In 1964, we were living in New Rochelle, NY, and my 5 year daughter Arden entered kindergarten in one of the first court ordered integrations of a public school system and the busing of black children from other neighborhoods so they could attend them.
Five years later her sister, Robin entered kindergarten in the same school. Both girls became involved in Brownies and Junior Girl Scouts.
So, in 1965, I became the Girl Scout leader of the first of their integrated troops, and remained so for the next 9 years. During this time, progress was made in school desegregation, using busing to do so. This lasted until a 1974 Supreme Court decision ruled against a Detroit School District plan to subject all the public schools in their entire metropolitan area to a common desegregation order. Suddenly school busing was found to be illegal.
A few years later in the early 80’s, while preparing for a Manhattan gallery show, I happened upon Robin”s class photo from 1974. Inspired, I painted a 4’ x 6’ oil painting of the integrated group of 25 fifth graders.
For the 2021 OSA Museum show, I was again inspired by same 1974 class photo. But this time I chose to paint just the 15 fifth graders in the center section.
As I painted all these young faces so many years later,
I found myself asking that constant childish question “Are We There Yet?”
Karen