The teachers begin to arrive. The children arrive. The day officially begins. I do my usual morning patrols, which frequently involve reprimands and warnings. Teachers visit me to talk about topics ranging from discipline in the classroom, to benefits, to leave time. I read over quarterly school reports, weekly school reports, biweekly school reports, make corrections, have them retyped. I meet with a county supervisor, an assistant superintendent, a member of the Board of Education. Speak on the phone to the president of the PTA, explaining why the school board doesn’t want to add another night of student performances. Meet with the band director to investigate parents’ complaints about teachers and the quality of the instruments. Listen to the complaints of the cafeteria manager over the lateness of supplies, the teachers who think they are privileged to take free seconds, and the spacing time between classes in the lunch schedule. Give the janitor, Mr. Thomas, a list of must-be-done-this-weeks from broken windows to stopped-up commodes to broken light fixtures; meet with the basketball and football coach about the new season and his proposed lineups and discuss the equipment requests; write letters to parents whose children are doing poorly; write letters of recommendation for old students . . .

When the last teacher has driven off, when Mrs. Just has put the cover on her typewriter and departed, when the janitor has stuck his head in the office door (“Have a good one, Mr. Greene”), I am bent over my desk scribbling yet another letter. Finally hunger drives me to push away from the desk and see that the old school is secure before I head home.

It is usually this time of day that I reflect on the ironies of my position, on being the first black principal of this school, the first black principal of an integrated school in the county. So it merely heightens my sense of irony that the old school looks like an old plantation, a huge Georgian vision of red brick complete with white columns holding up the long roof of the verandah, the long symmetrical facade with high rectangular windows trimmed in white, the great front lawn that rolls down toward the highway, majestically, the rows of conical cypress trees lining the lane right up to the high and heavy double doors at the entrance. It is only about sixty years old, this prisonlike place of learning, though it seems in many ways much, much older—the cobwebs and cracked plaster, the way the structure sags here and there. Yet I am its master, I think, as I walk around to check the doors and see that no windows are left open.