Wednesday, July 13, 2011

St. Genevieve's and the Civil Rights Movement

                                                Written by Mike Strong, Class of 1960
        In my memories of Ivy Hall I mentioned the news of our neighbors the York's son's death in Viet Nam. It so happens that the "traveling wall" is in York this week. I went out to visit today and found his name, Don Joseph York, died 14 July, 1962.. He is listed on the very first panel, 10th row. The panels start in 1959 during the Eisenhower Administration, long before Johnson & Nixon arrived upon the scene to receive most of the blame.
        In thinking about the old auditorium a flood of memories have come back. Long before it was considered the right thing to do to stand up for Civil Rights I remember our remarkable Headmaster, Daniel Pinto, having the moral courage to stand up to the very bigoted Buncombe County sheriff - name escapes me but he was the very embodiment of a Broderick Crawford type or Alabama's Bull Connor. The year would have been 1959-60. The sheriff came to Gibbons Hall & gathered us in Ivy Hall to discuss the beneifts of joining the "Junior Deputy" program of Buncombe County. One of the benefits would be to receive a special badge emblazoned "Junior Deputy." Of course all of the boys wanted one. The real benefit for the county was that in order to receive the badge you would be finger-printed.  He warned us about "outside agitators" and the "communist threat" and the evil influence of shifty "nigras."
       This is where Daniel Pinto stepped in. Pinto was a Princeton man I believe. He was always attired in a tweed sport coat and always wore a bow tie. This contrasted dramatically with the short sleeved,, sweaty sheriff.. Pinto interrupted him and said "I think the correct pronunciation is NEGRO. The sheriff grew red in the face and broke into a sweat as all of the boys could sense the tension in the auditorium. He slightly changed the inflexion but it still came out with the emphasis on "NIG". Pinto reminded him that we were "Gentlemen" and that true southern gentlemen pronounced the word "Negro." Exasperated, to continue the sheriff had to say "Negro." We all silently applauded our hero Daniel Pinto.
      My class of 1960 would be his last class as he had accepted the position of headmaster at the American School on Rome. We were not the only ones to recognize his stature. Tragically, that summer he was killed in a plane crash on the way to Rome. The same crash that killed so many of Atlanta's leading citizens who were on their way to observe the Rome Olympics in preparation for a possible future Olympics in the United States. If Ivy Hall is preserved there should be a memorial plaque placed  recognizing the role that Daniel Pinto played in educating a ten year window of Asheville's young men.

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