Earlier this week the Select Seven had the joy of meeting with Ashley Johnson, an alumna of the MTC. For her placement in the program, she taught sciences at Greenwood Middle School. Ben invited her to speak with us for two reasons: (1) to understand Greenwood is to understand the Delta; and (2) Ms. Johnson is a fabulous speaker. Very down-to-earth.
For anyone who doesn’t know the history of Greenwood, and the nearby town called Money, where Emmet Till was mutilated and killed in 1955, I recommend reading up on it. I’m not going to reiterate it here.
One thing that I cannot get out of my mind is a phrase that Ms. Johnson used repeatedly: “my girls.” Thinking about it for a bit I noticed retrospectively that almost all of the teachers talk this way. The students are their students. They belong to them. But moreover, especially in Ms. Johnson’s way of speaking, the students are not merely students. They’re people, not products or customers. I got a sense that Ms. Johnson had a lot of love for the young teens that she served in Greenwood.
Part of her presentation was a little bit darker, because she was talking about where her girls came from, and what they were exposed to on their walk back home after school. She used to get so angry at the older guys who, after dropping out of school, would hang out on all the street corners near the middle school. They were 18 and 19 years old, and these young girls had to walk by them everyday. Violent rape is not as much of a concern as plain manipulation (so yet even that is called “statutory”).
But on a brighter note, she talked about how these young guys can be turned around if someone gives them something to do. She recalled an election where the people had to vote a second time because of some suspicious ballots in the first vote. The one candidate, who lost the first time, was a black woman, and the other candidate was accused of using names of dead people to win the vote. On the second vote, the leaders in the black community in Greenwood rallied together to get “those on the south side of the river” to show up for the vote. These boys on the street corner turned from ruffians into community activists, handing out flyers and escorting people to the voting precinct. All they needed was a little bit of direction, a purpose, and they suddenly had a different impact on the community.
More on that later. Time for work.
For anyone who doesn’t know the history of Greenwood, and the nearby town called Money, where Emmet Till was mutilated and killed in 1955, I recommend reading up on it. I’m not going to reiterate it here.
One thing that I cannot get out of my mind is a phrase that Ms. Johnson used repeatedly: “my girls.” Thinking about it for a bit I noticed retrospectively that almost all of the teachers talk this way. The students are their students. They belong to them. But moreover, especially in Ms. Johnson’s way of speaking, the students are not merely students. They’re people, not products or customers. I got a sense that Ms. Johnson had a lot of love for the young teens that she served in Greenwood.
Part of her presentation was a little bit darker, because she was talking about where her girls came from, and what they were exposed to on their walk back home after school. She used to get so angry at the older guys who, after dropping out of school, would hang out on all the street corners near the middle school. They were 18 and 19 years old, and these young girls had to walk by them everyday. Violent rape is not as much of a concern as plain manipulation (so yet even that is called “statutory”).
But on a brighter note, she talked about how these young guys can be turned around if someone gives them something to do. She recalled an election where the people had to vote a second time because of some suspicious ballots in the first vote. The one candidate, who lost the first time, was a black woman, and the other candidate was accused of using names of dead people to win the vote. On the second vote, the leaders in the black community in Greenwood rallied together to get “those on the south side of the river” to show up for the vote. These boys on the street corner turned from ruffians into community activists, handing out flyers and escorting people to the voting precinct. All they needed was a little bit of direction, a purpose, and they suddenly had a different impact on the community.
More on that later. Time for work.
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