idroppedamixtape - Tumblr blog

idroppedamixtape · 4 years

Text

Greetings,

Mayor Battle, and members of council, I hope this message finds you all well. I am a citizen of Huntsville, Alabama and have been for all 38 years of my life. I was born and raised here, on the Northwest side of Huntsville. My family was one of the first black families to move onto the street that I grew up on in Northwest Huntsville. They still reside on that street today. If any of you are from here, or know a little bit of Huntsville’s history, you know that in the late 60's and continuing through the 70’s and early 80’s, white flight shifted the makeup of the neighborhoods that comprised the Northwest side of town. If you know a little bit about Huntsville you know that Johnson High School was built in 1972 as a racially integrated school. When it was erected, mostly white students attended, soon white families started moving out of their starter homes and left space for Black people to come into school buildings and into the surrounding neighborhoods. Our mere presence caused white families to relocate away from what they viewed as intolerable. They were fleeing the possibility and reality of living in the same neighborhoods as Black people and sending their children to school with Black students. Many of the white families moved down South Parkway, which was a known affluent area, with a mostly white population. They were said to have had the best schools. A history that they would ensure would be long standing. South Parkway, as I remember as a child, was an area in which we just didn't travel to. We never went past Airport Road. This lasted until I was old enough to drive myself past Airport. The families who migrated by choice sent their high school aged children to Grissom High School. Grissom’s attendance grew so quickly they had to continuously make additions to the school. Their community thrived.

I, myself, eventually attended Johnson in the late 90’s. By the time I was a student, the make up of the student body was predominantly Black. When I stepped foot on campus I had already heard rumors that lead me to believe that Joe Clark, a famous black educator often known for his unconventional methods of dealing with unruly students, would be greeting me at the door, bullhorn and bat in tow, but what I found on that campus and in those hallways was nothing that resembled the bad press and impeding doom that had been pushed onto me for much of my youth. I was met with sea of beautiful Black bodies and faces. Style, Brilliance, Music, Creativity, Humor, Love, and yes teenagers being teenagers. We had our issues, but that building, and that school was nothing the naysayers of the time said it was. Johnson High School was also nothing like the unfortunate experiences I had of shrinking myself or hiding because I was taught and believed that I was less than, as a young black girl that attended predominantly white private school. Attending Johnson was an opportunity, our teachers taught us, loved us, and looked out for us. All of them. Parents (even if they weren’t our own) supported us. My uncle volunteered often at the school, So did Mrs. McQuart, and Ms. Lee with her mean self. On any given day you would see Mr. Edwards walking briskly through that halls, you would hear Mrs. Logan telling us to enunciate and reminding us that anytime we responded to her yes would suffice. Mrs. Hines was our Nurse, Mr. Lang never denied us an education, even when we were rowdy. He would simply say "Ma'am...take a break" or bring us back to the center and refocus our energy by saying "My People". Dexter Willams saved all the beautiful black boys he could. Coach Burns dealt with our teenage girl attitudes and super smart mouths. Señora Cothron met us with kindness over and over again, despite the day she was having and regardless of what a student did or did not do. There was never a time in my life that she was unkind. Our security guard Larry asked me daily where my glasses were, even though at the time, I wouldn't be caught dead in them while also sporting braces on my teeth. Then there was Robert, I always saw him as more of a giant teddy bear then a huge intimidating security officer, but we heard him and listened even if we didn't always obey. Our community, our Black parents, our aunts, our uncles, the staff, the employees and anyone else who stepped foot in that building helped us deal with the systemic inequality we were met with at the time. They knew how important their role was. They all deserve unending recognition. Unfortunately, Even with all of their interventions, some didn't make it, but at no fault of their own. We were still children, fourteen year olds when we got there. We had a principal who remained in his plush office the majority of my time there. I can count on one hand how many times we saw him. I always assumed he had plenty to do with the way many of my classmates were punished deeply for childhood mistakes, some punished for proposed inadequacies of their parents, who were failed by the same system, and some who were the ones they chose to make an example out of. We were, even then, still living in a system that was not only created without us in mind, but a system that was also long standing. Bad press and rumors perpetuated the idea of removing the bad apples as an act of civil duty, when they should have just had the common sense to nurture the trees from the time they were seeds. Our class that started with 400 or more children ended with 133. J.O. Johnson High was not just a school. It was family. We never lacked love.

