Kathlyn Gilliam: “Racist, Hateful And Dumb”
For a profile in courage, I give the nod to the Dallas School Board. Last night, it rebuffed protesters who want the administration building named in honor of long-time board member Kathleen Gilliam, agreed to “blow up” poorly performing Spruce High School, held the line on teacher’s salaries, and cut 50 administration jobs to meet budget requirements. All in all, a spectacular performance. However, it was the Kathlyn Gilliam vote — with the woman herself sitting in the audience — that warmed my heart. Here’s what we had to say about her in our 1996 Best and Worst:
WORST PUBLIC OFFICIAL
Kathlyn Gilliam: Racist, Hateful and Dumb
FOR 24 YEARS-24 years!-she has used her seat on the Dallas School Board as a weapon against educators, parents, administrators, fellow board members and anyone else who even halfheartedly has tried to make the public schools work. Combining meanness with stupidity, as one observer put it, she has stirred the racial cauldron, boiling up an ever-frothy stew of divisiveness, anger and hostility.
Of course, she does it all for the children. “”We have to be vigilant and persistent about seeing to it that we provide the best opportunities for our children,”" The News recently quoted her as saying. Her vigilance and persistence have produced spotty results. Whites appalled at the breakup of neighborhood schools and put off by the bickering and racial mau-mauing instigated by Gilliam have fled the district, leaving the public schools almost totally resegregated. Middle-class blacks appalled by the deterioration of educational standards and equally put off by the bickering she’s caused, have sought better choices for their children in districts such as DeSoto, Duncanville and as far away as Grapevine. The effect of this brain drain on Gilliam’s district in South Dallas has been spiraling urban decay. To think: All of this carnage has been wreaked by one person in less than a quarter-century.
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The things you have to do to get your name on a building…I swear!
Tell me about it.
No spit, Sherlock.
Spray paint and $50 to a good tagger, IJS. That’s how I get my name on buildings.
I can’t tell from the DMN story for sure, though, but it sounds as if nobody on the current board wanted to come right out and give reasons for why they were going to vote against the idea. That, to me, would’ve been even more courageous.
Bethany..Welcome back to my heart
Thanks for the memories Wick. In a note to Leigh Ann Ellis who is said to reviewing all policies, I wrote:
It sure seems like this tedium could be avoided if policy dictated that proposals to name or rename structures be restricted to a five year cycle preferably in sync with an open bond program and submitted through the associated naming committee. I fail to see the urgency to do so more often. Self submission (Hollis Brashear) should be prohibited and would be avoided if the policy also required that the named be deceased.
Otherwise, naming rights should be purchased (American Airlines Center) and have a defined term and expiration. With that in mind, the Coca-Cola scoreboard contract should be reviewed for renewal along with others. I’ve wondered why Coke would want it’s name tied to a broken scoreboard anyway. It’s also comical and embarrassing that Loos Field House still displays signage for the long defunct Sterling Jewelry Company.
As the mosquitoes said when flying over a stagnant backyard fungal pond; “What a toxic waste”.
Kids are crying about having their school closed down because they can’t fix the DISD system and they’re busy fighting about naming rights?
Wow. Two words:
Titanic.
Deckchairs.
I remember the ruckuses caused by Mrs. Gilliam very well – she kept acting like it was the 1950s (still is in D Magazine’s district) when anyone who hated blacks in DISD had already been gone for 20 years. I disliked her but could understand her agenda after some of my friends explained the way of thinking. I later met some other members of her family and I have tempered my opinion of her – she did well raising them.
I agree with Louisa Meyer – there is a process for this. I’d like to have a school named after our beloved Woodrow Wilson High School Principal Emeritus Wayne C. Pierce – but you have to be dead. And he’s still going strong on the baseball field in his 80s.
Let’s make an exception for him if we are going to do so for Mrs. Gilliam.
The you’ve-got-to-be-dead rule avoids a lot of hassles, but it doesn’t eliminate them. (See Cesar Industrial Chavez Boulevard.)
so we replaced Kathlyn with Ron Price because we thought he would be better. And how is that working for us (as Dr. Phil would say).
Ah well.
Most confusing part of the Spruce students’ argument?
The reason given by the district for the closure: Another year of low performance on the TAKS test.
Students reasons for low performance: too much emphasis put on TAKS test
Not that I don’t think TAKS is pretty silly.
Anyone else think that the DMN piled on teachers with the pic they ran on 20c. The pic showed teachers holding signs that said “No But Praise Why”. As explained in the cutline, the signs eventually lined up to say: “Praise But Why No Pay Raise?”
Did the photog snap a later, more sensical pic? Should the photog have tried to take a pic that made sense? Or did the Highland Park/Plano/private school-centric DMN take another cheap shot at public education?
I think it is called ebonics.
As bad as he may be, if you don’t think Ron Price is way better than Kathlyn Gilliam, then you don’t remember Kathlyn Gilliam. Ms. Gilliam (along with Yvonne Ewell) did more to suppress racial and educational progress in the DISD (and consequently Dallas as a whole) than anyone else in the last 30 years. Until you’ve dealt with Kathlyn (and Yvonne), you don’t know what racism really is.
Myself and other reporters who covered DISD in the 90s remember Gilliam well for this line, used when it came time to vote on a hot-button issue and trustees had already spent an hour (or more) in discussion: “Now, what are we voting on?”. Good times.
Apparently Wick is a bitter man! If you were across the Trinity and on the receiving end of the 1950 – 1980 Dallas ISD school system, you would appreciate the stand that Kathlyn Gilliam took to ensure equal education for all. Calling an unequal educational system what it is/was/is required courage in the face of the breakfast club bunch that Wick aligned himself with. Personally, the way things are going at 3700 Ross, Mrs. Gilliam may be better of not having her name associated with that fiasco!
The attempt to rename the Dallas ISD administration building in honor of former Dallas ISD trustee Kathleen Gilliam never had the traction it needed to succeed in the first place.
Where was the public internet survey sanctioned by the whole of the Dallas ISD board trustees calling for city-wide recommendations to rename the Dallas ISD administration building? Did anybody care to recruit Dallas council-member Dave Neumann so he could provide leadership for yet another poorly planned and thought out public survey that would set the stage for yet another rename controversy?
It does not take a rocket scientist to realize Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert nor anyone else on the Dallas City Council have yet to publicly apologize to Dallas’ citizens for their botched up survey to rename Industrial Blvd. While no one wants to admit it publicly, the Dallas City Council’s sanctioned botched up survey is the main reason a compromise is set in cement on the fact a major Dallas thoroughfare will be renamed in honor of Cesar Chavez later this summer or early fall of this year.
As for the ill-advised political theatrics played out by all three black Dallas ISD trustees on the Gilliam issue, well, there are 9 trustees on the Dallas ISD school board. The ethnic breakdown of this board is evenly split, one third white, one third Hispanic, and one third black. I’ll let anyone borrow my calculator next time a vote like this comes around again.
I was raised on the otherside of the Trinity (not by choice but because of Segregation) and appreciate the work that Ms. Gilliam and others did to bring some equity in education. The word “Segregation” stays with you because you were thought of as not being equal and therefore you were not given equal resources and tools for education.
None of us are perfect, but the community that she represented returned her to 3700 Ross Avenue for 23 years to be a voice for them.
The young people at Spruce touched my heart. I was hoping that they would have a chance to remain at their school with added resources.