On this past Monday, in honor of Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. Day, students from Virginia Commonwealth University took to the
streets and stopped traffic on Broad and Grace Streets during rush hour,
peacefully, silently. It was their seventh march since Thanksgiving, and the
march that prompted the Richmond Police Department to ask urgently for dialogue
to commence. The students who were interviewed cited the differences in the
treatment of VCU's white students who "misbehaved", who were not
arrested, harassed, or given any
reprimand from the police or the University. The students were incensed and passionate, but
they were peaceful. I was proud of them.
The
appalling issue was that there were no students from Virginia Union University
or Virginia State University present. Surely, so I thought, they must be aware
that this matter affects them, too. They compete against each other in athletic
events, and party together on the weekends, and the press which defames and
degrades affects the HBCU students even more than the students at VCU ( a PWI..
predominantly white institution) should spur them to action or at least
support. The schools are in close proximity, and because of social media, it
would have been fairly easy for them to communicate their intentions and elicit
support from their peers, but that
didn't happen. I was disappointed.
I knew that the current dilemma over funding
and administrative inconsistency was prevalent in the minds of many of the VSU
students, but I also knew that the funding issue was part of a larger political
effort to further disenfranchise Black youths, who, in the eyes of the public,
are unruly miscreants who really don't deserve to get assistance in raising
themselves above the poverty level. So,
because of my weekly contact with over 75 VSU students, I decided to ask them
about Martin Luther King Day, and what it meant to them. I expected them to at
least know about the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's, and to have some idea
about the marches and sit-ins which gave them many of the simple freedoms they
now enjoy. What I discovered was that they knew fairly nothing about the
movement, nor what it actually did for them. It was not presented as a part of
their history lessons in school, or in church, nor was it taught in their
homes. The only thing they knew about was King's "I Have a Dream"
speech, but not even when or why he made it, and that was only presented to
them during Black History Month in their schools. I was saddened.
Because
I am an English teacher with a passion for history and a keen interest in
African American studies, I launched into a history lesson that went back to
slavery and what it meant for and to us, and proceeded through reconstruction
and the Jim Crow era, into the Civil Rights Movement and finally into Black Lives Matter and what prompted
the current movement. I made it a multi-media presentation, by utilizing
websites to find pictures, videos, and recorded accounts to make it more
interesting for them. I did this "on the fly", since I had no idea
that morning that there would be a need for the lesson, but I'm always
flexible, and I could relate this to the autobiographies they were scheduled to
submit as part of their weekly assignment. I asked them what the people who
lived through each era could possibly include in their autobiographies. I was
reminded that, at the last Black Alumni Weekend, the first I had attended at
UVA, I learned that we were pioneers in many ways and we had no idea of our
impact on the students who followed us.
Many students were interested, or at least they pretended to be, but
some were convinced that I must have been fabricating some current issues. I
knew that I had to prove to them the realities of being Black in America.
Knowing that the journal reading/response for this week was "Literacy
Behind Bars", by Malcolm X, I knew I had opened a door for further
instruction, discussion, and learning. I
was inspired.
In
order to refine my presentations, I have access to the thoughts, opinions, and
input of some more "seasoned", non-traditional students at the
community college, in my African American Literature class. I am depending on
their insight and experience to point me in the direction I need to go for the
latter half of the semester in my freshman writing classes... the half that
deals with critical thinking and writing. To get them started thinking, I
planted an idea. I asked them, as they walked through Southpark Mall, and
shopped in the only stores that many of
them have access to, to pay attention to the fact that there were
security people who follow Black people around as they shop... moving when they
move and stopping when they stop. A few of them had already noticed, but many
of those who hadn't, vowed to pay attention. The few who had noticed had also
noticed that there were white kids, in the mall, who were loud and disruptive,
and some who were even observed shoplifting, but no special attention was paid
to them. I asked them how they felt about it, and they were quick to recognize
that it didn't just happen at that mall, but also in the malls and stores close
to their homes. They talked about Black kids getting busted for doing nothing
more than staying in one place together for too long, and white kids just being
told to "move along". I explained to them that Black Lives Matter is
what that is all about... that Black people, especially young Black males, can
get busted, beaten, and even killed, and it didn't seem to matter to anyone...
until now. I'm on a mission! https://www.facebook.com/thomasine.b.hill/about