What can we learn from children about the past as they forge our futures? Four girls from the Greenwood Mentoring Group’s female mentorship program talked about the problems they have faced in the past as young black women and their hopes for the future.
Emily McDaniel, Shariyah McCoy, Azodia Brown and Trinity Martin range in age from 10-15. McCoy, 12, is originally from Lewisville, Texas, and moved to Greenwood about seven years ago. Her main interest in Greenwood is her family history. Her grandfather, Charles McCoy serves on the Greenwood City Council. Shariyah said his connections as well as the presence of nine of her great-aunts and uncles that keeps her interested in her history. “The most important thing is knowing where I come from, where I started,” she explained. She said her links with Greenwood and Texas give her a diverse range of stories about her past to tell and explore.
McCoy, who now attends Greenwood Middle School, began her educational experience in Lewisville. She said in her first year of school, she experienced discrimination alongside the only other African-American student her grade. “Some of the activities … they would always put me with him or put us in our little corner, or have us sit in the back of the classroom where people couldn’t see us, like they didn’t want us to be seen in the classroom or photos or anything. It made me upset. I didn’t understand,” she said.
After she moved to Greenwood, McCoy said she began to understand that she was experiencing racism because, in Greenwood, she was able to have conversations and “be exposed to children like me.” Her experiences in schools in Lewisville give her a keen eye to inequality in education, also a topic the girls discussed.
McCoy said even in Greenwood, she sees discrimination in education. “White people … are sending their kids to private schools that are not even in town to separate them from us, even though they’re living in Greenwood,” she explained.
Martin, a sophomore enrolled in Pillow Academy, added some nuance to McCoy’s statement. “It’s true because a lot of parents are sending their children to private schools to separate them from African-Americans, and it’s really hindering because they haven’t been exposed to anything different. Most of them have grown up with each other, so they’ve known each other their whole lives,” she said.
At Pillow, Martin said she doesn’t really experience discrimination. McCoy and McDaniel provided a different point of view. “The students in Mississippi will bully each other for the way their hair looks, or their eye color,” McCoy said. McDaniel moved the experience to the grocery store. “I’ve realized other people will give you looks because of how you look, your shoes, lips, hairstyle,” she said.
Brown, 15, said the issue of judgment is a broader problem she sees in Greenwood and the U.S. at large. “There’s racism, and people – blacks and whites – still can’t communicate with each other, but it’s not right to judge anybody by the color of their skin,” she said.
The girls agreed that being in a community with people of different races would do a lot to help end discrimination because the community would naturally be more empathetic, but they also agreed that they didn’t understand why race is an issue to begin with. “One of the things I think they should stop doing is referring to neighborhoods as ‘black’ or ‘white’ neighborhoods. They should just call them neighborhoods,” Martin said.
When asked what they would like to learn during this Black History Month, the girls went back to the roots of America’s history. “Where and how did all this start?” McCoy asked. “I would just like to know why they started all of this? Just because we are a little bit darker than them, why did they start this?” McDaniel added. Martin echoed her friends’ sentiments, and Brown added another layer. “I wish I knew how people communicated with each other during times of segregation,” she said. She wanted to know how to bridge the gap created by racism.
The girls also agreed that they would like to see more education about African-Americans in history, from the mid-1600s all the way to the present. Martin referenced the fact that America was built by the labor of people of color. “It’s important to have black history month because everybody should know the struggle our ancestors went through. They paved the way for us, and we cannot be where we are without them. But, in the books in school, they don’t really teach about black history,” she explained.
One thing the four had differing opinions on, however, was what they would like to see in their futures.
McDaniel, the youngest of the group at 10, said she would like to see more diverse history taught month by month. For example, for students to be encouraged to learn about Hispanic heritage or Chinese heritage throughout a single month in the same way black history is highlighted in February.
McCoy said, “I want to see more than my kind of children. I want to see all different kinds of children in the school, and when I get older and am working in my field, I want to see all types of people. I want to be able to be familiar with them now.”
Brown repeated a sentiment familiar to Greenwood: “I would like to see a stop to the violence,” she said.
Martin echoed McCoy’s statement. “I want to see more of an incorporation of different races in the schools – like, not just a set race,” she said.
Their pride rests in their achievements and abilities to accomplish good things. Among the four of them, they have received academic awards and model citizenship awards. Brown said her life and story bring her pride, and she wants to continue to share those later as an educator. They said black history matters to them because it teaches them about where they came from, how far society has come in achieving equality and because it helps them to understand how they fit into the bigger picture.
Contact Katherine Parker at 662-581-7239 or kparker@gwcommonwealth.com.
