Cape residents recall days before integration

Blacks and whites in Cape Girardeau admitted that race relations in the city aren't what they should be, but by working together the problem can be resolved. About 150 people -- nearly half black and half white -- gathered at Livingway Foursquare Church Monday evening to mark the Martin Luther King Community Service.

The event was one of two evening services planned in the city on the day set aside to honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a slain civil rights leader. It was sponsored by the Downtown Council of Churches, the Cape Girardeau Ministerial Alliance and Southeast Missouri State University.

Another service sponsored by the NAACP was held at St. James AME Church. Several of those who attended it came later to the Livingway Church.

The ecumenical service was about "spiritual civil disobedience," one pastor said.

The Rev. Mike Woelk, whose church hosted the event, said the service was about "doing business." The city's leaders never took responsibility for the way the school handled integration and race relations since the mid-1950s, and now it was time to do so.

"We are a mixed multitude in one voice coming to make a difference in this community," said the Rev. Stafford Moore of House of Prayer Outreach Mission.

Members of the community who attended Cobb School, Cape Girardeau's only black school spoke about their experiences. Some who were later integrated at Central High School said they didn't feel that white teachers gave them as much attention as the black teachers did.

"But I've come through the storms and rain and made it with God's help," said Martha Wilson, who graduated from Cobb School in 1949.

Leola Twiggs, who attended Cobb School until it burned in 1953, said that Cape Girardeau needs its black children to see black teachers today. But the key to developing better relationships is to remember the Golden Rule, she said.

"We don't need to think of each other as black and white but as brothers and sisters," she said.

White leaders took some of the first steps in that direction by asking forgiveness for the sins of the past. Others pledged to let the blacks take their turn enjoying the bounty that whites have had for years.

Former state representative Mary Kasten said she thought Dr. King would be pleased with what was happening in the community, and what was to come. "We have all come together to unite for a better city."

ljohnston@semissourian.com

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