A Teacher’s Story: The Meaning of Transformative Compassion
by - Kokayi Nosakhere (@RoyalStarMastery)
Because of the national holiday celebrated in his name, millions associate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as the undisputed symbol of the Civil Rights Movement. The “I Have a Dream” speech is a standard bearer. He is a shining example that human ideals are not meant to remain abstract ideas on paper. You and I have the capacity to learn about a social ill and organize our communities for change. In this way, he is extremely inspirational. Historian, Vincent Harding, calls Dr. King, the United States’ national hero.
Part of the reason Dr. King is inspirational is because his story fits the frame of “American exceptionalism.” Under our Constitution, the individual is supreme. By sheer force of will, a skillful personality can make something happen that previous generations could not. The barrier is not is not the community or society. The barrier is all within. If the individual is able to withstand the resistance to their ideas, eventually, a breakthrough happens. Whereas before, society fought them, society will celebrate them.
That is the promise of America. Success is not limited to one’s race, gender, sexual orientation or class. Anyone can make a meaningful contribution to change.
Instead, for the purposes of general instruction, she becomes a personality who simply refuses to give up her seat. In doing so, she triggered a chain of events, which were outside of her control. Her arrest was the result of social programming. The bus driver was programmed, the police officers were programmed and those who operated the court system were programmed. They were not evil. They were just individuals doing their job. No racial element is in effect.
The culture of individualism permits us, as “exceptional Americans”, to relate to this scenario. It is universal. We can all draw inspiration from this nonviolent act of rebellion. The rules were identified as unjust, challenged and eventually transformed without anyone being canceled, or vilified to the point of dehumanization. The lesson of Rosa Parks is taught as an ideal pathway towards greater humanity.
Some Black historians - myself included - argue the Montgomery Bus Boycott is not the start of the Civil Rights Movement. Instead, we argue the Movement started on May 17, 1954 when Thurgood Marshall successfully convinced nine European Americans on the United States Supreme Court to recognize the humanity of a little Black girl named Linda Brown. It was this decision, Brown vs Board of Education (in Topeka, Kansas) which desegregated the experience of childhood inside the United States.
Such an origin story is much harder to make universal. It assigns clear roles for each individual involved based on “race.” Instead of an authority-based injustice - which is an universal experience - the question of racial identity is at the center of the scenario. Without the element of race, there is no injustice being done to little Linda Brown.
For European American students, who easily and effortlessly attend school nowadays surrounded by a diversity of skin tones and cultures, the reaction to the May 17, 1954 decision is much harder to relate to. It is naked white supremacy. The newspaper articles, pictures and television broadcasts clearly show what American historians label as: Massive Resistance.
What is “massive resistance?” It is the name given to “White America’s” backlash from the force of law being collectively used against them. In 2024, it hurts - meaning it creates tension inside of the nervous system - for European American children to see the “condition” those who look like them were in while the Civil Rights Movement happened. Teachers across the nation struggle to answer the question of why “white people” felt so insecure they violently protested the simple act of “white” child going to the same school as a “Negro” child. Few students in 2024 have any lived experience of this insecurity the news reels they are shown demonstrate.
As a historian born into Gen X, I do not share this experience. I personally grew up hearing the initimate stories of my parents telling me their courageous experiences of being the “Negro” children who integrated European American schools. They were on the front lines. The risks that Dr. King took, my parents, and all their friends, also took.
Unfortunately, risk is not a universal element of a story. Risk creates division. For there to be risk, one side is putting up so much resistance to change that there is a risk of violence. When I think of the Civil Rights Movement, instead of tension in my body, I swell with pride. I hear the theme music from the award-winning PBS documentary, Eyes on the Prize: “The one thing we did right / was the day we started to fight / Keep your eyes on the prize / Hold on! Hold on!” Yes, there was a need to fight and my parents chose to be courageous enough and fight.
