I was recently sent a request for information regarding my attitude about some ticklish issues facing the Duluth Schools. I relished a chance to review my record. They are questions submitted by theClayton Jackson McGhie Memorial Committee.
How will you in your position as a School Board member champion issues of racial justice?
Champion is too grandiose a word for what I will do as a returning school board member. I will be constantly mindful that race is an issue and that despite significant improvements we still foolishly judge people by the color of their skin.
What have you already done to encourage issues of racial justice (please cite at least one specific example)?
I have a long record of being a voice for racial justice and civil rights. This question prompted me to review my computer records and although the list is likely too long for you to post I will add some of the examples I found at the end of my answers in a long post script.
This interest on my part began when as a second grader in a Topeka, Kansas I witnessed a hundred black students being ushered into my newly integrated elementary school in the wake of Brown vs Topeka Board of Education. By sixth grade I was among 15 white children in a class of 31 a minority myself.
I’m a history teacher and no other slice of history has pulled me in like that of black Americans. I just made up a list of over 25 history books I’ve read from cover to cover on the subject.
I’m particularly drawn to the story of the Duluth lynching. One of its victims hailed from Topeka, Kansas. When the three bodies were found in an unmarked grave about fifteen years ago I piled my family in our car and we joined a long procession of cars to a marked grave where the remains were reinterred. A few years ago I was one of the voices in a UWS radio play reenacting the lynching for public radio.
I was a leader in the fight for a vote on the Duluth Red Plan and was vocal about the threat of the plan to the Duluth School’s desegregation efforts. As I predicted the new facilities have concentrated our minorities and I strongly suspect taken away resources from them.
Recently I attended a forum in West Duluth to discuss the aftermath of the Trayvon Martin murder.
How would you address embarrassingly low graduation rates among students of color as well as the reality that students of color are disciplined at a far higher rate than white students?
I will do it with passion and pray that the Red Plan’s damage has not been so irrevocable that our resources will be too puny to address the problem. With 50 children in a classroom racism along with bullying will get pushed to the periphery. I will find the resources to lower class sizes and let our teachers catch their breath to deal with these racial inequities.
How would you foster the hiring of more teachers of color, which has been indentified as a key strategy in closing the achievement gap?
As a school board member previously I hired Duluth’s first Hispanic School Superintendent. Three times I campaigned for a black school board member even at times putting my own campaign for a school board seat on the backburner.
I am not merely interested in hiring minority faces. I want excellent minority teachers. That will be a hard sell because Duluth is a city that has, since the lynching in the 1920’s, been hostile to minority residents.
As a school board member I will press administration to be 1. creative in luring minority teachers into our system. 2. Vigilant about helping minority teachers succeed in a challenging system so that we can retain them for long and successful careers.
These are some of the books I’ve read with a minority theme or emphasis
Children’s Literature
War Comes to Willie Freeman
Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry
Fiction
Confessions of Nat Turner Wm. Styron fictional account of the 1830’s Nat Turner Rebellion
Nigger of the Narcissus Joseph Conrad
Cry the Beloved Country Alan Patton fiction South Africa’s Apartheid system
Huckleberry Finns Mark Twain
Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe Fictional account of British impact on West Africa by a Nigerian author
To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
Non Fiction
A Choice of Weapons Gordon Parks autobiography
36 Children Herman Kohl An account of teaching children in Harlem
Autobiography of Malcom X Alex Haley
Path to Power Robert Caro
From Harlem to the Rhine Arhur Little An account about most decorated American Division in WW I
Parting the Waters Taylor Branch
Surrender or Starve Robert D Kaplan About War in Ethiopia
The African Slave Trade Basil Davidson
The Learning Gap Stigler & Stevensen about the gap in learning between rich and poor)
King Leopold’s Ghost A. Hochshil About Belgium’s depredations in the Congo
The Lynching in Duluth Michael Fedo (a rereading of what was first titled “They was Just Niggers”)
A Short History of Reconstruction Eric Foner (America’s preeminent historian on the subject)
Frederick Douglass William S. McFeely
Confederates in the Attic Tony Horowitz
Ulysses S. Grant Soldier & President Geoffrey Perret
(I’ve not included half a dozen other books about Lincoln which all touch on racism, slavery and the black experience)
The River Congo Peter Forbath
Lincoln at Cooper Union Harold Holzer about Lincoln’s speech concerning the intentions of the founding fathers regarding slavery that propelled him to the 1860 Republican nomination for President
Master of the Senate Robert Caro
Lyndon Johnson The Passage of Power Robert Caro
Thaddeus Stevens 19th Centur Egalitarian Hans L Trefousse
The Warmth of Other Suns Isabel Wilkerson
Writings – I’ve contributed a number of columns over the past that have touched on racial history and justice. These are some of them.
http://www.snowbizz.com/Diogenes/Not%20Eudora13/ColorCommentary.htmhttp://www.snowbizz.com/Diogenes/NotEudora02/herewerehanged.htm
http://www.snowbizz.com/Diogenes/NotEudora02/prisonhearts.htm
http://www.snowbizz.com/Diogenes/NotEudora02/methuselah.htm
http://www.snowbizz.com/Diogenes/NotEudora02/godmadeus.htm
http://www.snowbizz.com/Diogenes/NotEudora03/100spoons.htm
http://www.snowbizz.com/Diogenes/NotEudora04/mary.htm
http://www.snowbizz.com/Diogenes/NotEudora05/king4aday.htm
http://www.snowbizz.com/Diogenes/NotEudora05/bedru.htm
I have also touched on the subject with over 60 posts under the category of ‘Civil Rights”in my blog www:lincolndemocrat.com http://lincolndemocrat.com/?cat=46
Among other things I’ve written on the subject collected in my website www.snowbizz.com are:
http://www.snowbizz.com/History%26Me/mrross’sclass.htm about the year I was a minority white student and this page about my Grandfather who served as an officer during World War 1 commanding black soldiers from Harlem:http://www.snowbizz.com/HWRepublican/George_Robb/georgerobb.htm including this page about a black soldier who did not get the recognition he deserved http://www.snowbizz.com/HWRepublican/HenryJohnson/battlehenryjohnson.htm
I especially harped on the subject of desegregation early in the Red Planning process when even the Duluth News Tribune seemed worried about its consequences http://www.letduluthvote.com/desegregation.htm
I can’t find an online copy of my op ed piece published by the Tribune on how the red Plan would segregate Duluth’s schools but ample evidence of that concern can be found on one of my old websites: https://www.google.com/search?q=www.letduluthvote.com+desegregation&oq=www.letduluthvote.com+desegregation&aqs=chrome..69i57.7687j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
