Panel discusses Milford 11, battling segregation in schools

Rehoboth Beach Public Library recently assembled a panel of local leaders in education and social change from the black community to reflect on civil rights in Sussex County.

Panelists such as Jane Hovington, president of the Richard Allen Coalition, and Orlando Camp, co-author of “The Milford Eleven,” recalled the segregated Sussex County of their youth and the struggle for integration.

“During the summer, we all played together, but something happened in September and those same friends didn’t talk to us in school,” Hovington remembered. “My cousins all played football, but I was not allowed to cheer. They told me I was not ‘good enough’ to cheer. So I told my cousin, and he said ‘I think we need to walk,’ and so the entire team got up and walked off the field.”

Camp was a member of the Milford 11, a group of black students who had been advised to attend the all-white Milford High School shortly after the passage of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. He remembered a community that was entirely unprepared for the black students who showed up at MHS in the fall.

“The superintendent didn’t tell anyone that we were going to start there in September. He said it was a ‘test,’” the author recalled. “We got new clothes and were told to be on our best behavior. It was 698 white students and 11 black students to integrate Milford. “

The black students attended MHS for 28 days before they were required to leave and attend one of the all-black schools - Jason High School in Sussex County, or William Henry High School in Kent County.

“I knew there was another level that we could never reach in an all-black school, because the tools they had at white schools were so much better,” Camp said.

In contrast, social worker Dwayne Powell attended Milford High School in the 1990s, and never experienced segregation during his schooling from kindergarten through high school.

“My experience in Milford School District was never segregated,” Powell said. “When we saw white boys picking on a black girl we knew, we kind of realized who was taught that from their parents.”

The panel also reflected on the current political climate, and William Collick, dean of students at Cape Henlopen High School, looked to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for guidance.

 “Dr. King said one day we would have to reclaim lost values,” Collick said. “If you have some courageous conversations - and people don’t want to talk about race - we’re never as far apart as we think we are.“