Remembering Harvey Miller’s Role in Integrating GISD
The memory of Harvey Miller, who played a pivotal role in integrating Georgetown Public Schools, is alive and well at Papa Frank's Hair Designs
Harvey Miller was a resident of the Georgetown community since his birth on November 4th, 1929. He lived in a segregated part of the town called “The Ridge,” where African Americans resided due to discrimination during the Jim Crow era. According to his oral history in 2008, most of his family occupied the Rocky Hollow and Georgetown area after his grandfather allegedly fled from a plantation farm in Alabama to escape the consequences of killing a white man.
To learn more about Mr. Miller, I went to Papa Frank’s Hair Designs in Georgetown, owned by Mr. Miller’s nephew, Nikolas Shanklin, and named after Mr. Shanklin’s great-grandfather. My visit to Papa Frank’s was a thrilling experience that helped me see the value of keeping and displaying memories to bridge the generations, especially among African Americans.
A corner of Papa Frank’s is dedicated to documenting his family history, where he displays photos of his great grandparents, recent pictures of his uncles and aunts, and obituaries of loved ones, including Mr. Miller. Between the photos and clippings on the wall and the stories he tells about his ancestors, Shanklin ensures that the richness of black history in Georgetown remains present. I hope I honor his work by re-telling Harvey Miller’s story here.
Since his childhood, Harvey Miller was someone who liked to “pull tricks” and resist what was expected of him as a black boy in the time of segregation. He once drank from the “White Only” fountain to see if it “tasted any better.” His curiosity led him to combat limitations placed on African Americans in Georgetown. Before his resistance to Georgetown High School’s segregation, Harvey Miller helped create the first black Boys Scout in the Georgetown Community. Mr. Miller also helped orchestrate the first black little league in the town.
Harvey Miller fathered four daughters with his wife, Ara Bell Miller. They married and had their first child, Crystal Miller, whilst Mr. Miller was a senior at Carver High School. Mr Miller noted a disparity in the Carver High School he attended and the one his three daughters attended and made it his affair to seek help. In 1958, Harvey Miller and other parents made an appeal to the school board to rebuild the Carver High School and include new facilities that would provide a quality education for its students. Before taking the matter of integration to the United States District Court in Austin, Harvey Miller orchestrated an attempt to integrate 29 African American students, which included his oldest daughter, Crystal Miller, into the all-white Georgetown High School. He was denied access just like he expected and later used this incident as his anecdote when addressing the courts.
In 1965, Harvey Miller issued a letter to the U.S Attorney General, Nicholas Katzenbach, to address his thoughts about how the rate of integration in Georgetown was unfair to his three daughters and all other African American children in the community. In his address to Mr. Nicholas Katzenbach, he also expressed his concern regarding the employment of African American teachers in Georgetown. He expressed his discontent with the manner in which African American students did not have the choice to either attend an integrated school or the Carver School, and urged for the full integration of Georgetown High School.Through his efforts with an organization named “Committee for Better Schools”, Harvey Miller, professors from Southwestern University, and other parents went to court to fight for the desegregation of Georgetown High School. Finally, Georgetown High School was fully desegregated in 1966.
After seeing Georgetown High School’s integration, Harvey Miller and his family moved to San Marcos, where he is mostly known today. In San Marcos, he assisted in making the old Dunbar School into a park and recreation center. He also revived the celebration of Juneteenth in San Marcos. He is also known as the founder of the Dunbar Heritage Association, which is a charitable organization that guarantees the preservation of the three cornerstones of Black culture–celebrating, advocating, and educating–he had built.
On September 1, 2020, Harvey Miller passed away, but his great works continue to live on and make an impact on many African Americans in both Georgetown and San Marcos, and the best place to feel that impact today is at Papa Frank’s.