Long before I stepped foot on Cecil Fain, I attended a private school here in Huntsville, called Holy Family. Holy Family, at that time known as Saint Joseph’s Catholic School, was the first school to integrate in the reverse. They were the first school here to allow white children to attend a previously all black institution of learning. On September 3, 1963 twelve white students entered Saint Joseph's Catholic School, they were not met with hatred or opposition. They were welcomed with kindness. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the four Black children here in Huntsville who attempted to do the same at different schools. These children were met with locked doors because the Governor at the time, George Wallace, had ordered the closing of every school that was set for desegregation. The children tried again 3 days later and were turned away by State Troopers in helmets. It was September 9, 1963 before those children were allowed inside of their new schools. The same happened to Black children in many places, Little Rock, New Orleans, even the University of Alabama. Sonnie Hereford was one of those children who first integrated schools here. The same Sonnie Hereford who’s father, Sonnie Hereford III along with other parents filed a lawsuit against Huntsville City Schools, on behalf of Black school-aged children. It was not until 1970, seven years later, that there was an official order to end dual schooling in Huntsville, but that was not the end of it. Huntsville then, and historically since has continued to use zoning to ensure this separation. It is necessary to mention here that in 2014, a district judge ruled that Huntsville had not done enough to remedy racial disparities that were linked to dual schooling in this city, also worth mentioning that Huntsville City Schools still has the need for a Desegregation Advisory Committee and they publish reports every year continuing to highlight the discrepancies, inequalities and proof of a dual school system, although it seems to be overlooked.

By the time I attended Holy Family it was a predominantly white school. Sister Mary Anthony told a whole classroom of children that I peed myself when, in fact, it was just a carton of orange juice that had burst in my back pack...Sister Rosalie often threatened me with with a ruler, Mr. Burg's base level of operation was irate and disinterested and teachers like Ms. Wingenter, Mrs. Garrison, Ms.Bruton and Mrs.Daniels were the only reason I made it out of that place somewhat sane. By the time my children attended Holy Family, in an attempt to escape the experiences that Huntsville City Schools had provided us with, there were teachers on staff who were openly discriminatory and intolerant to my children. Knowing what they were in for, and after tolerating all that we could, which was far more than we should have, I removed my children. I knew what they were in for. The two teachers and the principal who exhibited this behavior towards us resigned at the end of that same year.

I know, you are probably wondering what this has to do with anything, what this has to do with any of you. Allow me to give some insight. It is an attempt to show you the humanity of the marginalized population that you all are refusing to hear.

If you want to know where a place is headed, you have to know where that place has been, and Huntsville has very consistent history. Huntsville has consistently put Black people out of the places they dwell and call home. Huntsville has consistently forced the migration of Black and poor people with re-zoning, new developments, claims of serving the community by bringing jobs, jobs that, keep in mind, the people who are being herded and corralled, do not qualify for or have a chance of obtaining. Huntsville is consistently destroying, erasing, and demolishing Black History. Currently, while also asking us to keep a confederate monument at the opening of the court house steps.

Black people lived and thrived on the land that is currently known as Redstone Arsenal, previously know as Mullins Flat, before the Nazi German Scientists Wernher Von Braun came here bringing with him a slew of German Scientist, The Space Program and Marshal Space Flight Center. Huntsville has played a part large part of space exploration, including the Challenger mission, which tragically ended in an explosion. Huntsville has named a great majority of its schools after astronauts, some of whom died in the fire that occurred in the grounded space capsule for the Apollo mission. Grissom, Chaffee, Ed White, also following the trend in great abundance, Challenger, McNair, and Jemison. All still apart of a dual school system. Black people lived and attended college in your beloved downtown, the one you claim you were trying to protect on the evening of June 3, 2020. Alabama A&M once sat where the Von Braun Center is today, Black people were baptized in Big Spring Park, Black people lived on Rand, my Grandmother was one of them, and the family/slave cemetery across the street, now sits below Huntsville Hospital, who continues to monopolize health care services in Huntsville and the surrounding areas of North Alabama. We don’t have a historic district full of antebellum like homes. We have continuously been stripped of land, resources, homes, communities and given historical markers instead. How much longer do you expect the minority of this city, people who are also indigenous to this place, along with those who are less affluent, to continue to be treated as if they are lesser members of the community? How long do you expect them to pretend as if they never existed, as if their families and ancestors did not exist? How long must we continue to speak and not be heard?

