Sixty years ago, Central Consolidated School closed its doors to integrate with white schools.

Shirley Rose, who was a teacher at the school, pushed for change and equality for her students.

"The doors weren't open wide to us, they were open just a little bit to keep you satisfied," said Rose, who taught at Central Consolidated School, Aberdeen Junior High and Aberdeen Middle School.

Disadvantages

Rose taught health and physical education at the Central Consolidated School outside of Bel Air from 1956-1965.

From old graffitied textbooks to building their own hurdles for track and field in shop classes, Rose said the teachers still fostered a healthy and nurturing environment for their students.

"It was the material that we received," Rose said. "We did not have the same athletic equipment. We did not play the same teams. We did not participate in many of the things that went on. They were not introduced to us in the Black schools."

The teachers knew deep down that their students weren't receiving the same educational resources as the students at white schools.

"What could you do? That's the way the rules were and that's the way you were treated," Rose said. "Sure, we wanted the same thing for our children that children of the other race wanted."

Challenges of desegregation

The desegregation of schools was especially challenging in Harford County.

In the 1940s, the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund, led by Thurgood Marshall, began filing and often winning cases, proving inequality at schools. In 1954, a Supreme Court decision in the Brown v. Board of Education case proved that separation was inherently unequal.

Yet, Harford County continued down the path of building segregated and consolidated schools, oftentimes leading to students spending hours on a bus despite there being white schools much closer to their homes.

Dr. James Karmel, a Harford County Community College history professor, said desegregation of the schools took more than a decade to become a reality in Harford County.

"What happened in Harford County, particularly in terms of desegregating the deeply entrenched segregated school system, was very significant," Karmel said. "Some of the federal cases that took a few years to roll through actually attained national significance, and a number of the key leaders that the NAACP Legal Defense Fund were involved, like Thurgood Marshall, Juanita Jackson Mitchell, and Jack Greenberg."

Among them was Dwight Pettit, who was forced to go to the Havre De Grace Colored School, a partner school for Central Consolidated.

"But his parents wanted him to go to Aberdeen High School where he was zoned to because it had a higher level program of math and science, and in fact, his father was a scientist at Aberdeen Proving Ground," Karmel said. "So they went through a whole legal process. It took two or three years."

Pettit's family won their case and Pettit graduated from Aberdeen High School.

Desegregation adjustments

Rose says the stories of successful desegregation gave her hope. However, she was worried about how the students would be treated.

"I think we knew it was coming and felt confident with our background in education and our experience that we can handle it," Rose said. "The subject matter was not the problem. It was a matter of how you were going to be treated."

Rose's duty as a teacher had to become less about a curriculum and more about teaching the students their worth in what would undoubtedly be a big adjustment.

"We did that by letting them know that you are valued and you are going to have to go out in the world and work and you're going to have to face all kinds of diversities," Rose said. "You have to be strong, you have to have the willpower, and you have to be able to turn the other cheek."

Harford schools integrate

The change came in 1965 when the schools became integrated and Central Consolidated School officially closed.

Rose continued to teach at Aberdeen Junior High School. 

"At Aberdeen Junior High School, under the leadership of our principal and administration, we were accepted and we were welcomed and there wasn't a lot of nonsense about who you are and what you are," Rose said. "You are a teacher, you are a student. And that, I think, is what made the job for me much easier."

Rose said her friends in neighboring schools had a much different experience.

"Some of it was not being accepted at first," Rose said. "You are different, and you don't have to say it to me, you can show it to me by the way you act. And there were parents who didn't think we were capable of teaching children of the other race. But we knew a point had to be proven that I am capable, I can be successful, and I'm doing what I loved to do, teach."

Rose kept her values throughout her educational career, eventually serving as a principal and school administrator, which she never imagined as a 21-year-old teacher who started in a segregated school.

Story that inspires

Rose, at 89 years old, hopes her story can continue to teach people that everyone is created equal.

"I feel like I received and I was able to produce what was intended for me to do to help children be successful, children of my race and try to educate people that color has nothing to do with who you are," Rose said.