DEMANDING CHANGE
Memphis private school alumni want end to ‘culture of racism’ before class resumes
Black alumni of a private Christian school in Memphis confronted administrators over the summer, describing racism they experienced as students and a lack of action among school leaders to address it.
They are demanding that Evangelical Christian School make specific policy changes for the new school year, expected to begin later this month.
More than 700 have signed an online petition of demands, spurred by the stories of several Black alumni who described their experiences at the school: At the time of former President Barack Obama’s election, for example, a student walked into a classroom to see a skeleton with the president’s name hanging from a noose. Several others remember white students casually using the N-word. Students weren’t disciplined for racist behavior, they said, which meant Black students didn’t feel supported by teachers or their administrators. One former teacher called for the school to more urgently make changes.
Current and former students at schools across the country formed online communities to address cultures of racism at their schools as thousands took to the streets to protest for racial justice this summer. They are speaking out about environments that, at best, are generally not inclusive of Black students and, at worst, make them feel unsafe at school.
Former ECS students described having about 10 Black students for a graduating class of more than 100. The demographics were similar in the lower grades of the K-12 school, which had smaller class sizes.
The head of the Cordova private school has said he is listening to the concerns and is eager to implement changes to become more welcoming to students of color.
But after more than a dozen alumni met with him for an hour, many said they don’t feel heard or taken seriously. Instead, they left wondering if the majority-white faculty will meaningfully address the plight of Black students.
Alumni gather on social media
The reckoning, like many others this summer, began when former students shared their experiences on social media.
Kenya Morris, a Black student who attended the school from kindergarten through her high school graduation in 2011, detailed her experiences – hearing other students use the N-word around her or talking in class about bringing slavery back, as two examples.
Morris invited other students to share their experiences in the post, which she said was a call to action for the school to address issues its Black students faced.
The post received nearly 100 comments.
Kandace Walker wrote about the time, in 2008, when she walked into a classroom at ECS to see an anatomy project. Skeletons were dangling from the ceiling.
She noticed most were attached with a clear string, like fishing line. But one skeleton hung from a twine noose.
That one’s name tag read “Obama,” Walker wrote.
And that skeleton stayed up with the others for a couple of days, she said, until Walker told her father and her teacher about it.
Tensions between ECS’ Black students and its white students and teachers were high the year of Obama’s election.
The school responded, alumni said, by having meetings with students and with parents of Black students.
Walker described the response to The Commercial Appeal as “a slight apology, and then things were, you know, went back to whatever normal was at that time.”
Daisha Jiles, a 2016 graduate, said she felt culture shock from the first week she stepped into ECS.
In the eighth grade, she was called the N-word for the first time by a classmate.
That student, Jiles said, was not punished.
She said that having teachers allow that behavior affected the way she participated in class.
“They (teachers) wouldn’t intervene, they would just let things run their course. And so that made me, as a student, not want to talk in class. I didn’t want to share my opinion. I just wanted to stay quiet,” she said. “Because no teacher was going to stand up for me.”
Head of school meets with former students
Equipped with stories from former students like Walker and Jiles, alumni began demanding change from their alma mater.
The school should institute a zerotolerance policy for racism, the group said. Among other demands, the group has called for a public apology and increased diversity of faculty, staff and student body.
The head of the school, Braxton Brady, responded to the former students first in a June 10 email, which ECS shared with The Commercial Appeal in response to an inquiry for this story.
“The present-day events in our country have been heavy on my heart,” Brady wrote. “I have been particularly grieved to hear accounts of some ECS alumni who are people of color who endured hurtful treatment while they were students at ECS. Racism in any form stands in direct opposition to our Christ-centered, biblically directed educational mission.”
Brady, who first came to ECS two years ago, said the school, situated across two campuses in Memphis, was making progress. He wrote in the email that the school plans to appoint its first African American to its board of trustees. He said ECS would “continue its commitment to hiring more people of color” along with other steps.
He also agreed to meet with the group to talk about their experiences and what could be done to make the school a more welcoming place for students of color. The meeting, held later in June, lasted an hour.
During the meeting, Brady offered personal anecdotes. And though he was trying to make a connection, the former students who were present said Brady missed the mark.
A recording of the meeting was shared with The Commercial Appeal.
At one point on the recording, Brady can be heard talking about how he chose to live in the Binghampton neighborhood “intentionally” for a decade while
he was working at Presbyterian Day School in East Memphis.
