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‘You change the attitude'
At King breakfast, ‘Remember the Titans' coach talks of turning diversity into teamwork
Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2010
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by JESSE YEATMAN
Chloe Jefferson, 4, and other children from the First Missionary Baptist Church of Lexington Park Youth Choir wait their turn to sing Monday at the sixth annual Southern Maryland Martin Luther King Jr. Prayer Breakfast held at St. Mary's College of Maryland.
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As the dining hall of St. Mary's College of Maryland swelled with brown faces early Monday morning, it might have pleased the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to see that two of the three speakers invited to recall his civil rights legacy were white.
William Yoast, a former football coach at T.C. Williams High School, and Chloe Toner, a senior at Great Mills High School, joined John W. Franklin, director of partnerships and international programs for the National Museum of African American History and Culture, to speak at the event.
Yoast recalled the extreme emotions and difficulties of assisting head coach Herman Boone, who is black, in coaching the T.C. Williams High School football team through a championship season in 1971 when the Northern Virginia school was first integrated. Their story was told in the 2000 Disney movie "Remember the Titans."
"They had just closed the black schools," Yoast recalled, noting that T.C. Williams was suddenly changed from nearly all white to more than 40 percent black as three area schools were consolidated.
Yoast said that most of "Remember the Titans" reflected real events, but he noted that much of the tension of that season was not just racial but the result of old school rivalries and ego as well.
"The movie made it more racial than it was," Yoast said.
During that year, he said he was smarting from losing the Titans head coaching job to Boone, a former gridiron rival, even after coaching at the school for 10 years and taking the team to the championship in 1970. "Everyone was angry about something. … You can see a lot of egos beaten up, and I was one of them."
However, Yoast said, as he and Boone and the white and black students came to know each other, they overcame their racial and ego prejudices to forge a winning team.
"You get to know the people; you change the attitude," Yoast said.
Toner preceded Yoast to the podium. She said she was surprised to be asked to share her thoughts on King's "I Have a Dream" speech.
"I didn't see how this speech affected me," Toner said. However, on further reflection, she said she realized that, in her lifetime, she had "never felt or witnessed segregation" and was never prevented from becoming fast friends with a black schoolmate.
"Without the influence of Dr. King, I wouldn't have one of my best friends," Toner said.
She said she also would have never benefitted from the instruction of her black teachers.
"These ladies judged students, not by skin color, but by character," Toner said.
Franklin followed Toner's epiphany with an appeal for first-person accounts and historical artifacts from the 1960s civil rights movement that made it possible. Franklin said his museum, scheduled to open in 2015 in Washington, D.C., has limited time to collect these memories.
"It is important to document these stories while these people are still alive," Franklin said. He noted that future generations "will want to see powerful objects that are real."
He encouraged the audience to find artifacts that are "old as well as from the present," noting that the museum has collected not only civil rights memorabilia, but also one of Michael Jackson's fedoras and a pair of sneakers decorated with President Barack Obama's face.
Despite all the racial harmony on display Monday, the program also acknowledged that the struggle to achieve King's dream of equality continues.
"Although we have a black president, we are not living in a post-racial age," said Larry Vote, acting president of St. Mary's College, at the opening of the program.
For the first time in its six-year history, the program honored four county residents with "Realizing the Dream" awards for embodying exemplary character as described in King's "I Have a Dream" speech, and who have made significant contributions to their communities.
Everlyn Holland, who has worked for civil rights for 50 years; Theodore Newkirk of Lexington Park, who fought discrimination in the Navy in a landmark civil rights lawsuit; Donald Anthony Shubrooks, a sophomore at Great Mills High School; and Amon Smith, an eighth-grader at Leonardtown Middle School; were all presented with plaques and $100 checks by Del. John Bohanan (D-St. Mary's).
