Student Expulsions Divide a Town Known for Divides

This is a factory town, a union town, a town where folks have long been able to ask a stranger one question--labor or management?--and know much of what they needed to know. It is also a town laid low time and again by that divide.

Now, after weeks of grueling debate over the expulsions of seven African American high school students for fighting, and over the ensuing protests led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, “Strike Town, U.S.A.,” as Decatur was dubbed a few years back, is becoming divided in a new way, many here fear.

For despite all the rhetoric, despite all the pleas from all the sides to leave race out of the expulsion debate, race has become an issue, probably the issue.

“Why didn’t Jesse Jackson come here when those two white kids got expelled for fighting?” asked a young white woman during an impromptu debate at a coffee shop near Millikin University. “How come they didn’t expel that white kid who made the bomb threat?” a young black man retorted.

“I don’t know when it turned,” school board President Jackie Goetter said earlier this recent day as she sat surrounded by flowers, some sent for her 49th birthday, others to express support for the board. “I can’t point to the particular moment. But somewhere along the line, as it went on and on . . . this became about race.”

Framed against the prairie by its towering east-end smokestacks, Decatur is a blue-collar town if ever there was one, a city of 80,000 people whose modern history used to be defined by labor disputes, not race relations.

Not everyone here knows that one of the great civil rights leaders in American history, Abraham Lincoln, launched his campaign for the White House in Decatur. But almost everybody knows somebody who went on strike in the early and mid-1990s against Caterpillar or Bridgestone-Firestone or A.E. Staley Manufacturing.

And although the town, which is about 19% African American, is no more racially harmonious than most American cities, residents agree, color has mattered much less than union affiliation for most practical purposes.

Many are worried that now, having rebounded nicely from the strikes that at one point saw about 5% of the city’s population on picket lines, Decatur is splitting apart again.

“For the last two or three years, we were really doing well,” said Ken Smithmier, a hospital president and chairman of the board of the Macon County Economic Development Corp. “Now this.”

The fight that began it all took place Sept. 17 at a football game between Eisenhower High School and cross-town rival McArthur High. The brawl between alleged gang members rolled through the bleachers for over a minute.

In the following weeks, the school board expelled seven Eisenhower students for two years for their alleged participation in the brawl. The teens were allowed to apply for readmission after one year--a point frequently forgotten in the frenzy of recent weeks. Still, the punishment was so severe it would be criticized by many nationwide, including educators.

That the board is predominantly white and the kids black has become one of many aspects of the story with racial, though not necessarily racist, overtones.

No one here, though, believes for a second that the fight or even the two-year expulsions initiated the debate. It was the arrival of Jackson two weeks ago, and in turn, the national media.

With some exceptions, however, the black community here blames the board for creating a need for Jackson in the first place, and the white community argues that Jackson came to town with cameras in tow but without the facts.

“The board could have solved all of it,” said Eric Pugh, a 36-year-old African American and the president of the school bus drivers local. “But it took Jesse Jackson to bring out the truth. And the truth needed to come out.”

“Jesse Jackson could have done so much good here, so much good,” said a white tavern owner, who asked not to be identified. “Instead, he drove the wedge deeper.”

Unknown to most outsiders, the ambient racial tensions in Decatur were already elevated when Jackson arrived.

Three days before the fight at the stadium, three black youths ran away from police after their vehicle was pulled over for allegedly running a stop sign. One, 16-year-old Elvin Woods, fired one shot from a stolen 9-millimeter handgun at an officer, investigators say. The officer returned fire, killing him.

Police never found the spent shell casing from the round investigators say the boy fired. That, combined with the fact that he was shot five times, with some bullets striking him from behind, led some African American groups to question the propriety of the shooting.

But the school expulsion issue deteriorated much further and much faster under the spotlight of the national media. And almost everything began to take on a racial hue.

Jackson said race was not an issue but also talked about “fighting powers unseen.”

School officials leaked information about the academic performance of the expelled students, saying two were third-year freshmen and together the seven had missed 350 days of school over the last three years. But they failed to point out that two of the seven were on track to graduate and one had a 3.5 grade-point average.

The state legislative Black Caucus held hearings, with one lawmaker calling school board members “criminals.” A group of white supremacists from Peoria came out in support of the expulsions.

And on and on, until all the gray areas, all the middle ground--and in the beginning there was plenty, most here agree--disappeared entirely.

Betsy Stockard, an African American city councilwoman, initially argued against the expulsions. After viewing the videotape of the melee, she changed her mind and took to leading “Stop the violence” marches.

“One young man came up to me and said, ‘You owe your community an apology,’ ” said Stockard, her voice breaking. “I knew when I took my stand this might happen.”