Jersey on your way to the Catskill Mountains. Throughout most of the twentieth century, Route 17 was the preferred four-lane highway that city dwellers and suburbanites used to escape Manhattan and its surroundings. The Catskills were home to entertainment venues that featured headline acts such as Henny Youngman, Sammy Davis Jr., and Jerry Lewis. The region was more commonly known as the Borscht Belt or the Jewish Alps, and entertainers would welcome the opportunity to perform for the many fans who spent summers and weekends year-round in Upstate New York. 

Map of Rockland County, NY. The map is courtesy of the Rockland Economic Development Corporation.

Hillburn is located in a valley among the Ramapo Mountains, and it is part of the township of Ramapo. Ramapo refers to my Native American ancestors who settled the valley. They were called Ramapoughs, which is thought to mean either sweet water or sloping/slanting rocks.