ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 23, 1996 TAG: 9602230048
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: POTGIETERSRUS, SOUTH AFRICA
SOURCE: DONNA BRYSON ASSOCIATED PRESS
16 BLACK CHILDREN walked through the gates of a formerly all-white school in South Africa.
In a scene reminiscent of U.S. desegregation battles, 16 black children protected by a police cordon walked through the gates of a formerly all-white school Thursday - and into South African history.
But the school was practically empty. Only 20 of its almost 700 white students showed up. Glowering white parents watched the black students enter, and some vowed to establish a separate school, rather than have their children mix with blacks.
President Nelson Mandela's government hopes desegregation in this conservative, Afrikaner town 180 miles north of Johannesburg will set a national precedent and help wipe out lingering examples of the old segregated education system.
Like many towns in rural South Africa, Potgietersrus (pronounced Pote-HEE-ters-roos) was once a whites-only community with a black township nearby. The nation's first all-race election in 1994, which brought Mandela to power, formally ended apartheid and heralded a new constitution providing equal rights.
Now, a black mayor runs the town, and blacks have moved into formerly all-white neighborhoods.
Blacks have been integrated into most of South Africa's schools, but whites in Potgietersrus tried to maintain their hold on the state-subsidized primary school, blocking black children from enrolling. This year, with the law behind them, three black families - backed by the provincial government - filed a court challenge and won.
A Supreme Court ruling delivered last week and upheld on appeal Wednesday called the admissions policy racist.
Black parents were ecstatic, and the children seemed glad, too.
Ten-year-old Thabang Thula only had to walk three blocks to the Potgietersrus elementary school Thursday instead of riding a bus across town to the impoverished black school she used to attend.
``I was happy to go to school today,'' she told dozens of journalists waiting outside.
Afrikaners, the Dutch-descended white settlers of South Africa, fear that bringing blacks to their traditionally all-white schools will harm the quality of education and erode their culture, particularly the use of the Afrikaans language. Some fiercely oppose the mixing of races.
One white man outside the school Thursday, shouting in Afrikaans, cursed journalists covering the event and called the black students ``apes'' after his daughter burst into tears when mobbed by reporters and cameramen. He took her away without giving his name.
LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. A police officer comforts an unidentified girlby CNBThursday after her father (right) hurled abuse at black students.