Many black alumni demand change at Norfolk Collegiate
Former students say they experienced racism at private school
NORFOLK — Bailey Holmes Spencer remembers a history teacher telling her class the Holocaust was worse than slavery.
The comment upset Spencer, who is black. And when her parents and others met with the Norfolk Collegiate teacher, she defended the remarks and dismissed the idea that what she said was racist. Spencer said the teacher made a comment about how “she doesn’t see color.”
“My mom told her, ‘If you don’t see color, you don’t see my child, because she is a black girl,’” Spencer said.
The incident was one of many times Spencer said she felt uncomfortable as a black student at the predominantly white pre-Kthrough-12 private school in Wards Corner off Granby Street.
A 2016 graduate, Spencer could count the number of other black students in her grade on two hands. Among her white classmates was a boy she said had swastika and Confederate flag tattoos on his legs, his khaki shorts revealing “how he felt about me,” she said.
Spencer graduated this year from Spelman College, a historically black women’s college in Atlanta. Memories from high school resurfaced in the past few weeks as she watched civil rights protests against police brutality and systemic racism unfold across the United States.
And when she started talking with other black Norfolk Collegiate alums, Spencer said it was clear her experiences weren’t isolated. She and Ryan Russell, a friend and 2014 Collegiate alum, decided to write an open letter to the school’s leaders demanding changes.
“It’s one thing to have black students on campus, but it’s another thing for them to feel like they belong,” Spencer said.
Similar conversations are happening at other private schools around Hampton Roads and the country. Black alumni of Nansemond-Suffolk Academy have called on that school to acknowledge its racist origins as an all-white school created by parents who didn’t want their children to attend desegregated schools, The Suffolk News-Herald has reported.
At Norfolk Collegiate, more than 60 former and current students signed Spencer and Russell’s letter, which asked the school to prioritize hiring more black teachers and administrators, offer courses on African and black history and require programs in which students explore racial identity issues. A few days later, more than 100 non-black alumni signed a letter of solidarity echoing their demands.
“To truly cultivate the future leaders of tomorrow, it is imperative the Norfolk Collegiate Community acknowledges racism, and we must be intentional to support black students,” Spencer and Russell wrote. “If Norfolk Collegiate is truly committed to embracing our differences and strives to show empathy for victims of a racist society, then more action is necessary.”
A spokeswoman for the school said the letters had prompted “thoughtful reflection.”
“Since receiving these letters, the school leadership has been meeting with alumni, parents and community members to listen and learn about their experiences and to identify the way forward together,” Sara Steil wrote in an email. “From an educator’s perspective, these letters are what we hope all of our graduates aspire to be — alumni who stand together and engage in the important and challenging issues of their time.”
Through Steil, Norfolk Collegiate Headmaster Scott Kennedy declined an interview. Kennedy’s been at the school since 1996 and was named its head in 2008. Among the changes alumni want is a change to his title that doesn’t co-opt the language of slavery.
Russell said Kennedy’s title is a good example of the types of “microaggressions” — indirect or subtle acts of discrimination — he experienced at Collegiate. Intentionally or not, the school seemed designed for white students, with black students as an afterthought, he said.
Norfolk Collegiate was founded in 1948. Black students made up about 14% of the student body in 2017-18, according to enrollment demographics the private school reports to the federal government.
It’s a small school, with about 600 students spanning all grades.
Morgan Redd started at the school in kindergarten and remembers being the only black student in her grade until she got to sixth grade. From the time she was 5, Redd said she was conscious of how her race set her apart and was careful with what she said so that it wouldn’t be perceived as angry or combative. Classmates would touch her hair “all the time” and she often felt like she was expected to answer for and represent “the black voice.”
“We knew we had to work harder and be better from an early age,” she said.
When Redd graduated in 2006, her class was believed to be the most diverse in the school’s history. That was after intentional efforts by the school to increase diversity. The proportion of black students in her class was about three times higher than in private schools nationwide that year.
But she said they still experienced frequent racism.
Redd remembers getting in trouble for wearing a T-shirt protesting George W. Bush during his 2004 presidential reelection campaign. The same day, a white classmate wore a button-down shirt with the Confederate flag on it but wasn’t disciplined, Redd said.
“It was just constant,” she said. “Our feelings were not considered.”
Another classmate used the N-word in a joke about lynching, said Brittany Jewel McPherson, a friend of Redd’s from the same graduating class. Students seemed to say things like that with impunity, McPherson said, leaving her feeling gaslighted. It wasn’t until her mid-20s that she said she realized how inappropriate some of her experiences had been.
“At prom, a guy told me I was so pretty because I almost looked white,” she said.
“You get so fatigued (pushing back),” McPherson added. “You just accept it.”
Redd and McPherson said they raised concerns about their experiences back when they were students and were disheartened to hear how similar Spencer and Russell’s time at Collegiate was more than a decade later. Redd and McPherson founded the school’s Diversity Fund, meant to provide scholarships and support for black students, and had hoped for faster change.
All four said they were pushing the school to do better because they wanted more black students to have the types of opportunities Norfolk Collegiate offers in academics, athletics and extracurriculars. As hard as it was to fit in, Redd said she knew even as a teenager that the education she was getting at Norfolk Collegiate was valuable.
Spencer and Russell said the conversations they’ve had with Kennedy and other school leaders in the past weeks have been positive, but they’re also waiting to see the specific actions the school will take to make improvements.
“We have generations of black students saying they’ve experienced the same thing,” McPherson said. “And the lack of care to me in changing it shows me that it’s maybe not something you’re really invested in changing as much as you say you are.”
Sara Gregory, 757-469-7484, sara.gregory@ pilotonline.com