Drained Pool Politics and Public Schools
The Fight to Integrate Central High Still Echoes 65 Years Later
Chris Hayes recently interviewed Minnijean Brown-Tickey on his podcast "Why is This Happening." Brown-Trickey was one of nine students to integrate Central High in Little Rock, Ark, in 1957. She and her eight Black classmates endured mob harassment, death threats, and relentless bullying from their White peers as a result of their decision to attend the formerly all-white high school.
Listening to Brown-Trickey speak, it is clear that the pain of that experience is still with her. This is unsurprising, of course, when you consider the immensity of the trauma she lived through as a young person. It is also a potent reminder that the fight for racial justice in education is neither resolved nor historical, as it is often portrayed.
Brown-Trickey's reflections on her experience contained many themes which echo today's conversations about racial justice in schools. One throughline that emerged for me was the value of educators and curricula that affirm Blackness. Brown-Trickey spoke of showing up to Central confident in herself as a beautiful, brilliant Black girl. She had no reason to believe otherwise. Her schools, family, and community had raised her with unwavering self-worth.
Today, 69 years after Brown v. Board of Education, we can see the immense harm of integrated schools that do not love Black children. Brown-Trickey spoke painfully about her experience of getting expelled from Central after she stood up against harassment and bullying. She said she was punished for being "irrepressible," a behavior she notes schools continue to punish Black girls for.
In many ways, the promise of school integration fell short in two major ways. Firstly, White people found a number of ways to avoid integration. They sent their kids to private schools, created new school districts, or created special programs within integrated districts and schools. Secondly, Black teachers were pushed out of education en masse. As a result, many Black students today still attend underfunded, racially segregated schools, but often without the benefit of teachers who recognize and celebrate their brilliance. Brown-Trickey's story and the present condition of racial segregation in schools challenge us to rethink the dominant narrative surrounding the impact of Brown v. Board.
Another theme from the conversation that I appreciated was Brown-Trickey's respect for young people as activists. She should know. She was just 15 years old when she made the decision to attend Central High School. She has also spent her life educating young people.
From the interview, it's clear she still treats young people with a great deal of respect. She shared one lesson about talking about race and racism with young people that particularly stood out to me. She tells Hayes, "I don't shame anyone. I ask them who would you want to be?" It's really that simple. We can talk about slavery. We can talk about the Civil Rights movement. We can talk about mass incarceration and White privilege.
Republicans like DeSantis want to silence these conversations, and they use concern for White children as a cover for this racist, authoritarian censorship. But these conversations don't have to be inherently shameful. Every person alive today has a choice. They can choose to be aggressors, bystanders, or upstanders. History helps make that choice clear. Brown-Trickey tells Hayes that she estimates her high school contained approximately 200 bullies, 20 upstanders, and 1,800 bystanders. When we confront history and think about how to apply it to our present, "Who would you want to be?" offers such a powerful path forward.
Another reason Brown-Trickey's story resonates is that it is very recent history. We often discuss the Civil Rights movement as ancient history. We see black-and-white images of sit-ins, marches, 6-year-old Ruby Bridges, etc. The cumulative effect of this storytelling approach is to present these events as long past so as to absolve White people who would otherwise be implicated in their fight against racial justice. The fact that Brown-Trickey is alive to tell her story is proof that this fight is still with us. Meanwhile, the Right is trying to ban books about events like the integration of Central High School. They're not just trying to erase established history. They are trying to censor events with great relevance to our present-day society.
Brown-Trickey calls this "profound intentional ignorance." She asks, "Is this what we want for our children? Why are we miseducating them, under-educating them, and what's the outcome of that?" She and Hayes land on one possible answer. As they close their conversation, they talk about Heather McGee's book The Sum of Us. They use the example of public pools, which White communities drained in the South, rather than integrate them. As we speak, the Right is trying to "drain the pool" of public education rather than allow them to reach their mission of serving all students. They are doing this by undermining confidence in public schools, diverting funding, and dismantling antibias and antiracist education.
With all this in mind, it would be easy to feel demoralized by Brown-Trickey's story. Almost 70 years later, have we made any progress? But that would be a mistake. Brown-Trickey's stubborn perseverance as a teen and for her whole life since is a reminder of what we are all capable of. We should all strive to be as "irrepressible" as Minnijean Brown-Trickey as we fight for a better world.
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