Black Lives Matter at School - Year of Purpose: Student Activists Highlight the Power of Empathy and Loving Engagement
/Dear Sacajawea Community,
This month, the Sacajawea’s Parent Racial Equity Team celebrates Barbara Johns, a Black youth activist in the early 1950s, along with present-day student activists who continue her work to achieve racial equity and justice. This month’s guiding principle focuses on engaging others with the intent to learn about and connect with them, as well as practicing justice, liberation and peace in our interactions with others. We share the determination of Barbara Johns, Thandiwe Abdullah, Jerome Foster II, and Marley Dias with the intent to encourage our community’s continued engagement with Black Lives Matter at School Year of Purpose. Our goal is to empower parents and students to do the necessary work to achieve racial equity and justice.
Barbara Johns Powell (1935-1991) ~ I walked out of school this morning and carried four hundred and fifty students with me.
Barbara Johns’ story is not well known, but it should be. In 1950, she was 15 and a student at Robert R. Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia. Barbara grew increasingly frustrated with the sub-standard conditions at her school. She was well aware that Farmville High, the all-White school in her hometown, had modern-day heating, state-of-the art classroom facilities, a cafeteria, and an auditorium with sound equipment.
Moton High, on the contrary, was a small brick building hemmed in by temporary classroom structures made of wood and paper coated in tar. Students often referred to the ad-hoc buildings as chicken coops. Inadequate construction led to rain-seeping ceilings and cold conditions during the school year. Barbara discussed her concerns with her favorite teacher who rather than offering a solution, asked her a question: “Why don’t you do something about it?” she asked.
Although Barbara felt frustrated and let down by her teacher’s response, she kept thinking about the conditions of her school and her teacher’s response to the unfair conditions. She also reflected on the everyday racial discrimination she experienced. She resolved to do something about her school.
In 1951, Barbara gave a speech that fellow classmates described as “electrifying” and inspiring.” She led 450 classmates on a two-week strike that resulted in becoming one of the five cases in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education lawsuit argued in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Twenty-first Century Black Student Activists
Thandiwe Abdullah ~ I want to transform the systems that we live under from ones that oppress us to ones that empower us.
@BLMLAYOUTH on Twitter
Thandiwe Abdullah founded the Black Lives Matter Los Angeles Youth Vanguard, an advocacy group of kids that fights for justice for black youth. Thandiwe also helped to create the Black Lives Matter in Schools program, which was adopted by the National Education Association. She spoke in front of more than 40,000 people at the March for Our Lives and later at the National School Walkout, to remind crowds about the near-constant loss of Black lives to guns and how Black people are targeted for searches in a way that white people are not. After joining forces with the student advocacy group Students Deserve, she succeeded in ending random searches in 28 schools around L.A.
Jerome Foster II ~ Change starts in the streets and ends at the polls.
@OneMillionOfUs on Twitter
Jerome Foster II organizes and strikes with Fridays for Future to demand legal action on climate change. Jerome also founded OneMillionofUs, an organization dedicated to getting out the youth vote. He argues that his multiple projects to combat climate change are not due to his passion about the subject, but due to his fear for our future, and that we need to change our behavior at home and advocate for sweeping legislative change.
Marley Dias ~ …We can become optimistic – in a realistic way – if only we knew that there really are people out here fighting, trying to change the world.
@iammarleydias on Twitter
Marley Dias started the #1000BlackGirlBooks campaign to make stories with strong, Black, female leads available to students all over the world. Marley also wrote her own book, Marley Gets It Done: And So Can You!, encouraging kids to pursue their passion and use it to make the world a better place.
“Frustration is fuel that can lead to the development of an innovative and useful idea.”
We encourage you to learn more about Barbara Johns and the student activists discussed in this newsletter. Young people are sparking political, environmental, economic, and social change by finding their voices, speaking their truths to those in power, and devising solutions to problems they didn’t create. Like Barbara Johns’ teacher asked her when she complained about inequality and injustice, these children responded with action to the question, “What are YOU going to DO about it?”
What ignites your passion and what steps can you take to initiate action?
Write a letter or call an elected official’s office, march in protest, gather petition signatures, post educated opinions on social media, or join an organization that supports furthering your cause.
What can you do and how can you learn more?
If you have 3 minutes, read Thandiwe Abdullah’s op-ed in Bustle, “What a Black Lives Matter Teen Activist Says #NeverAgain is Missing from the Gun Debate.”
If you have 4 minutes, read this article on Jerome Foster II: “This 16-Year Old is Taking the School Climate Strike to the U.S. Capitol” in Yes!
If you have 5 minutes, read “‘They just wanted us to read about a white boy and his dog’: Why Teenager Marley Dias Fought Back” in The Guardian.
If you have 7 minutes, read “Overlooked No More: Barbara Johns, Who Defied Segregation in Schools,” in New York Times.
If you have 12 minutes, watch this segment from “The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow” on PBS Learning Media: Barbara Johns of Farmville, Virginia
If you have 15 minutes, watch this conversation with Thandiwe Abdullah about youth activism and BLM: Patrisse Cullors and Thandiwe Abdullah on Bing Daily Digest
Check out these books focused on loving engagement, empathy, and student activism:
The Girl from the Tarpaper School: Barbara Rose Johns and the Advent of the Civil Rights Movement by Teri Kanefield (Ages 10-14 yrs)
Generation Brave: The Gen Z Kids Who Are Changing the World by Kate Alexander (Ages 10-15 yrs)
My Brother Martin: A Sister Remembers Growing Up with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by Christine King Farris (Ages 6-11 yrs)
March On! The Day My Brother Martin Changed the World by Christine King Farris (Ages 8-11 yrs)
I Am Human: A Book of Empathy by Susan Verde (Ages 4-8 yrs)
A is for Activist by Innosanto Nagara (Ages 3-7 yrs)
All the Colors We Are (Todos Los Colores de Nuestra Piel) by Katie Kissinger (Ages 3-6 yrs)
Can You Say Peace by Karen Katz (Ages 4-7 yrs)
The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson and E. B. Lewis (Ages 5-8 yrs)
With gratitude,
Sacajawea’s Parent Racial Equity Team
Jennifer Sunami, Becky Beard, Dana Robinson Slote, Robin King, John Delfeld, Karla Sclater, Sophie-Shifra Gold, Lori Phipps, Jenna Buzzard, Ara Swanson
Article written by Becky Beard and John Delfeld