Wichita — Leonard Wesley spent his summer days in Coffeyville playing baseball with children of all races. But as soon as the school bell rang, he went back to a segregated basketball team with hand-me-down uniforms.
All the while, his mother told him: You're just as good as, or better than, anyone else.
He discovered that she was right, and he devoted his life to bridging the rift between races. In July, Wesley will be one of two recipients of a national award given each year to people who work to eliminate racial inequities.
In the integrated high school he attended, he found that he was one of the best students in geometry class, and others asked him for help. But until his sophomore year and the historic Brown v. Board of Education ruling, sports teams were still segregated.
"That made me think, why not come together?" he said.
So began a lifelong commitment to work at bringing people together despite their differences. It's a commitment the National Education Assn. will recognize with its H. Councill Trenholm Award, named after one of the country's most outstanding black educators.
The award will be presented in July at NEA's annual meeting in New Orleans.
Wesley's resume demonstrates his commitment to diversity, but the foundation for that commitment dates to his own elementary school days in Coffeyville.
He was one of the Wichita district's first black principals, in the late 1960s. He helped craft the desegregation plan in 1971 and later oversaw the plan as an assistant superintendent.
Even though he retired in 1995 after 37 years, Wesley remains involved with more than a dozen groups and committees dedicated to diversity.
In elementary school, Wesley and other blacks were segregated from other students. Some of his cousins had to walk past several other schools to get to the black school on the east side of town.
Students of all races attended Coffeyville's middle and high schools, but he remembers how society tried to make blacks feel like second-class citizens.
They weren't allowed to swim in the high school pool. The day after he and a few friends broke the rule, the pool was closed to be drained and cleaned.
But at the same time, Wesley's mother and family made sure he never lost his self-respect.
"Eventually you learn there's nothing wrong with you," Wesley said. "It's just the rules of society."
His grandfathers, both pastors, also stressed the need to give back to society and help others, regardless of who they are.
Ultimately, he decided to follow his mother's example and become a teacher.
"She always said teaching is a noble profession, and we need good minds as teachers," he said.
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