School Focused on Black Culture Evokes Protests by White Neighbors : Malcolm X Academy: Institution has been in the eye of the storm since decision to locate it in a building that had been closed for seven years.

A police helicopter flew overhead and squad cars circled the streets around Malcolm X Academy as Gaidi Harris escorted his 10-year-old son past three guards into the school.

“I prepared him for this,” Harris said. “All I can tell him is not everybody grew up with parents like you did. Not everybody knows how to deal with people different from themselves.”

Harris’ son, Amir Bonner, is a student at the academy, one of Detroit’s three mostly male schools with a curriculum focused on black culture and designed to provide students with positive role models.

The academy, which serves 450 pupils from kindergarten through sixth grade, has been the target of threats and protests since a decision to move it to a predominantly white neighborhood. School officials said special security measures were needed when the academy opened at its new quarters Sept. 29.

“I read it in the paper. There it was--Malcolm X Academy to Open,” said Mike Stevenson, a resident of the school’s working-class neighborhood.

“What is this, ‘Malcolm X Academy?’ Why him? He was a racist. That’s what he taught, what he believed. Why couldn’t they have named it after Martin Luther King, or anyone?”

Detroit police spokeswoman Officer Rhoda Virgil-Madison said she knew of no reports of trouble at the academy since it opened in on Detroit’s west side. Schools spokesman Steve Wasko also said he knew of no incidents at the school.

Deborah McGriff, schools superintendent, said she understands too clearly the reason for the opposition--racism.

At an August meeting that drew about 500 people, McGriff was outshouted and booed when she tried to explain the school’s purpose. The previous week, swastikas were spray-painted on the building.

“If I had opened this school in a black neighborhood, I wouldn’t have heard a peep,” she said. “People really believe that housing segregation should define the makeup of schools, even in 1992.”

It’s the second dispute in as many years facing the city effort to open African-American-centered academies, designed to combat a 45% dropout rate among black male students.

In August, 1991, a judge ordered the school board to open the schools to girls as well as boys after the American Civil Liberties Union and National Organization for Women’s Legal Defense Fund sued.

This year, the dispute focuses more on race than gender.

Ninety percent of 170,000 students enrolled in Detroit public schools last year were black. The city’s overall population is 75% black. In the neighborhood around Malcolm X Academy, the population is about 25% black.

“I think most parents understand that their children need to learn very early on that America is a racist society, and if you’re black, you’re going to have to learn to deal with the racism,” McGriff said.

It’s not that clear to neighborhood residents. Some say the dispute has nothing to do with race. Others said race is a factor but their main complaint is the double standard they believe the school board used in moving the academy to a building that had been closed seven years.

“They told us they had no money to reopen that school,” said Michelle Severson. “They didn’t have the money for our children, but now all of a sudden it’s there to finance what is really a private school education.”

Like other black immersion schools that have opened recently in Baltimore, Milwaukee and San Diego, Malcolm X Academy emphasizes the achievements of blacks--a focus some educators said is missing from traditional education.

Students are required to wear uniforms and are subjected to strict discipline. Parents must sign a contract promising their involvement in school activities.

“The people against the school are focusing on the extras--the black history, black language, black culture. They’re an important part of the school, but they’re just that--extras,” Harris said.

“Teaching these kids to read and articulate themselves and to succeed is what this is really about.”

For 6-year-old Brandon Lawhorn, a first-grader at the academy, the answers aren’t so complicated. He said he understands what prejudice is--”it means they don’t like our race”--and knows why police have been posted outside his school.

“They don’t want bad guys coming in,” he said.

Who are the bad guys?

“The white guys who want us to get out,” Brandon said.