For more than 50 years, Helen Moore was a fixture at Detroit school board meetings and a voice for parents who felt excluded from decisions affecting their children. Recently the City of Detroit honored Moore by renaming the Dexter-Elmhurst Community Center after her.
Michigan Public's Christopher Johnson spoke with Moore about what sustained activism looks like, and why she believes the fight for education equity is far from over.
Christopher Johnson: What sparked your activism all those years ago?
Helen P. Moore: The students were there, and I have four children, and we moved to this neighborhood to get a better school for us. We were over there on Dexter. And so, after they had what they called the riots, but we have to say the rebellion, when we moved to this neighborhood, we expected everything to be wonderful. And all this racism and giving children less than they should have in the schools over there off of 12th Street. We came into this community with my two children. We were so happy we were going to have a better education. And I took them to Bart. They were the greatest in the city if you look it up. That's why we came here. But after the riot or rebellion, they became less interested in educating our children.
CJ: How important was education?
HPM: A whole lot of importance.
My grandfather was a slave, and he built the first school in Newport, Tennessee, where I'm from.Helen P. Moore
And my father came up here to work at Ford. You know, like some of the Black men did. Ford Motor Company came back and got us and brought us up here. And I saw so much racism. I remember being locked in the school after school was over. All the white children left. And the ones that lived in our building, we had to stay. And the principal locked the door and chained them. And I remember this so well. Maybe that's why I'm like I am today.
The white parents were out there with clubs and things like that. I have a story to tell. And we were locked in. The white principal locked us in with chains. And my dad was at work. He and the people that lived in our apartment. And they came home. It was on the news and everything, and we weren't home. Like 6 o'clock or 7 o'clock at night. We were still in school with the chained doors. We were looking out at everybody. And then my dad and the people in the apartment came down the street with guns on their shoulder and anything they could find. And finally, the people left, and the principal let us out of the building and they walked us home.
CJ: Wow. All right. And so, when you founded Black Parents for Quality Education what was the problem you were trying to solve?
HPM: At that time, the Board of Education was predominantly white, and we were getting to know what was happening with our children and how they were treated and were not getting the education they deserve. So I organized the Black Parents for Quality Education. We went to the board meeting. The board meetings were horrible. As soon as they saw us coming, they locked us out. They discriminated against us. They did everything. In fact, I still got a finger that they tried to break. Those kind of things happen to me. We were in court all the time. So we organized right here in this room. Passed out the fliers all over the neighborhood. And some parents came and helped me. This room was full. It wasn't just Black parents with white parents. They threw us out of the meetings. They called the police. They called the troops. They did everything. We got tired of it and we wouldn't let him have a meeting. How did we keep them from having a meeting? We stomped on the floor and we never stopped. My legs were so tired after doing that, we wouldn't let them even talk. And we got a reputation. And so they sent troops after us. All of this is printed. Everybody that's listening to this can go to the computer and see what we had to go through to get our children educated.
CJ: So, if a parent is listening now and they feel upset, exhausted, powerless. What would you want them to know?
HPM: You can't sit home and get upset and be scared. You have to get out into the community and we're still out there and we still have a lot of work to do.
Christopher Johnson: Helen Moore, thank you very much.
HPM: You're welcome.
Editor's note: Some quotes in this article have been lightly edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the full conversation near the top of this page.
