DE LA COMUNIDAD DE MADRID Capítulo

In this section, I offer the lived stories of principals Bill O’Neal, Mia Stanfield, Sophia Thompson, and Lesley Kirkpatrick, stories that show something of the personal viewpoints in the historical context of race in this country. My African American participants readily shared with me their understanding of the historical black experience in the United States. My participants provide four historical contexts—the lack of access to a school culture, the link to slavery, the lack of academic knowledge of African history, and the position of natural survivors—that

influence their perspectives as school leaders. In analyzing the import of these four historical contexts, I group them into three significant categories: (1) the unequal access to educational opportunities, (2) the history of blacks at the forefront of their philosophy, and (3) the historical black experience culminating in survivorship.

Dr. O’Neal tells the story about his experience in high school and being the only black student in his advanced placement (AP) classes. Such experiences was the first instance where Dr. O’Neal recognized the existence of a culture he had not been purview to. He shares the following sentiment,

One of the reasons why I wasn't recommended for AP was ‘cause a lot of the stuff had to be computer generated. And so at the time I didn’t have a computer or access to a computer. So I would have to write my stuff [and] give it to my mom to take to work and type it up for me. And so a lot of times my stuff was late. Because you have a deadline and then I would get points taken off. And so I had a lower [grade] than I should have. . . . And so it was obvious that there were . . . different experiences that the students in the class had. Yeah that was pretty obvious, like I was like, "Wow" . . . they knew a lot of stuff. You know their parents had taken them out of the country for breaks and their parents were the ones that were active in the PTA and they were always there. So I kind of recognized that . . . there was like a culture that I didn’t have access to [and] I learned that early on. I was like “Wow” this is kind of interesting.

In the above story, I recognize that Dr. O’Neal is mindful of the fact that as a AP student there was still “a lot of stuff” that he needed to know—some way of behavior, some different experiences, something taken for granted, for example—and that he “didn’t have access to.” Indeed, his high school experience of being the only black student in the AP course had significantly influenced his future desire to implement in his elementary school a program the school has never had before: a future program for the gifted.

On the other hand, Ms. Stanfield whose viewpoint of a strong awareness of the historical kinship in her family to slavery recognizes the impact of her interactions not only with her

immediate family but also with her leadership practices. She offers something of that recognition of when she reveals the influence her family has had on her being a good person. Ms. Stanfield discusses how her mother’s influence on her becoming a good person is grounded in the nurturing provided to her mother by her great grandmother. She continues,

So my mother . . . her mother passed away when she was a baby . . . and so she was raised by her fraternal grandmother, who was an old, old, wise, wise woman. She's like a . . . god in our family. . . . And, she would always . . . I remember her being very serious and like she didn’t smile a lot. . . . We would go down to Alabama, to Princeville the home. Which is where everybody lived and she lived and then my uncles and cousins and where my mother grew up, in this farm, and [my great grandmother] is like a legend in our family . . . Her mother . . . was a slave. And her father's family had just come out of [slavery] . . . and so like, think how close that is. Right? . . . My kids don’t know, my son is starting to get it, but like how close that bondage is to where we are now. Like that's— it's amazing to me.

Here, I readily recognize Ms. Stanfield reflections on the history of black people in this country and the tangible closeness her family lineage has to slavery. This story demonstrates something both of Ms. Stanfield’s awareness of her family history in the historical context of race and the handing down of the lineage of being a good person. Indeed, Mia Stanfield’s family historical connection with enslavement lingers to influence Ms. Stanfield’s character of being a “good person,” a personality feature passed generationally in her family.

Another principal who tells something of the influence of historical context to her school leadership practice is Dr. Thompson. Dr. Thompson reveals something of a critical moment she had in recognizing her own lack of knowledge about both black history in this country and African history. And she reminds me how this critical moment took place during a difficult personal time in her life. Dr. Thompson voluntarily shared with me that she took some time away from her leadership responsibilities in order to reorient herself. It was during that time away when Dr. Thompson began to center her work on African history, revealing to me that she,

needed some time alone with God to just figure out my life and my purpose. It was during that time that I began to do a lot of reading, writing, [and] consulting with some of the elders and the experts in this African centered work. And before really seeing how applicable and necessary it was for my students, I learned how important it was for me . . . just learning the African history that had been denied me for my entire life, realizing that there was life before slavery, for people of color, [and that] we were kings and queens. And we were brilliant and those pyramids that we saw in all those books all those years ago, we did that.