He said he felt that his time there shaped his vision for what a Christian school like ECS should look like.
“It really shaped what I thought a Christian school should really look like. Because I would go and see many problems in Binghampton and I then would drive and see the exact same problems,” Brady said.
“I used to say all the time the dads at PDS were absent just like the dads were absent where I lived. The absent dads at PDS just were at the office all the time. The dads over here were absent because they were just absent. There’s really no difference. And so we raised up this generation of young men who have no clue what it meant to be a man or to follow Jesus, any of those things.”
In the end, Brady asked the group to not judge him for what the school had or hadn’t done by September, a month into the new school year, but to see what actions were taken over the next three to five years.
For alumni calling for change, being asked to wait again is not enough.
Especially, they say, when some of their demands – like a zero-tolerance policy for racism – could be implemented immediately.
Some say teachers are the key
Melissa Ammons, an ECS alum and former teacher at the school, said she has not seen enough urgency from the school in diversifying the faculty, having real conversations on race or amplifying the voices of students of color.
Ammons, who is white and has a biracial daughter who attended ECS, says there are some teachers who are stepping up to support minority students, but not many.
“I do think there are advocates and support there, but it’s not a majority,” Ammons said.
“I could easily right now list off five teachers who are advocating for change and calling for change. And again, that’s five out of how many? A lot. But those are five voices that weren’t there five years ago.”
As an example, Ammons said, she tried to have a conversation around 2016 about the Confederate flag and why it shouldn’t be flown on state property. She was met with resistance from her 10th graders, she said.
“Some of them were parroting what they hear at home,” she said of her students.
“So I know there’s a lot of families who aren’t going to go ‘Oh, I’m racist.’ Nobody would say that, but there is a covert sort of racism.”
More white teachers could do more to make the classroom inclusive, Ammons said, and Black students should also see themselves at the front of the classroom.
For Morris, who wrote the Facebook post, having a teacher who looked like her would have made her more comfortable expressing what she experienced. Instead, she remembers teachers fueling students’ dislike of Obama by saying he was Muslim.
Later in high school, she ended up doing her own reading on Black history and by people of color, voices she didn’t hear at ECS, she said.
As much as it would have meant to see a Black woman also in a teaching or administrative position, Walker, the student who saw the skeleton effigy, also hopes the school hires more Black men.
“The male presence in our community speaks so strongly,” she said, explaining the stigma around Black men is one of fear. Rarely, she pointed out, are they seen as strong and educated.
“I would have loved to see a Black man or Black teacher hear me.”
A hope for change to come quickly
Jiles, the 2016 graduate, would like ECS to make a public apology and enact a zero-tolerance policy for racist behavior.
“Not just so that the students who are there now see it,” Jiles said.
“But so that people who have been there and are traumatized from their experience there see that things are getting done and that this might be a place in the future where I want to send my kids.”
Betsy Weintraub, who spent 13 years at ECS as a student and graduated in 1999, said she supports those who are speaking out against racism and wants to amplify their voices by using her own. She believes it’s important for the community to see a white member of the “ECS family” standing in solidarity with students and alumni of color.
“Right now, the only reason I’m doing this is because I believe that the school can change. I believe that there are good people there,” Weintraub said.
“But they need some education and need some awareness. The head of school, when he met with those students, if he responded differently and they felt heard, I wouldn’t have felt the need to be so outspoken on this.”
Despite the racism Walker encountered at ECS, she is grateful for her experience there, she said. She grew up in Bartlett, went to school in Cordova and spent much of her free time in South Memphis, where her dad was a preacher. At the time, bridging those worlds meant she often felt in a world of her own.
“I feel like God is possibly using me to bridge that gap,” Walker said, reflecting on how she feels now, a decade after being in an ECS classroom.
“Not only between white and Black, but also for my own community, between our classes, between the educated and uneducated, between the poor and the ... rich or middle class, between the Black people that feel like they have been accepted by white people and the Black people that feel like they haven’t, between the two-parent homes and the single-parent homes,” she said.
Walker hopes the school can look inward and really seek to address issues at the core by the time it is expected to open in mid-august for the new school year, she said.
“I would like to see ECS look like heaven.”
Laura Testino covers education and children’s issues for The Commercial Appeal. Reach her at laura.testino@commercialappeal.com or 901-512-3763. Find her on Twitter: @Ldtestino.
Khari Thompson covers high school sports for The Commercial Appeal. Reach him at khari.thompson@commercialappeal.com.