If You Became a High School

By Sid Robinson

Fall 2004

The dignitaries posed in their proper places in front of the camera, all wearing their business suits and hard hats, smiling as they shoveled the first grounds of dirt from the land that would soon become a construction zone.

This day in early June 2001 would be remembered in Rialto, as the school board, city and county officials, local dignitaries and volunteers gathered to break ground for a brand new high school. Perhaps without notice at the time, one key face didn’t make it into the picture that day. Her absence from those photos is a bit more conspicuous now.

“I was delayed getting to the groundbreaking ceremonies, so I sat in the back and watched,” recalls Wilmer Amina Carter, laughing at the irony. On that day, the retired four-term Rialto Board of Education member was simply one of many people in attendance who looked out at the undeveloped acreage and proudly visualized what the new state-of-the-art school would look like. As for what else was in store, “I had no idea — nobody did at the time.”

Nearly a year after breaking ground, the future “Rialto High School No. 3” would become known as Wilmer Amina Carter High School. On Aug. 31, some 2,200 students in 9th, 10th and 11th grades became the first to attend classes. “I’ve tried and tried and tried to figure out how this happened, and the only thing I can think is that it is divine intervention,” reasons Amina. “So many others have played important roles in bringing this school to reality, and I am no more special than anyone else.”

Ray Johnson, the first principal at Carter High, sees Amina a bit differently. “She is very gracious and very humble, but from the first time I met her it was very obvious to me why she was chosen,” says Johnson. “She has a love for education and young people, and her passion is something that should be treasured and honored.”

Amina is the first living African-American woman in the Inland Empire for whom a high school has been named. She is probably the first Cal State San Bernardino alumna — a 1972 bachelor’s degree in English and a 1976 master’s in education — to have any building named in her honor, let alone an entire high school. For that matter, she can also likely claim that distinction among all current and former CSUSB employees, having worked for two years at the university as a legislative and community liaison. In all, 18 people were nominated to have the new high school carry their name.

Amina served four four-year terms on the Rialto Board of Education from 1983 through 1999. For 23 years beginning in 1973, she was a fixture in Rialto and the local communities as part of Congressman George Brown’s staff, including her position as district director. Along the way she has managed to serve and volunteer her time to more than 35 local, regional and national organizations, from the San Bernardino County District Advocates for Better Schools and the Feldheym Public Library Literacy board to the Center for Civic Education. She is a founding member of the Martin Luther King annual prayer breakfast committee and a member of the National Organization of Black Educators. Most recently, she returned to public service as a field representative for Clifford Young, who just finished serving as interim supervisor of San Bernardino County’s fifth district. Young is the director of government relations at CSUSB.

Her passion for giving back is just as obvious when it comes to her former university, where she is a life member of the CSUSB Alumni Association and a founding member of the university’s Black Future Leaders. The Alumni Association honored Amina as its Distinguished Alumna in 1981. In 1999 she returned to campus, working for CSUSB President Albert Karnig for two years as coordinator of governmental relations.
Amina remembers going out to the community to encourage its support for the bond measure that would fund the building of the new high school. Later, when the school district sent out the call for nominations to name the school, she busily searched for candidates. Little did she know that a ground-swell of support for her own nomination was rising behind her. “It was so exciting to see the community get so involved in the entire process of building this school,” she says. “But then I found out I was being nominated to have the school named after me. That was something that was beyond anything I ever thought.”

Choosing Amina is no surprise. But it is amazing considering that her early education in the 1940s was at home in segregated Neshoba County, Mississippi, thanks to her grandfather, Anderson Carter. Raised from infancy by her Aunt Beatrice and Uncle Caesar on her grandfather’s rural Southern farm, she learned to read at the age of three. Anderson Carter was a circuit teacher who taught school in the community church with a personal touch, making sure, too, that his granddaughter got a proper education. Even as a youngster, she was writing and reading letters for people who couldn’t read or write.

After her grandfather died, Amina moved with her aunt and uncle to California and settled in San Bernardino. She has been in the area ever since, graduating from San Bernardino High School in 1958 and taking several jobs locally. To help earn extra money during the holiday season, she applied to the local Sears store. There, she excelled at selling toys and women’s apparel. Still, her passion was public service. So Amina went to work for the California State University system at the San Bernardino office. She was soon promoted to administrator in the Educational Opportunity Program. Her early success led to a transfer to the chancellor’s office in Los Angeles.

“I wanted to work in the big city, but I quickly realized I was a small-town girl,” she admits. She returned to San Bernardino to the system’s student services department. “That was during a time that a lot of minorities started going to Cal State San Bernardino, and I knew I wanted to do more, so I started taking night classes both at San Bernardino Valley College and Cal State back when the campus had just three primary buildings.” Within three years she earned a bachelor of arts in English.

It wasn’t long before Amina launched her public service career. She moved to Rialto and joined Rep. Brown’s staff in 1973, serving the 36th Congressional District and the community for 23 years. For three years she left her post to manage the School-to-Work Program for the National Council of Negro Women and Educational Training Service to help high school students in their transition to the working world.

“After I returned, Mr. Brown and others encouraged me to run for a position on the school board.” In 1983, the Black community made up only 7 percent of the city’s population, Amina says, and the only two African-Americans to ever run for office were not successful. “Nobody thought I would win, but I did.” That year, Amina became the first African American elected to the Rialto Board of Education, a post she held for the next 16 years while also working for Rep. Brown.

She made an immediate impression, developing a style unique among today’s public officials as she borrowed a technique used by her late grandfather. “I have tried to work with students and parents on a personal level to resolve their problems. Sometimes those weren’t all resolved to their satisfaction, but at least they got answers and they knew they were being heard.” She spent the past year soliciting contributions for the new school’s library and scholarship program, and she figures to be a fixture around campus now that it has opened. “As a citizen,” says Amina, “I think I can contribute as much as I did when I was on the school board.”

Through all of the praise and celebration, Amina remains humble and grateful. “I am not rich, but I’m rich in friends and in health, so I really am extremely rich,” she says. “Of course, I’d still really love to win the lottery, but I already have more than anyone could ever ask for.”

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