CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
JULY 8, 10 AM
ARIZONA REPUBLIC NEWSPAPER
The big story in 1953 was that desegregation came to the Phoenix schools. Actually, it happened here rather quietly and without a great deal of fanfare compared to what happened down south. The schools just quietly did it.
I wrote a couple of stories about how desegregation was coming as segregation had been declared unconstitutional. No one paid much attention—very little comment from the public regarding these articles.
Arizona has had a large population of Mexicans for many years, and mostly they get along well with the other citizens of the valley. If they want to work, they have to be hired by white landowners to pick crops or do domestic work in the houses of the wealthy in Phoenix. The cantaloupe fields and other fruit
