Harriet Tubman, Hopelessness and The Heart of a Child

I'm not proud of it. In fact, I'm out right ashamed.

In college, I wrote a paper advocating for the abolition of Black History Month.

Before you gather the mob and pitchforks, hear me out.

The case I was making was not that we shouldn't teach or learn about the history of black culture and contributions in America, but that we shouldn't relegate those teachings to a single month or a single chapter.

Talk about Benjamin Banneker in the math and science books alongside Rene Descartes in math and science lessons.

Talk about Ida B Wells alongside Susan B Anthony in social studies lessons.

Talk about Langston Hughes alongside E E Cummings when we study English and Language Arts.

But as well meaning as it was, this call to action was short sighted.

It assumed a base of knowledge about and respect for these Black figures that simply does not exist across walks of life in America. So, too, did it assume that everyone understood the link between that time, those people and just how much work we have in to go on the road to equality.

Harriet Tubman

In 2010 when I was a teacher's assistant in a small Nebraska town (population 935) where I was the lone Black resident. So small was this town that the elementary, middle and high school students all learned in the same building.

I was 2 years out of undergrad, having studied journalism and sociology, and really thought I knew exactly how to solve every cultural issue this country faced. So yeah, I was pretty obnoxious, pointing out flaws in every ideology besides those I held myself and believing wholeheartedly that I was generally the most culturally enlightened person in the room.

When February came, I braced myself for what I was certain would be a rehashing of the same old Black History lessons that have been taught for decades about the same few people who most already knew about.

As it turned out, that would have been a blessing.

February came and there was no mention of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. No lesson on George Washington Carver and his peanut. Hell, we didn't even pull up YouTube and play the I Have a Dream Speech for the students.

Not wanting to jump to conclusions, I had waited with hope every day that February on the way to work, hoping that *this* would be the day they announced the Black History Month lesson. 

And when that day never came, I was filled with a profound sadness and an unshakable understanding of how wrong... how naive I had been to imagine that these lessons were or could ever be so common, so cliche even, that they wouldn't warrant a deliberate and uncompromising effort in teaching them. Simply put, We had not come far enough to leave it to chance that these stories would get told.  

Hopelessness

So I marched into Mr. K, the Superintendent's office and demanded answers. 

Why isn't this a priority?

Why am I the only one who cares about this?

How does it serve these children to leave out such important and transformative figures and events in the history of this country?

He sat back in his chair, pausing for a moment, his fingers tip to tip in the shape of a triangle pressed against his bottom lip. He looked me directly in the eyes and with a shrug he said "Welcome to Nebraska."

He went on to tell me how this is just the way things had always been done, and how there wasn't room in the already robust curriculum for these types of special projects.

And that night, in the middle of a town, in the middle of a state in the middle of America

I cried. 

I cried at the thought of how many lessons and stories go untold.

I cried at the realization that the problem was so much bigger than me and this school in this town.

I cried at the fear of what might come next if I further rocked the boat.

These were angry tears, too.

Anger with myself for being so naive and not speaking up sooner.

Anger with every smug white dude I'd encountered in undergrad just a few towns away in Omaha who had spoken so dismissively about this history and these stories.

Anger at the system that enabled... that engineered that apathy and the hand that I'd played in it with my self-important, over intellectualized term paper about why we didn't even need the month anymore because we'd moved beyond that stage in our growth as a nation.

I wanted to quit. I mean I could not fathom returning to this place and these people that had so unambiguously sent the message that my history, my story and that of Black people in America, was not even worth one 45 minute social studies lesson.  

The Heart of a Child

One thought got me out of bed that next morning. It was the looks on the faces of the students in Mrs. Drey's third grade class. Those smiles which had greeted me so eagerly from the day I first arrived in this town. Mostly little girls who admired the way I dressed, my hair, makeup and who most of all seemed to love the care and time I took to help them learn things they had not known. What would happen to Elizabeth who had a mini book club with me, reading Becoming Naomi Leon and learning about women's rights in Uprising, a novel about the Triangle shirt factory tragedy? What about Marissa who shared my love of country music and had promised to sing me the song she'd written over the weekend, to which I still remember every note and lyric? 

What lessons might *they* learn for Ruby Bridges?

How might reading Ain't I A Woman open up their little hearts and minds to the wealth of strength and perseverance in these stories and how might they be better prepared to form meaningful relationships with people outside their tiny town if only someone was willing to teach them?

So I went into work early the next day and I sat with Mrs. Drey and I told her how I had waited and how I had cried. She cried too. She confessed that she had wanted to bring this up herself but had not had the courage. We hugged and shared and cried and hugged and shared some more.

And then we came up with a plan. "What about March?", I'd said. What if we celebrate women's history month and included at least 50% Black women in the lessons we taught?

What if we took control of the power we have as educators and the capacity for empathy that these children have and did something that in this town, had not been done?

What if we set aside fear and cynicism about what difference we could make and replaced it with determination and a bias for action in favor of good?

And so we did. And when little Elizabeth walked out of the library, clutching a book about Rosa Parks so closely to her chest, with that same look of sheer pride that she'd had on her face when she'd first read about the women's suffrage movement, the hopelessness that had left me tearful just days ago, had begun to turn ever so slowly into the the fierce resolve to act against injustice that characterizes my work today.  

That was the only year I spent with the children in that little old schoolhouse, but they are with me still, reminding me when I am losing hope, that change is possible and that this work is meaningful and worthwhile. It is necessary. 

So in this time when smiles for me have been few and far between, and when I'm daily confronted with sufficient reason to abandon the endeavor of teaching people what they I wish they already knew, I hold onto this lesson. 

A year later, it was February again, and I was helping my littlest boy Lennox prepare to dress as a tiny President Obama, his hero, for his school's Black History Month program I got a phone call. 

"Hey Nikki. It's Mr. K" a vaguely familiar voice spoke. "I just wanted to let you know that this year we'll be having our first Black History Month celebration at SS Elementary School. Look what you did!"

Look what we can do, when we commit to learning and doing...together.