You know, learning the math in having to divide the Nile River so that after it would flood and the water would subside, the people would know what their land was, that’s geometry. We’re mathematicians. We are brilliant, beautiful people, and strong people that have a story that needs to be told to our children so that if maybe, just maybe, they hear these stories they will now see themselves differently, and despite their local and immediate surroundings, they will see the hope and potential in themselves to know that they can be great and that they can achieve wonderful things. That must be at the center of everything I do when I get back. It must be in the center of everything that I do, say, and who I am as a woman of color. So when I came back to the school, I came back different again. It was another transformational experience for me . . .

Dr. Thompson takes us through her own journey of self-discovery of the rich history of her African ancestry. Indeed, such recognition of historical context seems to have rejuvenated not only her spirit but also her hope that transferring such knowledge will positively effect her students learning. Dr. Thompson’s journey of self-discovery, of rejuvenation and hope, reminds me of a similar finding argued by minister Malcolm X over five decades ago, when he gave a speech at Michigan State University on January 23, 1963, about what blacks in America do not know about their African history:

[The black man] doesn’t realize that there were civilizations and cultures on the African continent . . . He doesn’t realize that he was living in palaces on the African continent. . . . He doesn’t realize that he was living in a civilization in Africa where science had been so far advanced, especially even the astronomical sciences, to a point where Africans could plot the course of the stars in the universe. . . . He knows nothing about that. He knows nothing about the ancient Egyptian civilization on the African continent. Or the ancient Carthaginian civilization on the African continent. Or the ancient civilizations of Mali on the African continent. Civilizations that were highly developed and produced scientists . . . He doesn’t know this, because he hasn’t been taught. (1989, pp. 37-38)

Though separated by over five decades, both minister Malcolm X and Dr. Thompson bring to our attention with similar force the black America’s lack of acquaintance with black history. Indeed, Dr. Thompson talks about her own lack of exposure to the rich history of African lineage and uses that “lack of exposure” as motivation to find out what exposing her students to such linage can have on their learning and being. No doubt, after listening and becoming somewhat familiar with Dr. Thompson’s recent leadership goals to inculcate more African centered practices, I am left with the idea of not only holding on to research minister Malcolm X’s ideas above but also coming back in a few years to discuss with Dr. Thompson how her work with her student has fared.

Lastly, I offer Dr. Kirkpatrick and her interpretation of the historical context of black, Latina/o, and Native American lives in our country. During our interview, Dr. Kirkpatrick shares something of her belief that people of color in the face of educational inequities and negative stereotypes have shown themselves to be survivors. She reflects on her own understanding of the historical context of people of color in this country:

Public education is the only equalizer for children. It's the only one. Right? People don't support the libraries enough; that's the second equalizer. And if you take away both of those from brown children then there is no hope. And we are by nature survivors. So we are going to do what it takes to survive, come one way or the other? . . . We are going to survive because that's just who we are. In general, I think as a people . . . I think that as brown people—and I am talking about my Latino children, my Native American children, my African American children, all my brown and caramel children who've gone through, I am going to say we cause I am included in that class. We've gone through so much that in order for us to be successful, we've had to overcome great adversity. And in overcoming that adversity, we are going to survive. Period.

Dr. Kirkpatrick reveals through her own way the recognition of the historical struggle faced and overcome by people of color in this country. For Dr. Kirkpatrick, the boundaries between the

struggles encountered by her students and shared by herself are undistinguishable. As I’ve come to recognize, the inclusion of herself as a member of the we and of the survivor group certainly provides a genuine reference to the way she engages her impartiality in her leadership practice.