BackTalk

It has been 40 years since a group of seven black eighth graders were the first African Americans to attend Mount Greenwood Elementary School.

Although four decades have gone by, the racial intolerance that drove residents in the Irish-Catholic enclave to picket for six months -- in rain, sleet, and snow -- until the blacks students graduated, was still evident on Sunday when they returned to the school to take a photograph.

"The first thing that struck us was there was a swastika on the bottom of the assembly hall door," said Toni Lewis Anderson.

A Chicago Public Schools spokesman confirmed that school administrators discovered the swastika on the school's assembly hall door sometime on Monday while they were making their rounds.

"It has already been removed," the spokesman said. "We will work with whatever authorities that are appropriate to find out who did this."

Anderson said that as soon as the group arrived at the school on Sunday, several white men who were sitting in front of a house across from the school began to verbally harass them.

"How would you like it if we would go to an all-black school in the black community and took pictures of gang signs,'' one of the guys allegedly shouted, while giving them the finger. "Go back to your own neighborhood."

"It was deja vu," Anderson said. "It was a nightmare."

The story of the group's historic reunion appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times on Sunday. After a brunch at Blu 47, the group went to Mount Greenwood Elementary School at 10841 S. Homan to take a photograph.

It was the first time they had been back to the school in 40 years. In fact, after the group graduated, it took 10 years for another black student to enroll there.

"We wanted closure. But as soon as we got out of our cars, the men threatened to call the police and began yelling at us," Anderson said.

Besides Anderson, the other members of the Mount Greenwood Seven are Omar Hester, Deborah Hunter- Russell, Adrienne Shumac-Thompson, Janis Weatherall-Clark, Nancy Ward Wysinger and Steven Palmore.

Although the group managed to take a photo, Hunter-Russell was too upset by the hecklers to get out of her car.

"I was probably in this neighborhood before they were living in that house," said Palmore, who is a jazz musician who now lives in Queens, N.Y.

"It is a shame that Mount Greenwood is the same racially intolerant enclave that we remember."

In 1968, the year the Mount Greenwood Seven integrated the elementary school, the neighborhood was 99.9 percent white. By 2000, the area -- which is home to a lot of Chicago Police officers and firefighters -- was 93.5 percent white, 3 percent black, and 3 percent Hispanic.

"I can't believe that 40 years later, things have not changed," Anderson said. "They were still telling us to get out of their community, out of their school, and we were not bothering anybody. We were there because of our own memories."

Obviously, what happened on Sunday doesn't compare to the chaos they lived through in 1968, when Chicago Police officers had to escort them to and from school.

Now accomplished professionals who have made their homes as far away as Amsterdam, the group was appalled that little appears to have changed in Chicago.

But the behavior of neighborhood racists shouldn't reflect the values of an entire white community any more than the criminal behavior of thugs should reflect the values of the black community.

Indeed, 40 years ago, it not only took the courage of the Mount Greenwood Seven to break down racial barriers, but the courage of people like Eleanor Sneigowski.

Sneigowski sent me this e-mail Monday:

"I had a daughter in kindergarten, and along with some friends, we counter-picketed the hateful people who were causing the problems," she said.

"We, too, had names called and witnessed mothers spitting on us. We, too, walked with strollers and with little children by our sides to support choices in education --since our school had empty desks. We were ashamed of what was happening and didn't want the actions of some to indicate that everyone in Mount Greenwood felt the same," she said.

What happened in Mount Greenwood on Sunday shows that when it comes to racial tolerance, we still have a long way to go.

Live Chat with Mary Mitchell at 3:00 P.M. Tuesday