Saint John's is steeped in tradition.  It is located in River Oaks, the home base for Houston's power elite over the past century.

William and Michael Hogg, sons of former Texas Governor Jim Hogg, and attorney Hugh Potter established River Oaks in the 1920s. 

Over time, River Oaks has become one of the wealthiest communities not just in Texas, but the entire United States.

Today the location of River Oaks is considered "Inner City", but it is amusing to note just how deserted much of the area was back in the beginning of the school.

Saint Johns School was founded in 1946 shortly after World War II.  1946 was a big year for Houston; coincidentally that is the year the Texas Medical Center was founded as well.  As you can see, that area was once deserted as well.

Saint John's was located in the heart of River Oaks on the corner of Westheimer and the oddly named Buffalo Speedway.  If you look at this 1921 map, there is a curious oval track where Alabama Street is now.  That spot appears to located across the street from today's Lamar High School.

From what I gather, that oval was an actual raceway out on the prairie on the western tip of Houston. Hence the name Buffalo Speedway.

As for the mighty Westheimer Street, back in 1946, Westheimer was little more than a mud road to nowhere which led primarily to farmland.  Today Westheimer is a major Houston artery. As Houston has grown, so has Saint Johns. 

Over the past 60 years, many children of Houston's business and political leaders have been trained at Saint John's.  Consequently any of Houston's current leaders can point to an SJS education as the secret of their success. 

And from the ranks of SJS graduates come many fine doctors, lawyers, and engineers.  SJS can even point to several movie makers  as well.

As its graduates reach the point in life where they can contribute to the building fund, Saint John's continues to gobble up surrounding real estate the moment it becomes available.  The school continues to grow both in prestige and size. 

It is hard to believe, but to current Saint John's students, this picture from the 1968 yearbook will surely seem pretty weird.  Look how small the school was back then!   No kidding.  When I graduated in 1968, there were only 50 students in my graduating class and perhaps 220 in the entire upper school.

Today in the 2000s, Saint John's is easily twice that size in acreage and enrollment.  Over the years, Saint John's has become recognized as one of the finest college prep schools in the entire country, a high honor indeed.

THE MASCOT DILEMMA OF THE ST JOHNS REBELS  

Despite its remarkable accomplishments in the academic arena and the remarkable decency of the people responsible for Saint John's many years of success, there was once a bizarre stigma that was allowed to persist at Saint Johns for over 50 years.

Did you know the Saint John's mascot was a "Rebel"?   We are not talking 1950's James Dean here.  Nor a 1776 Colonial Revolutionary either.  Our Rebel was a Confederate general straight from the Civil War. 

During the years I went to Saint Johns, the school yearbook was known as "The Rebel".

The theater program that put on the plays and musicals was known as "Johnnycakes".  

Leaving nothing to the imagination, during the Sixties, a huge, larger than life statue of a Confederate general was trotted out at the football games.  The statue was known as "Johnny Reb".  "Johnny Reb" was the school's official symbol. 

My Years at Saint John's

Looking back, I guess I feel sheepish that I never raised much more than an eyebrow at the implications of the "Rebel" mascot during my time at the school.   I was immersed in an all-white culture and far more concerned with graduation than racial injustice. 

It never actually occurred to me, but Saint John's did not have a "Rebel" logo that I was aware of.  In other words, there was no artwork of a Rebel that appeared on any stationary.  Nor were there any Civil War paintings on the walls. Had there been images such as the infamous Ole Miss Rebel logo, things might have been different. I don't know if this was deliberate or accidental, but the lack of any logo helped to keep the issue in the background.  Since there were absolutely no day-to-day images of any 'Fightin' Johnny Rebel' to bring the issue to the surface, I didn't give the name any thought.  As long as they kept that giant Johnny Reb statue out of sight (which they did for the most part), I never gave the Rebel nickname a second thought.   If forced to explain my do-nothing conscience, I definitely think the fact that there were no blacks at the school made it much easier for me to look the other way.  I certainly understood the Rebel mascot would have been offensive to blacks, but since I had no black classmates or black faculty members, there was no one to offend.  If it doesn't hurt anyone, what difference does it make?   It never even dawned on me that the African Americans who cleaned the school and worked in the cafeteria might have had an opinion.  I had a real blind spot on this issue. Can I be honest here?  I am no better than anyone else.  Don't even begin to think of me as some lonely crusader crying in the wilderness for justice and social equality.  I never raised my voice once.

Like most people, I was a product of my environment.  For example, I disliked Aggies intensely.  Why?  Because all my classmates disliked Aggies.  Not a day passed when I didn't hear a dismissive Aggie joke.  Not once did I ever question my bias.  Not once did it ever occur to me that no Aggie had ever done a mean thing to me.  I didn't even know any Aggies.  No matter.  I accepted my prejudice without question.  Aggies were someone to be made fun of.

For that matter, I was taught to dislike anyone from Kinkaid, our bitter rival.  It wasn't till later in the life that I realized some of my favorite people had graduated from none other than A&M.  Another "later in life lesson" was that I had a lot in common with the Kinkaid graduates I met.  Some of the most interesting people I knew were Falcons. 

