Like, I would guess, a lot of white people of my age (55) , right now I'm wondering how I could have grown up with an excellent education and still have known so very little of the actual history of Black people in this country. So, a thread on one instance of education.
What we did learn in public school in the 70s-80s was just the good news. The Emancipation Proclamation (though the war was fought for "states' rights.") The Harlem Renaissance. MLK and "I Have a Dream." And Brown V Board and the Little Rock Crisis.
In Little Rock, I was taught, local authorities defied Brown v Board and wouldn't let Black students -- the Little Rock Nine -- enter Little Rock Central High School. So Ike sent the 101st Airborne, escorted them to school, all fixed, yay.
In 2012, I visited Little Rock to film a segment for "Constitution USA" and had one of the honors of my life: I got to interview Minniejean Brown Trickey, one of the Nine. And here is what I learned:
1) Ms Trickey did not graduate from LRCHS with the rest of the Nine. One day, in the lunchroom, she was tripped while carrying her tray and a bowl of chili spilled on another (white, obviously) student. She was charged by the school with assault and expelled.
She told me that in the Teacher's Lounge, people were heard to say, "We got one! We got that Brown girl!"
She had also mentioned to me, in passing, that while enrolled, she and the other eight Black students learned to walk close to the lockers, because it hurt less when they were shoved into them.
2) I had been taught that once the 101st forced the integration of the school, the Crisis was over. And in a way, it was. The Nine were allowed to attend, and eight graduated. But then, rather the integration of the schools to continue, Gov Faubus *closed all of them.*
They. Closed. All. The. Schools. They would rather their own white children get no education than have to share a classroom with a Black child. I had never heard about that, until I read a plaque at the (excellent) National Historic Site visitor's center.
It's known as "The Lost Year." Faubus tried to sell the public high school building to private schools so they could continue as Whites only. That failed, but the idea that Ike "fixed" segregation by sending in the troops was ludicrous, ridiculous, ahistorical, wrong.
Yet that's what I was taught. I don't know why, other than to say that White America, like so many other peoples in so many other places and times, is quite good at telling themselves lies to make themselves feel better.
Finally: this is why I so admire the the 1619 Project. It is a powerful corrective to the standard narrative, and even if it includes one or two instances of debatable scholarship -- and that's all I've seen credibly described -- we -- I personally -- need that correction
Thanks everybody who liked, RTd, and responded with your own experiences. My Soundcloud is your local public radio station.
