Photo by Zayda Cavazos
“Education is freedom!” declared Frederick Douglass.
“Amen!” said four resilient African- American women who shared powerful stories about their struggles to become educated during an event called “Experiences as Black Women in Education.”
Dr. Rachel Hastings, assistant professor of communications, and Ursula Morris Williams, MBA, SWC’s Facilities, Leasing and Events Coordinator, held two baskets and asked the audience to raise their right hand and throw negativity towards the baskets. It was a symbolic motion representing the letting go of skepticism, racism, preconceived notions, negative attitudes, generalizations, stereotypes and fear.
Hastings continued with a narrative by Mary Smith, a free African-American woman during the early 1800s who, like all other African-Americans, was banned from teaching.
“At the age of 16, Mary Smith began secretly teaching Africans how to read and write,” said Hastings. “By 1861, Smith began teaching under a very large tree, The Emancipation Tree.”
Today the Emancipation Tree stands at Hampton University, one of the first colleges for African-Americans.
Progress has been slow said Hastings.
“Blackdemographics.com tells us that 84 percent of African American women will graduate high school, 21 percent will receive a Bachelor’s degree and the average salary for black women is just above $33,000,” she said.
Zoniece Jones said success will come by changing one generation at a time, which fired her desire to teach.
“When I was a kid I did not play house,” she said. “I played teacher.”
Jones wanted to educate others, specifically at Lincoln High School. She made it clear that students at Lincoln had the worst reputation in San Diego County during the 1970s.
“I wanted the school with the most problems,” she said.
Jones mentioned that she wanted to work with students who were struggling in school in order to make a difference in their lives.
Jones did not get the position at Lincoln High, but she became the first African-American Training Administrator for a major bank in San Diego County and through her non-profit organization she has helped children and parents. She said the American education system is still failing minorities.
Growing up seeing white teachers was normal for Williams, she said. It was all she ever knew until an African-American woman walked into her classroom and broke that norm.
Ever since that day, Williams took an interest in her education and did not let racism put her down.
“I was a very good student,” said Williams. “I witnessed and experienced very horrible things as far as racism.”
Education was a struggle to obtain during Williams younger days, she starts to recall a scary experience she had.
During her middle school years, Williams participated in her first spelling bee, an all black competition. Arriving to the event was chaotic. As Williams and her classroom walked to the event, the Ku Klux Klan was rallying on that same path. Teachers hid along with their students behind muddy bushes.
“We could not be seen by them,” she said. “We stayed in the woods and hid.”
Williams said education requires teamwork by teachers, and parents.
“It takes a village to raise a child,” says the African proverb.
It takes a community to educate a student, regardless of race.