On the other hand, my mother taught me to respect people of all races and religions.  I am grateful to her for that. 

We are all products of our environment.  I imagine that if I had been born and raised in the South just prior to the Civil War, I would have fought on the side of the South.  I would have treated slaves poorly and felt victimized by the evil Abraham Lincoln.  When one realizes how difficult it is to remove the blinders created by the culture one grows up in, it is a humbling experience.  At this point, it becomes much harder to point fingers and pretend to be better than anyone else.

Mark Twain once said, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow mindedness... Travel helps us discover we are a family after all." 

Amen to that. 

Here's a simple example of how one's environment can influence one's attitudes.  I had a 30 year career running a dance studio.  Thanks in large part to the movie Urban Cowboy, here in Houston, Country-Western dancing is not only popular, it can be very flashy with lots of turns and spins.  Plus it is common for men to dance backwards at various times.  Western dancing can be a lot more sophisticated than one might guess.   

One day in 1984, a girl friend took me to Cuero, Texas, to visit her parents.  That night we went dancing at the local VFW hall.  I stared in shock as the men made sure their women did nothing else but dance backwards for the entire night.  No spins, no turns, no men going backwards. 

I asked Jeff, my girlfriend's brother about it.  Jeff said, "These men have trained their women to go backwards for a hundred years.  That's the way its done here in Cuero.  And if you want to leave this place without a hassle, I suggest you make my sister go backwards for the rest of the night."   Noting the hostile stares directed at me, I followed Jeff's suggestion to the letter.

That was their tradition in Cuero.  If someone is stuck in one place with little outside influence, as the Country-Western song goes, don't go risin' above your raisin'.

When it comes to 'prejudice', it is one thing to see injustice and do nothing about it.  It is quite another thing to not recognize the injustice in the first place.  When one is surrounded by a limited point of reference, it becomes very difficult to see the larger picture. 

There was no obvious 'prejudice' at Saint John's that I was aware of that might prick my conscience.  Yeah, my school had a questionable mascot, but it wasn't hurting anyone.  In the total absence of any dissent, I accepted the Rebel mascot just like the rest of my community did.  That's just the way we do things around here. 

The Rebel nickname had been adopted a long time before Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s.  The Rebel mascot was definitely a reflection of Houston's prevalent social consciousness at the time.   Houston was never as racist as Alabama or Mississippi, but let's not bury our heads in the sand.  Texas had fought for the Confederacy and still had its pervasive share of lingering bigotry and prejudice.  It was no surprise that Houston had its share of racist attitudes as well.

One would think that during the Sixties there was enough blood shed in race riots and police confrontations to make anyone with a brain and a conscience flinch about keeping "Johnny Reb" as the school mascot. But my head was buried in the sand.  I never paid much attention to those headlines.  My classmates and I were largely shielded from the changes taking place in society.  We lived in the Land that Time forgot. As I have said, in nine years at Saints Johns, I never noticed any instance of racial prejudice.  Neither my classmates nor the faculty said much of anything on the subject.  I don't recall a single word about race ever taking place in class or in casual conversation. Consequently I never felt my school was prejudiced. That said, some schools were obviously well ahead of Saint John's on the issue of integration.  For example, our athletic teams faced black athletes from other schools.  There is a picture in my 1968 yearbook of an SJS basketball player attempting a layup against a black athlete.  To the credit of the SJS athletes, I never heard any negative words spoken about their black opponents. Unfortunately I never questioned why some schools had black students and Saint John's didn't.  Yet at the same time, I felt the people at Saint John's were extremely open-minded.  For example, I had several Jewish classmates who were completely accepted at the school.  To my knowledge, they were never discriminated against.  So we clearly had religious tolerance. Furthermore, the girls were treated with total respect in an era long before women's issues had begun to grab headlines.  Not once did anyone ever suggest the girls tone it down so the boys could gain more confidence.  I can honestly say with a wistful smile the girls would regularly kick my butt in class.  Saint John's was light years ahead of the curve in this regard.  So why did the Administration have a blind spot on race?   This is a question I cannot answer.  You would have to ask an Insider.

The Seventies... and then the Eighties

My own awakening did not take place until after college.  In 1972, I had an unusual summer job maintaining the Houston city parks.  This was a rather humble job considering I was a recent college graduate, but I was new back in town and this was good enough until graduate school came along. The workmates in my crew were five black men, each one a Vietnam vet.  I was the only white guy.  They were just as curious about me as I was about them.  We had some very interesting conversations. That summer I got quite an education on how African-American men are treated in modern-day America. For my graduation exercise, I was told to go see a movie titled The Liberation of L.B. Jones.  The movie was about the ruthless assassination of an innocent black man by two white cops.  I might add I was the only white person in a theater with at least 100 blacks.  No one said a word to me, but the hostile looks I got spoke volumes about the bitterness caused by two centuries of oppression.  After leaving the theater, my education on racism was complete to say the least.

