GALLATIN, Tenn. (WTVF) — In an effort to ensure their history is never forgotten, Union High School graduates are hosting Gallatin High School basketball players at their old high school ahead of an annual commemorative basketball game against Hendersonville High School.
Union High School opened in 1922 as the first high school for Black students in Sumner County.
"I went through all Union schools," explained Union High School 1968 Graduate Mary Malone. "I played varsity basketball on the varsity team. And I played from the seventh grade to my senior year. I was in the marching band."
Among the many fond memories—many centered around the basketball culture—there were also defining hardships.
"We get defunct books where Sumner County was during the summer erasing and taping and trying to clean up books that other schools had been exposed to with outdated information to come over to get to Union High School," Malone recounted.
She said it really was not until high school that she realized her education at Union was different than other parts of the county.
"[My biology teacher Mr. Brinkley,] I can remember being in his classroom one day and the truck from Sumner County came over to bring microscopes to his science class. They were used microscopes with the slides already scratched, already used, blurred. Mr. Brinkley had them put them back on the truck to take back to the county. Because [he said,] 'If we can't get microscopes like Gallatin High School, we don't want them,'" recalled Malone. "It took years for us to realize, had we not taken those microscopes, we wouldn't have had anything. So he said we have to take what we're given."
The basketball culture at Union High helped unite the Black community in Gallatin.
Alumni told Gallatin High School students the support from strangers was unmatched and the noise in their gymnasium was electric.
"You were doing it for the entire Sumner County," one basketball alumni explained.
While basketball was a centerpiece, academics were the continued focus and it paid off.
"There's doctors and lawyers that came out of this school. There’s teachers and principals and council people that came out of this school; community organizers that came out of this school," said a basketball alumni. "A lot of things came before sports. God gave me a talent I tried to use it and I took it as far as I could."
It was 15 years after the Supreme Court outlawed segregation in public schools in the landmark Brown v Board of Education case before Union High School closed in 1970 and students integrated into Gallatin High School.
"Union High School was called ‘across the track’ because you have to go across the railroad tracks at East–Eastland down there to go across once you get on that this is another side of town," said Malone.
Needless to say, the transition for students took time but offered Black students a more equitable education.
Malone said looking back, "to me, it's a miracle. And it's a sign of God, that if you trust and you have faith that he has our backs, and he has a front and our sides and our ups and our downs because he brought us through."
In the basketball gym, it took decades to feel a combined community.
"In the beginning, there were divisions that you could see. When you walked into the gym, our Black students would sit in one section and white students were in another section. I have seen that change. I've seen that grow into now that they are coming together as a group," explained Malone, whose grandson A.J. Davis is on the current Gallatin High School basketball team.
"I just like being competitive and it’s something I’ve always done and I like it more than any other sport," said Davis of the sport he and his grandmother both love. "My grandma scores like 50 points a game!"
He said although he had heard about the Union community, it has only been in his middle school years that he came to understand the hardships they went through.
"It was like the only school around here that they could go to. This is kind of—it's not normal to me. So just to hear that, it's kind of mind-blowing a little bit," explained Davis. "You just don't know what people went through for you."
Davis and other students attribute not knowing about the challenges their grandparents went through for years to the positivity their family had toward their years at Union High.
"They tried to make the best of us. I don't think there was like too much negative," said Davis.
Gallatin High School senior Cialife Carter's family's story is similar. She did not know much about her grandmother's experience until her basketball team met with Union High School for the annual game.
"I really didn't learn about Union until my ninth grade year, until I went and seen it. That's not something that we just talked about," said Carter.
By learning the history from the alumni, Carter said the commemorative game that became a tradition in 2018 when the Gallatin High School basketball teams wearing throwback Union High School jerseys first played Hendersonville High School.
"Just to put on the jersey, I mean, it brings back memories that they had. So I guess is putting on a jersey is just something special for our elders to know what they went through," said Carter. "[We're] just representing them. Keeping what they had alive as well."
"We're honoring the people went through to put on the jersey, so we put them on, representing them," said Davis. "More people should have a day like this, to come together with their community history."
Carter agreed adding, "some people I wouldn't say relate, but they will probably change their ways of how they act towards others, knowing that, like they said before, that they were segregated. They weren't together. So I mean, maybe it'll change."
Malone said she has seen the generational change throughout her life and has hope for more unity in the future.
"There will be a time and I'm sure that you won't be able to tell the difference because there'll be such a mixture in our children that are born, which you see some of that now," explained Malone. "We won't be able to say ‘oh, your dad's Black or your mom's white.’ They'll be in such a color that we won't even be able to think about, you know, from which they come in."
The Union High alumni community said they hope by continuing to share their stories with the Gallatin students they will not only keep their history alive but do their part in ensuring history does not repeat itself.
"We're all one race. Color does not matter. I truly believe that we are here in rainbow colors for a reason. I feel like we are on a stage being looked down upon to see how we're going to handle situations," said Malone. "I really think it's going to count for us, and it's gonna count against us. My love for you, your love for me. If it's not true. You may as well forget it. If we're putting on a show we're putting on an act and it's not from the heart we got to pay for it. So my feelings on the unity part is that we're all here in order to see what we do with the differences that have been placed before us. And if we don't handle them in the right way. We've not done what we've been assigned to do."
