This February, students across the country celebrated Black History Month. They read books by black authors, wrote research papers on civil rights activists, memorized Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech and watched videos about the Underground Railroad. And as they learned about the struggle of the past, many began to recognize it in their own present – when a cashier squints suspiciously when they walk into a store, when they turn on the news and see another person who looks like them lose his life to senseless violence. These lessons are anything but history.
Growing up in Birmingham, I was reminded of this every day. Though Birmingham is the birthplace of the civil rights movement, it is a city tainted with racial disparities. And while the “whites only” signs of the 60s have come down, the reality of separate and unequal endures. Alongside glaring gaps in educational, employment and economic opportunity, people of color in my hometown and in our nation as a whole face a variety of subtler, no less damaging assumptions. A successful black lawyer hears whispers of affirmative action. A young black boy on a corner is seen as “lurking,” while his white peers “hang out.” A black college student in taking a class in Haley Center is asked to give “the black perspective” to a seminar full of white students who are never asked to speak on behalf of their entire race.
In the face of this, we have no time to waste. This school year marked the first in which the majority of public school students are minorities. Our generation has a responsibility to work to ensure that each and every one of them is moving through a system that affirms their identities, shows them they’re valued, and allows them access to the opportunities they have been denied for far too long.
When I first became a teacher, I knew I had to actively build trust and relationships with my students if we were going to be successful. To do this, I wanted to use my own story as a black male college graduate to motivate my kids to view their circumstances as current conditions, not foregone conclusions. I knew that the challenges they faced could sometimes seem insurmountable, so every day I worked hard to show them how education could help them create positive change in their lives.
As a Teach For America alum, through my work with LSU’s Black Male Leadership Initiative and Office of Diversity, I am dedicating my time to continuing the work that so many brave leaders began in my native city five decades ago. I know that we have a long way to go as a country before we truly achieve justice for all. To fix the systemic oppression that has created the gross inequality of the present will take the hard, dedicated work of countless leaders and change-makers. We must work toward these long-term changes as well as the immediate, urgent opportunities to change the way our students view themselves and their futures.
Teachers play a central role in this. Every day, we can remind our kids that their thoughts, ideas, identities and opinions are important. We can share our own stories so that when our kids look to the front of the room, they see a little bit of themselves reflected back. We can remind them that they matter, that they always have and that they always will.
Vincent Harris is a Birmingham native and a 2006 graduate of Auburn University. He is currently a doctoral candidate serving as the graduate coordinator for the Black Male Leadership Initiative at Louisiana State University.
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