Mr. Bell at Charleston High School

Dr. Thaddeus J. Bell's eloquent letter to the editor in Tuesday's paper rightly asks why the Post and Courier did not report the AMA's July 16th apology for racism, which included allowing state affiliates to refuse black members among its more benign past practices. [See Apology from AMA for Racism.] Surely, some of the points he makes should have occurred to the paper's staff. After all, the P & C happily cherry-picks AP stories every day. Have staff been cut back so much that they can't recognize the value of a report that might apply to a well-established medical community with a long history in Charleston?

Bell's letter prompted an email from a reader of this blog with fond memories of Dr. Bell prior to his becoming a doctor. They date to the early days of integration on the peninsula.

"More than 40 years ago in August of 1967, Thaddeus Bell was the first African-American teacher to join the faculty at Charleston High. For two years he taught eighth- and ninth-grade science, leaving when he was accepted as a medical student at MUSC. Charleston High had been integrated for the first time four years earlier. The eighth-grade class in 1967 was the first to reach roughly 50-50 racial parity.

"He was a good teacher and role model, but that first semester was a rocky one! The poor guy was from Rock "Heel" and had an awful time understanding the Charleston brogue. Black students understood his Southern drawl even less. Seeing black students misbehaving, white students joined in on what we thought was fun, though cruel fun, without realizing that it was a slippery slope. The young teacher, not surprisingly and despite his desire to teach, was losing control of the class.

"There was a moment when everything came to a head early in his first semester when it looked like his students would run him out. The principal, known more for his practical thinking than his civic vision, ordered the white students to the auditorium with the threat of expulsion if they made any sound. . . and then he ordered the black students to remain in the classroom. I can't remember where Mr. Bell was.

"We heard later that the principal chewed out our black classmates for their disrespect of a new teacher, their lack of fairness, and their being unwelcoming to a teacher who had broken a barrier that their older brothers and sisters had broken only four years earlier. Then he came to the auditorium and tore into the white students for going along with the bullying of a very good teacher. The most we could muster in our support was to complain about his accent. Considering that most of us were native Charlestonians with accent issues of our own, that didn't hold water with him. He made us promise to make sure that this teacher had no more problems from a bunch of newbies who were in effect still on probation themselves as eighth graders in the city's oldest high school.

"Mr. Bell eventually learned to say Rock "Hill," at least around his students. We were all fortunate that he stayed and eventually exposed us overly sophisticated city students to basic chemistry experiments such as how to make soap from scratch. In a much more restrained manner (so as not to be seen as undercutting the teacher) some black students showed mock disdain for making soap, like the rest of us clearly preferring the grocery-store variety. What a great lesson in human nature this whole experience was for all of us.

I can't go to a farmers' market today where eco-friendly and "green" cosmetic makers sell "home-made" soap that I don't think of what it must have been like to make your own soap in rural South Carolina more than 100 years ago. . . and how much chemistry these "uneducated" country people must have known and passed down.

Dr. Bell is a living reminder of the great public schools we have lost, not to mention the educational opportunities that have been lost with them.

Amen to that!