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Transcript of full Rener Reed interview

My name is Rener Reed, and I was born in Richton, Mississippi, and I am 68 years of age.

I became an activist at a very young age, when we moved to Long Island and I wasn't working, so I had some free time to do some community involvement, so that's what I did. Working with the PTAs, working in the community with community organizations as well. Well, first of all it involved getting the communities to get involved. Parents with children in the school system and had some free time and wanted to see a positive attitude, they also joined me, and we became a very strong force to deal with in the school district as well. There was an organization called the Better Education Organization, BEO, that was really one of our prime targets of involvement because we had the three communities, Lynbrook, Lakeview and Malverne, and we had parents working toward the betterment of all the children.

There was never any fear in my getting involved, because at the time I didn't see anything wrong with what I was trying to accomplish. We went on and accomplished what we set out to accomplish, which was the three communities working together for the betterment of all the children in the district no matter who they were, we wanted to see things done positive for all of the children, and that was accomplished.

Outside of my children, my proudest moment is the fact that we have school buses today that take children to the two elementary schools so they don't have to walk. That was one of the largest accomplishments I felt that was needed, and also was necessary and is still necessary. Well, we had an organizationWith that, we were able to go to Albany and Commissioner [Gordon M.] Ambach ruled on our 310 petition that we filed and made it possible for our children living within a certain radius of the two elementary schools to be able to ride, and that was K through 4, and not have to walk.

[The 310 petition] was a petition requesting the commissioner of education to make a decision as to the transportation of children that were outside of the perimeter of walking to school, that they would have a safe environment and arrive at school ready to learn and not tired from having to walk and dangerously crossing areas that was not safe for them. A kindergardener having to cross major roadway or a train track was very unsafe.

What happened is once the schools were integrated, buses were provided. But then with the administration in Washington saying there's no more forced integration, that meant the district had to provide transportation. Which they had been doing for a period of time. But with that decision coming down, they didn't have to do it any longer. So what would happen would be transportation and budget was all put into one budget, school budget, transportation included, so when the powers to be pulled transportation out of the budget the budget would pass but transportation wouldn't pass. Our only way of ensuring this would not be the issue, we went to Albany with a group of people from the three communities. We had the president of the teacher's association, we had the wife of one of the school bard members, we had our attorney, Al Dorfman at the time. And we all went up to Albany and filed a 310 petition and the commissioner ruled on that petition and said children living X amount of distance from the school would no longer have to walk and it would be part of the district budget, same as any other issue in the budget. Transportation would always be a part of that budget and the children would always have a ride to school.

Well, I was born and reared in Mississippi. And I guess, you had to take it upon yourself if you wanted to accomplish anything, you had to work hard at it I guess [my] legacy is those yellow buses that ride up and down the street, that children who are on them today don't know how or why they got there, you know. But it was a lot of effort to get to that point. And [I want] to be remembered as someone who tried to do the best that I could as I traveled this road, you know?