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Friend,
Jamiyah Brown and about 30 other Black students at Hillcrest High School in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, were excited about a Black History Month program they were planning last winter.
They wanted to use dance, song and the spoken word to present a timeline of Black history – from enslavement to the Jim Crow era to the civil rights movement of the 1960s to the present.
The program was to open with several performers portraying enslaved people in shackles and rags going about typical daily chores – washing clothing, cooking and picking cotton – while singing spirituals. An audio recording of shackles dropping to the ground was to signify freedom.
As the timeline moved into segregation, a “Colored Only” water fountain and enactment of Ruby Bridges’ integration of a Louisiana school were to have appeared on stage, followed by the March on Washington, narration of Martin Luther King’s credo of peaceful resistance and then his assassination.
The students were to reenact the Black Panther movement followed by a rap artist such as Tupac Shakur or Ice Cube talking about police brutality and poverty. The program was to end on a hopeful note, highlighting the founding of Black Greek-letter societies and ending with all the performers holding hands on stage as one strong unit.
School administrators nixed the plan.
The assistant principal told the students that the topic of slavery “made people uncomfortable” and that the Black Panthers section had “traumatized” her, according to Brown. Instead, she instructed the students to perform “happy songs” by Beyoncé and the Jackson 5, Brown said, quoting her.
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In solidarity,
Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center
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