On what would have normally been the last day of school, Freeman's Black Student Union and History and Human Rights Club organized a peaceful demonstration in support of Black Lives Matter. We had been planning this for weeks, so I was excited to finally see something tangible come from our efforts.
I arrived at Freeman an hour early to set up my 50 foot wide art installation on the front lawn. After all the necessary posts were in place, I prepared to spend at least the next hour in monotony, attaching sheet after sheet to what seemed like an endless array of wire-- but after a dozen students came to help, I realized I was mistaken.
As more students, staff, parents, and press steadily trickled in, the organizers passed out water bottles, buttons, leaflets, and signs. Technically ours was an unlawful assembly, but the crowd seemed confident in our safety. We also saw the principal a few yards off, which reassured some and unnerved others-- but he didn't seem to talk much except to the cameramen.
My conversation with some old friends and teachers abruptly ended as someone tapped the mic. Everyone began to gather closer to the steps. I scanned through my speech one last time before all the speakers were called up to the front. I had just been informed that I would be speaking last instead of third. This meant I would spend the longest time waiting, and the shortest time decompressing. But in the end, I feigned confidence long enough for me to believe I was ready.
Five other speakers went before me, and what they had to say was brilliant and resounding. So much so, I was almost angry. Couldn't they have toned it down a little so there would be lower expectations for me? Nevertheless, I spoke. I presented a six-point action plan, which essentially demanded that our principal change more than just the outdated Confederate nickname.
"How do we pull a 400-year-old dagger out of the heart of this nation?" I asked the crowd. "We can't."
I believe that the first step towards justice is admitting that there's no end-all solution in sight. I proposed that we consider my 6-point plan a band-aid-- the beginning of a remedy, not the end of it.
After my speech, the principal came up to me and said that he would call me on the following Monday to discuss my plan. It went very well, and I planned a Zoom meeting for the Thursday that followed. Once everyone logged on, students, teachers, and administrators discussed the six-point plan in detail. We talked about our experiences with race in a school named after Robert E. Lee's biographer. The meeting was a huge success. By the time it was over, my original 6 points had expanded into the 9 listed here.
We've made a lot of progress in these past few weeks, but the fight's hardly over. I don't think it will be in any of our lifetimes-- but we have to think further than that. We have to think about all of the children that might grow up in a world without Confederate glorification, a whitewashed curriculum, or a profit-based justice system. We owe it to them.
Because although we can't decide what the future will bring, we can decide what we bring to the future.
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