Seeking to help make the Civil Rights Movement as easy for modern students to relate to as possible, many school districts adopt November 14 as an unofficial “national holiday.” Why? It is a bridge moment. (Pun intended) On that day, children and educators celebrate the friendship created between an European American teacher named Barbara Henry and a six year old Black child named Ruby Bridges. This miracle occurred in 1960 New Orleans. It is a perfect metaphor, because this is the first time such a friendship could happen in American history.
For those born under integration, that last sentence just does not land right. It sounds impossible that in all the history of North American colonization, genocide and enslavement “friendships” were not possible between “white” and “Black” people. That is not what I said. That may be how it felt, however, that is not what I said.
From what my parents and Elders tell me, it has always felt this way - the way you and I feel right now, emotionally - between “white” and “Black” people. Meaning, individual personalities are able to achieve warmth; laughter; bonding; a shared lived experience. Hollywood re-enactments of race relations throughout much of United States history present hard lines which never existed - just like they are difficult to find in our classrooms now.
Human beings are elastic. Even in the most horrific of circumstances, the light of love shines through. This means that many European Americans intellectually and emotionally disagreed with segregation - yet felt impotent to protect themselves from the social tactics which prevented them from rebelling against segregation. They could not make themselves an exception to the rule.
The Brown vs Board of Education Supreme Court decision provided a European American woman, like Barbara Henry, the protective legal shield her individual personality needed to challenge segregation.
Was she still taking a risk? Yes, she was. Yes, the emotional charge around race remained. Yes, Henry still had to bear witness to her neighbors protesting the fall of segregation. But, those neighbors could no longer physically assault Barbara Henry or get her financially canceled. Thanks to the Supreme Court decision, she could fight back and sue the district. She could compartmentalize the personal risk she was taking.
From what I observe, for many European Americans, it is this financial element which prevents the majority of them from demonstrating the courage admired in six year old Ruby Bridges, who does not possess the same social, political or economic security. Remember, this is 1960 and European Americans in Louisiana actively practiced lynching. The Bridges family were not putting their economic security on the line, they were putting their lives on the line. Why? Throughout United States history, the only way to inspire European Americans to look at the injustice flowing off their individual hands is to risk their anger turning into violence towards your Black body.
National and local public policy is abstract. It is an intellectual exercise. It is debatable. Thanks to the frame of individualism, when it comes to bias, or prejudice, the line that cannot be crossed is called violence. It is one thing to “think” something about another person, it is quite another thing to practice oppression by preventing them from accessing resources by engaging in violence. Acts of violence cannot be compartmentalized, or dismissed, by the individual personality.
So, the protests against a helpless six year old little girl were necessary to teach European Americans living in 1960 New Orleans that fundamental behavioral change from them was needed, not just intellectual disagreement with segregation.
Born on September 8, 1954, Ruby Bridges became the exceptional personality of her generation. She literally is a trailblazer. The European American parents removed their children from the classroom, rather than comply with the Supreme Court decision.
It is here that the experiences of Black historians reach a limitation in what we can communicate. None of us have ever lived in a white body under segregation or integration.
Unlike Barbara Henry, we Black historians did not grow up with the concept that the federal government invaded our State with the intention of forcibly taking what is rightfully ours away from us. Black historians do not have to reconcile that their family members attended a lynching and, worse, participated in a lynching. Black historians do not have to reconcile that they were raised to respect segregation laws, which treat Black citizens as less than human.
Barbara Henry is also an exceptional personality. She took the risk of teaching the bravest six year old student she would ever have. Henry did what every other teacher in her school building told themselves they could not do. While surrounded by white supremacists, who were actively demonstrating their hatred towards a defenseless little Black girl being in the same building as them, Barbara Henry broke free of her social programming. I have no idea what internal practices Ms. Henry employed to demonstrate such courage. However, she needs to be studied, so she inspires the current generation of European American students to internalize the same level of courage.
Can you imagine what it felt like to be Ruby Bridges? My parents can. I can.
Now, we invite you to imagine what it felt like to be Barbara Henry.
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