Many say that the above is not the place that Huntsville is today, but that simply isn’t true. Campus 805 is literally inside of Stone Middle, which when it was functioning as a school, placed a fence with barbed wire over the top of it. Mason Court, Terry Heights, Northwood and Butler Terrace were zoned for Stone. A school which truly resembled a jail full of the most disenfranchised 11-14 year old citizens of our city. Move down governors a little further, you have Stovehouse, Butler Terrace will not continue to stand. Mason Court was recently demolished to make space for a new development, much in the same way that homes, neighborhood and community on Eldridge Dr. were destroyed to make room for I-565.

Hundreds of people are being displaced with the eradication of historical and traditional public housing. They are being offered section 8 vouchers, which not only fail to guarantee housing, but also leave the poor and vulnerable in positions to be placed at an even greater risk. Homelessness. We know a good majority of the options available, and the people or properties that accept section 8 are subpar and inadequate, much like traditional public housing here is. You may have a roof, but it comes with radon, mold, roach infestations, bed bugs, the inability to have a dryer for your clothes in your home, or at times, your children being bused clean across town to appease the fake solutions to a dual school system that is still alive and well, serving those it is meant to serve. This habitual mistake is going to further contribute greatly to the already growing homeless population and mental health disparities you all claim to care about within our city. The closing of Butler and Johnson High School were carried out in order to solidify a remedy to Huntsville's long standing 53 year old desegregation case, except it didn’t. We now have Jemison High School and McNair Junior High on the same campus and we also have Columbia High School, both of which have the make up of predominantly Black students. New buildings, new names, same issue.

I have listened to City Council Meetings over the past few months. Listened and not attended because I am a part of the many in Alabama who do not have access to affordable health insurance (since, Alabama refuses to expand medicaid) and I am not willing to put my life or my children’s lives on the line to attend in person, even with the high level of importance. I've watched Jennie Robinson scoff and mention black on black crime when people came before you all to give their accounts and experiences with the police here in Huntsville. I have heard you all state that you support one another. I have heard Mayor Battle say that he supports his choice in Huntsville’s Chief of Police, McMurray, who with every chance he gets refuses to directly answer a question, and when he attempts, becomes visibly agitated and finds some way to offend and gaslight the people he is suppose to be serving, and last but certainly not least I've heard you all defend the police department, the same police department that murdered Crystal Ragland, the same police department that pulled over Mathilda Gordon and drew guns on her with her children inside of the car, the same police department that slammed and cuffed Josh Udeh in a church parking lot, the same police department who detained, cuffed and frisked the President of the City Council, Devin Keith. The same police department who, just a couple of weeks ago sprayed a man with mace then enclosed him in a vehicle with no circulation, the same police department that teargassed and shot citizens with rubber bullets during a peaceful protest, the same police department that just this past Friday tackled and detained a protester, with no verbal warning or reason. The same group of officers also ignored the protesters explaining to them that they were attempting to get away from armed counter protesters, and when it was acknowledged they were told they had a right to do so. I have heard Councilwoman Akridge state that peoples individual accounts of their experiences are perspective, and she is right. Those who are hunted and harassed by those who are serving and protecting others have no choice but to have a differing perspective, our experiences are so different. We know that. I challenge you all to attempt to look at things from the perspective of the minority, the perspective of Black people who are generations into this place and its planned suffocation.

I challenge you, to see the humanity of the people who you and your supporters continue to show you value less, through your actions and inaction. You all come to us and seek input when you need heart and soul for your projects, when you want them to have at least some small amount of history, but then choose to overlook our pain and abuse, even when we bring it to your doorstep. I have heard the statement that the issues we are dealing with are not about race, I've heard that this is not about black and white, but if you follow factual history you will see that is not only untrue, but also an incomplete assessment. All of this is absolutely about black and white, we live in Alabama, a Red Republican state, but it is also about inequality, the haves and the have nots, and how the massive gap in equity came to be. It is about Huntsville and their seemingly forced yet reluctant offerings of equality while completely overlooking the conversation or the idea of equity. We are yet again and still asking that you understand or at least make an effort to understand that our feelings and distrust are warranted, that we experience bias and the consequences of such in layers, and that we deal daily with a police department which often enforces such. We need change. We need action.

0 notes