Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
‘Intense Conversations’
African-American shares her cultural experience
“Inspire 365: A Journey through the Black Experience” is a four-part African-American history seminar running at the Fayetteville Public Library for four consecutive Tuesdays starting at 5 p.m. on Jan. 10.
The program’s creator, Raven Cook, says she was around 7 years old when she started asking questions about African-American history. Before that, her insular upbringing inside a nearly all-black community in North Little Rock didn’t spur her curiosity on the subject.
“In second grade, we had a teacher who we overheard talking about a lynching that had happened the year before,” Cook remembers. “When she came back into the classroom, we asked her what ‘lynching’ meant. She was kind of startled — I mean, we were being nosy, we didn’t know what was going on — but she took some courage and decided to tell us. At that age, we lived in a bubble. We rarely saw white people in person. Black people had all of the businesses. They were the mayor, the police force, everything. We were really innocent of racism. My teacher decided to break our bubble and show us that the world outside was totally different.”
Cook says that, while some parents of her schoolmates protested this frank look at racism and the history of the black experience, her parents welcomed it.
“My parents had me start watching documentaries, like the ‘Ernest Green Story,’ and movies like ‘Glory’,” Cook says. “My parents always said, ‘You don’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been.’”
Cook says that understanding that racism lurked just outside her small, supportive community was a startling realization for a child of 7.
“It was really scary,” she remembers. “It kind of rocked us, realizing that it could still happen to us; that’s when the game kind of changed for all of us in my class. That’s when we started realizing that our skin color was a target, and people had died because of the color of their skin. Our teachers emphasized how important it was that we know that, and that we were responsible for being excellent for those who were no longer able to do it.”
The African-American history curriculum continued through her time at the small, church-affiliated private school that she attended. Students and faculty wrote and produced a play about the Little Rock Nine, the group of African-American students who were the first students of color to attend Central High School in Little Rock in 1957; all nine showed up to see the play. Cook and her classmates attended prominent NAACP leader Daisy Bates’ funeral in 1999. Martin Luther King III visited their class.
Cook went on to study AfricanAmerican history in high school and college, and she created the “Inspire 365” program when she was a Teach for America Rising Leaders fellow. January will mark the third time she’s presented the curriculum in Fayetteville.
“It’s a real privilege to facilitate here,” she says. “There aren’t many AfricanAmericans in our community, so most who attend aren’t black. It’s interesting to have those intense conversations and try to help bring about change.
“I’ve had families tell me that they started the program with one viewpoint of African-Americans and left with a total different one, and then went on to do even further research. I was just pleased that I could help them see the humanity of my culture through a different lens.
“We have to make sure we’re seeing people in their humanity and loving people for who they are, for just being them. I think that would be what I would like to see continue here in Northwest Arkansas.”
Cook notes that the most recent election cycle highlighted the racial divide in our country, making educational programs like “Inspire 365” particularly productive.
“I think we live in some very difficult times,” she says. “We’ve seen a lot of hate lately, a lot of darkness. This year, I’m presenting it with the understanding that people are ready to act, to do things to work toward the common good, to be active in changing whatever negative may come. My goal is to remind and inspire them that no matter what difficulty they find themselves in — financial, educational, political — they can stand up, because there are good people who have stood up and defied everything. Stood up bravely and changed the world.
“I’m excited, not scared.”