EDUCATION

Memphis 13 visit Bruce Elementary

Jennifer Pignolet

jennifer.pignolet@commercialappeal.com

Quoting Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to the crowd at Bruce Elementary Monday afternoon, U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen noted the arc of the moral universe only bends toward justice because of people who take action.

October 3, 2016 - Bruce Elementary fourth grader Xavier Bryant, 9, listens intently during a program to recognize the three members of of the Memphis 13 who integrated Bruce School in 1961. All three, Harry Williams, Menelik Fombi, who was known as Michael Willis at the time, Dwania Kyles, were present for the special program.

People like the Memphis 13.

“They helped bend that arc toward justice,” Cohen said in his speech, part of a ceremony at the elementary school that honored the three members of the Memphis 13 who attended Bruce.

Monday marked the 55th anniversary of the 13 black first-grade students who integrated four all-white Memphis elementary schools in 1961. The three who attended Bruce — Harry Williams, Menelik Fombi and Dwania Kyles — participated in Monday’s celebration at the school.
Fombi told the crowd, made up of the full student body along with teachers and parents, about the stark difference he noticed in Bruce from his time there in 1961 to the tour he went on last week — and not just because it’s a new building.

October 3, 1961 - Thirteen black first graders entered four of Memphis' previously all-white schools including Bruce School these students were attending. It marked the beginning of the Board of Education's "good faith" integration plan for the city's public school system. The children transferred to Bruce were from left; Harry Williams, 6, Michael Willis, 5, and Dwania Kyles, 5. Some 200 police guarded Bruce, Springdale, Rozelle and Gordon schools as school officials surprised the city with the first black first-graders that October morning. Willis, son of prominent black attorney A.W. Willis, later changed his name to Menelik Fombi.

“I felt love” on the tour, Fombi said, contrasting that feeling with what he described as a lack of love in the first grade at Bruce in 1961.

“I’m just being real,” he said.

Fombi, whose name in elementary school was Michael Willis, said students now have the opportunity to go to school with classmates “from all over the world.”

“That is the beauty, that is the good thing about what we did 55 years ago,” he said.

Kyles talked about the fearlessness of the 12 sets of parents — including her father, local civil rights leader Rev. Samuel “Billy” Kyles — who chose to send their black children to all-white schools.

October 3, 2016 - Menelik Fombi (center) hugs Dwania Kyles as Harry Williams looks on before the start of a special program at Bruce Elementary to honor them for integrating Bruce School in 1961.

“We were all a part of something that was very special,” Kyles said.

Kyles lives in New York and works in education. She and Fombi remarked how far Memphis has come since 1961, as students can now go to any school they want.

Principal Archie Moss, who is black, noted he is the principal “of a school that was not designed for me.”

Although his job title alone denotes progress, he said, the work isn’t over. His school, which once made history when three black students enrolled, was 76 percent black and had no white students last year, according to state data.

“We are still advocating for equal access and opportunities for our African American students in Memphis,” Moss said.