However, my new-found enlightenment did not lead me to think of Saint John's.  As far as Saint John's and its Rebel mascot was concerned, nothing could have been further from my mind.  I was headed for graduate school.  I heard a rumor from a classmate that Saint Johns had decided to integrate in the early Seventies.  I do not know if that actually took place, but I hoped it did.  If so, I assumed at this point it would be a good time to phase out the mascot.  Right?

Wrong.  Saint Johns remained the Rebels throughout the Seventies. And the Eighties too. 
 

1990: I VISIT THE SAINT JOHN'S CAMPUS

Fast Forward to 1990.  To be honest, I forgot about the Mascot problem for twenty years.  Out of sight, out of mind.

In the Seventies I finished college, went to graduate school, then rode the energy of Saturday Night Fever to start my career as a dance teacher. 

The Eighties went by fast as I worked to build my business.  

One day in 1990 I was asked to teach some adult education dance classes on the Saint Johns campus during the evening.

Nostalgic to see the school that had meant so much to me for nine years, for my first evening back, I arrived a couple hours early to look around.  It was time I had set foot on campus since graduation in 1968.  Oh sure, I had driven by now and then and marveled at all the new construction from afar, but I didn't have a reason to actually put foot on the campus. 

As I strolled around, I was pleased to notice several handsome, alert young men who just happened to also be black. Good.  And I noticed several lovely young women, just as alert, who also happened to be black.  Excellent.  I was equally pleased to notice quite a few Asian and Arabic students as well.

As I walked across the campus I could see all of these non-white students seemed quite comfortable wearing their Saint Johns uniform.   Saint Johns was clearly at the forefront of social change in this regard.  At that moment, I had never been more proud of my school.

And then I smiled as a pretty cheerleader walked by.  But then I saw the name "Saint Johns Rebels" on her cheerleader's outfit and completely froze.  I was stunned by the surprise. 

Let's Look at This Problem From Another Point of View

Think about this issue as an African-American mother and father would.  Both parents are descendants of former slaves.  Both parents are also college-educated professionals.  They are debating whether to send their talented son or daughter to a school whose nickname represents images of the Civil War, the bloodiest, most horrible era in American history. 

As the parents await an interview at the school, they are already uneasy about the "Rebel" nickname. If these parents take one look at the Rebel Mascot, who would blame them if they politely excused themselves from the interview and left the campus? 

One can assume these same parents would do everything in their power to find an equivalent school elsewhere.  Surely there must be another school in Houston where their child would feel more welcome.  Why take the chance of subjecting their child to racial prejudice?

Now if these same parents were to talk to me, I would tell them that Saint Johns is one of the most enlightened schools in the city.  I would tell these parents that despite the mascot, Saint Johns is color-blind.  And that opinion would be the truth as I know it.

But that "Rebel" nickname would still be staring them in the face giving them second thoughts.  Who could blame them?  To an outsider, the nickname clearly suggests the school tacitly harbors racist attitudes.  As they say, actions speak louder than words. 

It would be a shame if anyone thought that my school was prejudiced.  The Saint John's of my memory was ahead of its time.   Maybe there was a racist side to Saint Johns in the Sixties and I was just too young to see it.  But as I said, quite honestly I don't recall a single bigoted statement or incident in my entire nine years at Saint John's. 

I will gladly give my school the benefit of the doubt in the Sixties.  Attitudes were changing.  And I can forgive the Seventies as well.  Traditions don't go away that easily. 

But the Eighties?   And the Nineties?  And then on into the next Century?  C'mon now.  What possible reason could anyone use to justify clinging to this divisive image?

I understand very clearly what the image of the Confederate Rebel stood for.  This was a brave man who stood up and fought for what he believed in, something we can all admire.  His image would naturally be a source of pride to many.   'The Rebels' was a cool nickname in its day, but its time had passed. 

Why should the school take a chance that an outdated symbol could give any outsider the wrong impression? 

On a personal note, I have always admired the military prowess of the South. Those Rebels could really fight!  In many battles they badly embarrassed the larger, better equipped forces of the North.   And I admire the military genius of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.  They danced rings around the North.  If Jackson had not died of the freak accident, who knows what would have happened?

I can definitely see why the Rebel Spirit makes these men heroes to many.  I don't agree with their position on slavery, but I can definitely respect the courage the soldiers fought with.  They were brave men and I understand that they fought for what they believed in.

I am simply saying that a black man or a black woman should hardly be expected to share in this pride.

To an African-American, at the most basic level, a Rebel was a man who fought for the right to continue slavery, the repugnant practice that assumed a human being was worthy of bondage due to the color of his skin.

To them, the Rebel flag and the Rebel soldier would stand for an era when black slaves were often treated with less dignity and respect than most animals.  The memories of their descendants would be much different....  whippings, beatings, rapes, lynching, and frightened children sold to other estates.  They would remember the constant humiliation of being treated as property, as less than human. 

THE DAWN OF THE MILLENNIUM