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The NAACP in Randolph County, AL, has vowed ‘there will be no peace” until a White high school principal who was reinstated to his job despite making racial slurs, is removed from the position.
In a 4-2 vote, the Randolph County School Board favored reinstating Hulond Humphries, principal of Randolph County High School in Wedowee, AL.
Humphries, 55, had been suspended with pay following a threat to cancel his school’s April 23 prom if interracial couples were to attend. He also has been accused of making racist comments to a mixed race student during a school assembly in February.
That student, 16-year-old ReVonda Bowen whose mother is Black and father is White, filed a lawsuit last month against both the principal and the school board after Humphries reportedly told Bowen that her parents “made a mistake” by having her, and that he didn’t want anyone else to make the same mistake” (Jet, April 4).
Charlotte Clark-Frieson, who heads the Randolph County Branch of the NAACP, said students and Black residents of the community are outraged by the decision.
Although Clark-Frieson, who is also the only Black school board member, voted with another board member to fire Humphries, the majority ruled. Joe Belue, a White board member who also wanted Humphries fired, resigned immediately after the board’s vote.
In explaining his resignation, Belue said he felt the board had made a pretty strong judgment error.” Because of the pending lawsuit, ReVonda Bowen and her attorney, Morris Dees, were not available for interviews.
Clark-Frieson was however furious. “The school board was negligent in its responsibility. This was a gross miscarriage of justice. Nothing more than a complete and callous disregard for the students and parents of the community. And we’re not going to take it.”
In an emotional interview with Jet, Clark-Frieson promised there will be no peace” in Randolph County until Humphries is removed.
For 20 years the local NAACP has fought injustices against minorities by Humpries and others at the high school, Clark-Frieson said.
“ReVonda Bowen is just a scab on a major sore. She’s just the straw that broke the came;’s back,” she stressed. “There’s a much larger picture behind this whole mess. We’ve been trying to correct problems of a racial nature for years and years. We could tell many horror stones about this school board and this principal.”
It was the NAACP, in fact, that initiated a 1989 review of Humphries by the Federal Education Department’s civil rights division. It found that Humphries encouraged Black and White students to ride separate buses; disciplined Black students more than White students; and punished Blacks more severely than Whites, even though their offenses were the same.
Clark-Frieson plans to call on national civil rights leaders and organizations to become more involved.
We’re going to do whatever is necessary to see that this situation is rectified,” she assured. We are going to access every local, state and national group at our disposal to see that justice is served.”