"Hampton was the best school in
Detroit," Maxwell says. "It was known for
that. The whole area was fabulous. The
kids could ride their bikes everywhere.
They had charge accounts with the ice
cream man. We gave him a party when he
retired:'
Fast forward to 2008. Glass' play,
Palmer Park, debuted at the Stratford
Festival in Ontario, Canada. It explored
her experience moving into the inte-
grated neighborhood near Palmer Park
as Detroit sought to recover from the
1967 race riots and focused on the
staunch, but ultimately unsuccessful,
effort by a group of parents — black and
white, Jewish and gentile — to keep the
majority white balance at Hampton, their
neighborhood school.
At Glass' invitation, Zack and her
mom attended the play, along with their
cousin, Barbara Kratchman, a longtime
arts advocate who lives in Bloomfield
Township and graduated from Hampton
in 1956. "The backdrop was our house
Maxwell says. "It was very exciting."
"This needs to be done in Detroit:' was
foremost in Kratchman's mind as she
joined in the tears and standing ovation
from many in the Stratford audience.
As the three had dinner with Glass,
they learned that Jewish Ensemble
Theatre in West Bloomfield was interest-
ed in producing the play. But Kratchman,
a nonprofit consultant who was founding
president of ArtServe Michigan and exec-
utive director of the Michigan Council for
the Arts, envisioned a wider audience.
Dr. Glenda Price, Ph.D., president
emeritus of Marygrove College and a
Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Detroit
Institute of Arts board member, agreed.
The two became co-chairs of the Palmer
Park Executive Committee, working to
bring the play to the city as well as the
suburbs.
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"It's taken a year," Kratchman says,
to cement the first-ever co-production
between JET and Hilberry Theatre on the
Wayne State University campus. "There is
one cast, one director, one production. It's
on the same size stage [at both theaters]
with a cast of Actors Equity actors and
student actors. From an arts perspective,
this is a wonderful model project."
The goal, she says, is that "it is so mas-
sively successful they have to extend the
rue She also would like to see it become
part of a permanent repertory, presented
each year and aimed at high-school
student audiences. That's what JET does
now, putting on The Diary of Anne Frank
annually for younger students.
"Audiences in West Bloomfield will go
for the nostalgia," Kratchman says. "To
me this is a play — not a documentary
— that is a platform for further discus-
sion. It's important to get a diverse audi-
ence at each performance.
"The issues then are issues today, she
says. By looking at them through a piece
of art, the reaction doesn't have to be so
visceral. It can be more reflective."
Educational Tool
"The three underlying issues that emerge
from the play are education, socio-eco-
nomic status and housing patterns:'
says Price, who served eight years as
Marygrove College president and lives in
Palmer Woods.
"While it's about Detroit, it's not
unique to Detroit:' she says.
A friend from Connecticut who saw
it with her at Stratford said, "This play
could be called North Hartford. It's the
very same story at just about that time."
What is unique to Detroit, according
to Price, who also has lived in Atlanta
(where she was provost of Spelman
College) and in Hartford, are charges
of elitism. They are an underlying
theme of the play as
the Hampton parents
attempt to block bus-
ing from the over-
crowded, nearby Bagley
Elementary School.
"[Those] people
elsewhere would not
have been defined as
elitist. They would have
been viewed as upper-
middle-class parents
who wanted to protect
their children',' Price
Palmer
says. 'African Americans
Park
have fled the city in the
same ratio as whites. It's
all about your socio-eco-
nomic ability to do so.
"I always hope that
The former Hampton School evokes memories for alumna Barbara Kratchman,
right. She and Dr. Glenda Price, left, teamed up to bring Palmer Park — a docudrama
depicting the battle to maintain integration in the highly-rated school — to the city
of Detroit.
people will be stimulated to think when
they are confronted with issues:' Price
says. "Sometimes, you don't know you
have like values and the same moral fiber
unless you talk to one another."
Others also see Palmer Park as an edu-
cational tool.
Betsy Kellman, executive director of
the Anti-Defamation League/Michigan
Region, saw firsthand that many of the
Jewish population began moving to the
suburbs beginning in 1968 — or sent
their children to private school.
She and Joel Kellman got married on
Labor Day 1967 following the riots.
"We moved to California. When we
came back — it was only three years —
we were shocked at what had happened
to the community. The Jews dispersed.
The small tight-knit community that had
lived together was gone. It was just so
different.
"One of the themes of the play is class:'
Kellman says. The ADL, together with
JET, "wrote all the educational materials
for schools." Two morning performances
are scheduled for students from two sub-
urban and one Detroit high school.
Michigan State University students
performed the play in 2009. In what is
the first collaboration among Big Ten
University theater departments, every
school will now produce it.
"I'm very happy to have a play that
documents that era:' says Marcia Meisel,
a Hampton parent at the time of the bus-
ing controversy, who now lives in Royal
Oak. "It certainly is true to what went on,
but the problem is still here — and even
more so. I hope the audiences will be
integrated."
Meisel was part of an open hous-
ing group that aimed at getting white
suburbanites to move into the city and
blacks to move to the suburbs. "I went
to a totally integrated high school in
Cleveland, and I wanted that for my chil-
dren:'
"It makes me sae says Clida Ellison,
a Wayne County social worker who also
was part of the effort to maintain inte-
gration at that time.
"We see what resulted from our failure.
If we had succeeded, it would be a lot dif-
ferent for the city.
"Joanna depicted accurately what we
went through:' says Ellison, who lives in
Palmer Woods. "I think the story to get
out is that the central core to any com-
munity is education:' she says. "If you
have people with like values, you can
hold a community together?'
"I wouldn't trade my urban experience
for anything:' says Dr. Richard Stober
of Bloomfield Township, who graduated
from Hampton in 1968. "It provided me
with a different insight:'
Editor's Note: In the newest plan to reshape
the Detroit Public Schools, the old Hampton
School, now the Barbara Jordan Academy, will
be rebuilt and renamed the University District
Preparatory Academy and encompass pre-
kindergarten through eighth grade.
April 1 2010
43