NAACP Fort Wayne-Allen County Takes on Heritage

Story originally printed in Frost Illustrated:

The National NAACP campaign to bury the N--Word must not have reached East Allen County School District over the summer. On November 12, 2007 two students at Heritage Junior-Senior High School allegedly found notes in their lockers, with the following message: “Hunting deer or/hunting niggers/we’re getting drunk/and pulling triggers/ Welcome to Monroeville. The poorly scribbled hate note included a directive: “to move them north” and “2 bars 13 stars fuck you niggers the south is ours!”

The message was not perceived as welcoming to some students or their parents.

Matter of fact, one of the student’s parents found the graffiti laced message including a drawing of the confederate flag and dangling KKK letters disturbing; so disturbing that they contacted the Allen County Sheriff Department, Heritage Junior-Senior High School Principal Chris Hissong, and the Fort Wayne-Allen NAACP Branch #3049. The parents were concerned about the safety of their student and other students at the school.

The President of the local NAACP, President Pastor Michael L. Latham responded.

The following Tuesday, the local NAACP contacted Principal Hissong to arrange a meeting to address the note and the safety issue for Wednesday morning. The NAACP is one of the oldest and largest civil right organizations working to eliminate racial hatred and intolerance. The note’s message of domestic terrorism was viewed as a direct threat to harm African-American students. Especially with the increasing sighting of hanging nooses, violence from numerous students’ rage shooting occurring on school campuses, safety was the immediate concerns for all students at Heritage.

It did not take long for Pastor Latham to discover at Heritage that safety of students may be an issue. The NAACP president discovered that gaining access to students was as simple as walking through the unlocked front doors--a potential jeopardy of students’ lives. Moreover, during the fact-finding meeting, the school principal revealed that the 16 cameras installed to monitor activities at the school did not cover certain areas on the second floor. To prevent the situation from continuing to escalate, the NAACP president felt duty bound to advocate for the students and parents.

As a precautionary measure, the principal and the local NAACP president worked on a tentative plan to address the note and put students, teachers, and staff on notice that racial intolerance would not be tolerated at the school. Part of the plan was for the principal and the president to hold a joint press conference on Friday morning to put the community at ease with the message that the school was working with the NAACP to build better racial relationships.
This immediate response was necessary in order to de-escalate the potential for harm to students. But, by Thursday afternoon, there was a shift in the NAACP’s game plan.

On November 15, 2007, EACS Superintendent Dr. M. Kay Novotny summoned the NAACP president to her office canceling the joint press conference. Superintendent Novotny explained to NAACP representative President Latham that EACS district would handle the situation “internally” and with her own “external personalities.” Novotny message was firm and clear. EACS was unwilling to work with the representative of the NAACP on this issue.

Nevertheless, President Latham informed Superintendent Novotny that four African-American students, three females, 9th and 10th graders, entered the principal’s office, declaring they were sick and tired of being called the N—and B—word, after his visit with the principal of Heritage had ended and as he prepared to exist the principal office that Wednesday afternoon. EACS decision to go mute on the issue would not stop the NAACP from conducting its own press conference as planned for the following Friday morning.

Still more drama.

On November 16, 2007, just minutes before the local NAACP president was to conduct the press conference, some Monroeville community leaders called with concerns, requesting a meeting with the local NAACP. They would have to wait until after the scheduled press conference and the on air interview to meet with the NAACP President Latham. The NAACP press conference went on as scheduled.

Later, Monroeville community leaders expressed discontent with the message of the note at the third meeting of the day for the local NAACP president. Monroeville leaders were appalled but encouraged by the local NAACP to address the issue in spite of the “wait and see” attitude exhibited by the EACS district. Monroeville community leaders felt it was important to refute the image in the note depleting Monroeville as a racially intolerant town and scheduled their own press conference that evening.

EACS discovered it was powerless in gagging the efforts of the local NAACP and decided to attend a NAACP meeting scheduled on Monday, November 19, 2007 for the community to discuss the racial tension at Heritage.

That evening, Superintendent Novotny, EACS Board President and some of the EACS staff members, attended the NAACP’s meeting as well as various other community leaders. At the meeting, for the first time, some EACS members heard parents and other community members sound off and complain about the district unwillingness or inability to address their concerns about messages of racial hatred within its schools. One local community leader reported seeing the letters KKK in the locker room. Former students reported coaches freely using racial epithets. Moreover, this newspaper reported harassment of students back in 1995. The community was frustrated.

Parents’ frustration was with school official inability to work with them in helping to eliminate the problem of racial harassment. Parents had counseled their children to turn the other cheek and to ignore the derogatory putdowns. In spite of the fact, that EACS had in place policies outlined in their very own EACS Guide To Students and Parents Student Conduct Code handbook for handling such issues.

The parents at the meeting expressed a concern that the school was ignoring the problem of racial tension in its schools. The parent felt the school was not listening.

EACS was listening...

The next day, on Tuesday, November 20, 2007, Superintendent Novotny and EACS held their own press conference absence the NAACP, unveiled their brief plan for addressing the racial issue and the entities they were willing to work with. And on the following day, the Wednesday before the Thanksgiving holiday and just before the closing hours of the schools, EACS issued a press release to the media to announce that the threatening note was not found in the students’ lockers as earlier reported in the media.

Just enough information to quiet the storm ever so slightly, but no new information on the person who wrote the “Niggerdieday” note. “Lowkey Joe” or “Cowboy Joe” the signer of the note remained unknown and unpunished.

But who was punished were some of the students who reported racial incidents, each received two-five days in school suspensions. The disparate treatment could have had a chilling effort for reporting racial incidents by students at the school, if the NAACP did not continue to stay the course.

EACS’s decision to placate the community by ending the investigation fell on death ears. The local NAACP took in the new information and readied itself for meetings slated with the Indiana Civil Right Commission and the United States Department of Justice.

On December 3, 2007, the local NAACP conducted a meeting with the Indiana Civil Right Commission Executive Director Judge Gregory K. Scott. The state civil right organization had jurisdiction over the matter, where the local Fort Wayne Metropolitan Human Relations Commission had none. The ICRC explained the process for filing a discriminatory complaint and the investigatory procedures.

Another agency interested in the racial tension brewing in the EACS district was the United States Department of Justice on met with the community on December 10, 2007. According to Anita Cochran, Conciliation Specialist U.S. DoJ, Community Relations Service, a long-term mediator for the U.S. DoJ stated she was contacted by Barbara Bolling, the President of the Indiana National Association for the Advancement of Colored People about the issue.

The local NAACP not wanting to be disruptive to the process voluntarily agreed to work with the U. S. DoJ to push for a safe environment for all students. Cochran had previously worked with racial issues in Fort Wayne and was more than willing to meet with local NAACP President, its members and other community leaders listening to the concerns and recommendations for resolving the Heritage issue.

EACS representative met with Cochran on December 11, 2007 but has not made a decision on whether or not EACS will use the services provided by the U.S. DoJ. And at the time of the writing of article a complaint has not been filed with the ICRC against East Allen County Schools or Heritage.

If you would like to help the local NAACP mission of fighting discrimination, you can become a member of the organization. The local NAACP is a membership only organization and relies heavily on the generosity of others. Please make a donation today by calling 260-744-2176 or stopping by the office located at 1521 E. Pontiac between the hours 4:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.


Jacqui Dowdell, dowdellresearch, llc 260-602-1878, public relation person of NAACP Fort Wayne-Allen County #3049