Community High School

Elmo Morales

Elmo Morales was a lean and muscular 9th grader; he was the kind of kid who couldn’t walk down the street without jumping up to touch store signs. It was this lean and tough Washington Heights kid that would, at the end of the year, be devastated by discrimination.

“I scored a perfect score in my regency examination in algebra,” Morales said. Regency examinations were given at the end of each school year to excess their progress. A perfect score was a remarkable performance. “Only eight kids in the entire borough of Manhattan had perfect scores,” Morales said. Two of the eight attended Morales’ school, George Washington high school. Morales and the other student, attending his school, were brought in and accused of cheating. The other student had his mother there to stick up for him but Morales was all on his own. “They lowered my grade to an 85%,” Morales said. For Morales, who grew up in the New York ghetto this wasn’t racism – this was the way it was. The incident only motivated him to show the school officials up.

“Growing up in the ghetto, it was survival. It was the Blacks against the Puerto Ricans, against the Italians, against the Jews,” Morales said. However Morales always felt safe in this environment. “We were fortunate in that we were a block from the school yard and a police station was across the corner,” Morales said.

However, Morales said, he was well respected by all the gangs. Morales was a leader to those around him and a very gifted athlete, in both track and basketball. “I’d run through the neighborhoods; not many people did that. If a cop saw you he could stop you,” Morales said. He said the first time a cop stopped him while running was “unnerving.” After a while the police started to recognize him, as his track team was often written about in the New York Times.

Racism did not directly affect Morales, so it stayed at the back of his mind.
Until a day that would change Morales life.

On November 22nd 1963, sixteen year-old Morales walked into his math class, an impending test weighing on his mind. He had spent the last night up in the “tar desert”- the affectionate name for the roof of his apartment building, studying. Morales was soon severely surprised. “I walked into my math class and my teacher told us the test would be cancelled. She didn’t say why, but we all went down to the auditorium,” Morales said.

Upon entering the auditorium Morales saw that “This fiery man was on stage, everyone was clapping and yelling.” The man was of small stature, a stature which belied the power of his voice. It was a voice that had inspired a nation with its call of nonviolence. However, for Morales, it was only a point of interest.

“I turned to a friend and asked who this guy was,” Morales said. This question was answered quickly, with an elbow to the ribs. “Don’t you know nothing Elmo, that’s Martin Luther King,” Morales recalled his friend saying with amusement.

Dr. King’s speaking brought racial equality to the front of Morales’ mind. As leaders of the school, Morales and several friends started a social club, which Morales describes as an “uppity gang.” The social club was called The Social Colleagues and their goal was simple: to mix the races. Morales recited a popular rhyme of the time: “If you’re white your alright, if you’re brown you can stick around, if you’re black don’t come back. That’s what we were trying to fight.

“We invited the white people and the brown people down to dances in the black neighborhood, Harlem,” Morales said. The motivation for these parties, hosted at the Africa House, was not completely altruistic. “The Jewish girls always liked the way the brown people danced, and of course they were beautiful,” Morales said.

There was not a lot of racial animosity at the parties, mainly thanks to the bouncer, a member of The Social Colleagues named Lew. “When I met him in middle school he was 6’ 8” or 6’ 9,” Morales said. He stopped and smiled fondly while talking about Lew. “I’ll let you guess who he is,” Morales said, and then proceeded to reel of Lew’s basketball accomplishments. “He went to UCLA and won three national championships, before playing in the NBA for twenty years and setting the league’s scoring title. His most famous move.” Morales trailed off as he got out of his chair and does a mock sky hook.

“It cost 99 cents to get in,” Morales said. This was because anything over a dollar had to be taxed. “[Lew] had a roll of pennies; he used them for punching too,” Morales said. Lew was a big draw to the parties. “People came down to dance and see Lew,” Morales said. The parties were all about bringing people together, and in this they were a huge success. Morales remembers, chuckling that towards the end of the night he would replace the white light bulb with a red one. “That was for the slow songs,” he said.

Dr. King is remembered in unfathomable terms, marching 250,000 people on Washington, leading the Montgomery bus boycott, being the catalyst for civil rights legislation. But it seems that among all of these noble accomplishments Dr. King would be just as proud of touching the life of a boy in Washington Heights. Just as proud that this boy would fight segregation around him in a unique way. Just as proud that this boy would bring himself out of the ghetto and become the first person in his neighborhood to attend college.