On a day in the last week of December 1958, the then Deputy Superintendent, California State Department of Education (George Hogan), requested that I meet and provide orientation to a newly hired consultant. I, too, was a consultant - the entry level in the hierarchy of the Department's professional staff. This newest consultant was a man named Wilson Riles. Within moments you knew he was different. The first black hired for any professional position in the Department, his presence and demeanor proclaimed a burning confidence that an education to improve the plight of all children could be achieved.
Recruited to enhance equal employment opportunities for teachers, he displayed unusual talents in working constructively and effectively, in a non-adversarial mode, with a wide spectrum of people and organizations. Some were even opposed to the purpose of the mission.
Twelve years and many promotions later, with ever-increasing administrative responsibilities, Wilson Riles was elected California's State Superintendent of Public Instruction. The first black ever elected to a statewide office in California; and the first black elected State Superintendent of Schools in the United States.
How did this man born of the deep South emerge from an impoverished environment to the pinnacle of a national and international personage?
History has a way of arranging events focused on The Times and The Man. In the decade prior to Riles' arrival in Sacramento, the State's educational resources and energies were focused on coping with the largest movement of people to a single state in the country's history. Building schools, recruiting and training teachers and financing these herculean tasks consumed the day. In part, this was changed on October 4, 1957, when the Russians announced to the world that they had put a space satellite in orbit. The national administration and the American people were staggered. Soon, in the name of the National Defense Education Act (NDEA), the National government provided funds to the states to improve their Mathematics and Science programs. Prior to this, financial assistance to instructional programs was mainly restricted to vocational education.
New Times, new voices, new demands, new ideas followed the NDEA efforts. The Inauguration of the visionary John F. Kennedy administration gave rise to new hopes for freeing people caught in the grinding cycle of poverty. Demands were heard for the identification and remediation of those children affected by cultural, language, and economic disadvantages. In recognition of these complex and long neglected problems, the California Legislature enacted the McAteer Act in the early 1960s to assist and promote educational programs for underserviced children.
Among the shock waves sent across the land by the assassination of President Kennedy, was a rising concern of the American public over the disparities in opportunities and achievements among the nation's children.
The Times soon witnessed Lyndon B. Johnson in the early days of his administration, which some remember as a period of war on poverty and deprivation. The national government passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to grapple with educational disadvantages. Compensatory Education (Title I) became the major thrust of this legislation.
The Times were here -- and a Man was here in California to develop and lead the nation's premier education thrust for equality in educational opportunity. Wilson Riles became an innovative statesman for California and American education. History is not a final verdict, but does chronicle the liaison of the Times and the Man -- culminated in the election of Wilson Riles in November 1970 as California's State Superintendent of Public Education.
THOMAS A. SHELLHAMMER is a former Deputy Superintendent of the California State Department of Education. He served that Department in various consultative and administrative capacities for 26 years. Dr. Shellhammer also served as a teacher and supervisor in school districts in Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo and Alameda counties. He has a B.A. degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and M.A. and Ed.D. degrees from Stanford University.