CHAPTER 5: READING, WRITING, AND
EMANCIPATION
Apeople hitherto pronounced by American learning as incapable of
any thing higher than the dull round of manly animal life—held to be
originally and permanently inferior—fit only for the coarser and heavier
labors of human society—deprived of the social incentives to
excellence which everywhere act upon other men, dare here and now
to establish an Institute, devoted to all the higher wants and
aspirations of the human soul. It is a great fact. (Foner, 1969, p. 176)
The above quote by Frederick Douglass during a speech in 1865 exemplified the
overriding denigration toward education for black people and how Douglass
viewed learning as a catalyst for emancipation. It is important to remember that
before Douglass opened his school, black children were not allowed to be
educated in any capacity. Laws were set in place to deny educational
opportunities based on the idea that black people were inferior as well as the fear
that if they did become educated, then they would become more knowledgeable
about antislavery efforts and rise up against racism. While there has been a lot of
work on the bravery of white teachers’ success in advocating and founding
schools to teach enslaved children, less is known about the countless black
individuals who risked their lives to become literate and educated. Literacy was a
scary and threatening idea to white enslavers who sought to control the minds
and hearts of enslaved people. Generally, people were fearful that if enslaved
people were educated on reading and writing then their inherent intelligence
would counter the inferior stereotypes that were maintained and normalized by
the oppressive ideologies of slavery.
Enslaved people and children hungered for education and developed creative
strategies to learn. Black youth and adults learned early on that the best tool they
could activate was their listening skills. Given no schooling, books, or
newspapers, they learned to eavesdrop on white enslavers and others’
conversations as a way to gain valuable knowledge. Many used this skill for vital
information of the war, impending elections, and potential escape routes. John
Quincy Adams was able to give his parents key political reports based on
overhearing conversations, which inevitably led to the family escaping to
Pennsylvania during the Civil War. In a given household or family, it was
important that there was at least one literate individual to assist others in various
ways. For instance, one young woman living in South Carolina would overhear
conversations between her mistress and master, who routinely spelled out words
that they did not want others to hear. She would memorize the letters, then run to
her literate uncle, who would then translate the conversations. Booker T.
Washington, a prominent leader, recalled that eavesdropping led to information
sharing among people as a credible source of knowledge that was surprisingly
quick and sometimes surpassed the amount of time that it took for white people
to receive the same information (Williams, 2005).
Some individuals also relied on white children to assist them in an effort to
become literate. Children were sometimes perfect allies in that they were
unaware of the laws in place that explicitly stated that it was illegal for enslaved
people to read, write, do arithmetic, memorize, or do anything related to “mental
instruction” (Williams, 2005, p. 13). Interestingly, usually there was some sort of
trade that took place; enslaved people sometimes used food and money in
exchange for writing and/or reading instruction. Frederick Douglass recalled
seeking out any and every white boy he encountered in the streets, offering them
bread for lessons in reading. Black adults and children proved to be ingenuous in
their efforts to look for and gain educational opportunities wherever they could
find it and by any means necessary. It was important to have white educated
participants willing to share their knowledge despite the consequences and
illegalities.
EDUCATED GIRLS ARE
DANGEROUS
White females also developed eavesdropping strategies as a way to become
educated when they were not allowed to go to school prior to the 1700s. They
had to contend with gender stereotypes of being inferior and not capable of
learning anything beyond the domestic sphere. Girls also had to be educated in
secret, whether it was listening in on lectures outside the windows or through an
open door of a schoolhouse. It wasn’t until the late 1700s that some people
believed girls deserved an education and started allowing girls to school for one
hour of daily instruction. Slowly, some public schools began opening their doors
to females with provisions; they had to attend school before and after boys’
education in the early morning hours and evening hours as to not distract the
males. Generally, the public was wary and fearful of co-education. People had
reservations about what would happen if girls were in the same schoolhouses.
To alleviate some of these fears, female seminars were developed to provide
young girls an education based on morality and manners. These schools sought
to prepare women to become mothers and wives while also instructing them on
academic subjects such as Latin, history, math, and philosophy. Wealthy white
families were eager to support these female seminaries, since they coincided
with the cult of domesticity.
In concert with the notions of domesticity, female teachers then became more
common in the mid-1800s as the profession became more feminized
as teaching was seen as another way to nurture children. It was purported that
women would be a more natural fit to guide children in becoming more moral and
refined. This notion was based on the idea that females inherently embodied
these same characteristics. Female seminaries that incorporated these principles
were the perfect conduits in creating refined women. As it became more socially
acceptable for females to enter the teaching profession, women of color were still
not allowed by law to receive an education. It was crucial then that some white
teachers step up to advance more progressive ideas to battle against these
discriminatory laws.
A CALLING TO TEACH
Library of Congress
Historical accounts confirm that there were some white female teachers who not
only felt a true calling to teach but who clashed with racist views. For white
teachers to resist the professional and gendered expectations of teachers’ roles
to instruct black students were essentially rewriting their roles as women and
teachers. How did they navigate their roles as white female teachers instructing
students from a different cultural background of their own? There is evidence to
support that white teachers such as Lydia Child used her own pedagogical
practices outlined in a book entitled The Freedmen’s Book in 1865. Before
Child’s book was released, many teachers emphasized curriculum that was
rooted in religious and civic duties through the American Missionary Association
and American Tract Society. The dominant narratives from these institutions
centered on teaching black children how they could be good citizens and adopt
white centric norms that were packaged in a paternalistic tone. Teachers needed
to “save” their students, reining them in through the control of rigid curriculum
that reinforced a banking model (Freire, 1998). The educational program
eliminated any individual freedom to critical think about their roles in society and
to quietly accept their inferior position. This was important after the Civil War,
when enslaved people were emancipated, since there was great concern with
how they would transition to society. It was imperative that the newly freed
people were controlled in some way; education was leading the charge in
extorting control in determining and ensuring passivity. A writer who celebrates
freedmen’s education as a way to institutionalize control exemplifies this intent:
[Students] are fast becoming subdued by education coupled with the
influence and power of the Gospel. After nearly five years’ experience in
their schools, it is my deliberate conviction that to give them education
without the restraining influence of the Gospel would be to unchain the
lion and teach him his strength. (Enoch, 2008, p. 43)
Education was used as a strategy to exert power over freed people under the
guise of giving them educational opportunities.
When Lydia Child’s The Freedmen’s Book was published, it directly countered
the dominant narrative of books sponsored by the American Tract Society. Child
included the counternarratives
(Bernal, 1998) of black authors to bring in diverse viewpoints and critical discourse that her
students could connect to. In this way, she ensured that her pupils received culturally relevant
pedagogy
(Ladson-Billings, 1995) and role models such as Frederick Douglass and Charlotte Forten to
emulate.
Child further encouraged empowerment throughout her book by emphasizing the
need to share educational knowledge with others in the community. She also
provided plenty of opportunities for students to engage in critical thinking. In
doing this, her educational discourse contrasted from the
traditional banking model (Freire, 1998). Her book had 54 culturally relevant
stories that her students could connect and learn from. For instance, one story
entitled The Meeting in the Swamp depicted a meeting of enslaved people
discussing what actions they would take if suddenly freed. The voices of
attendees at this meeting took differing positions, arguments ranged from using
violence as revenge, having mercy and forgiveness for others, and seeing the
various degrees of humanity that some white individuals and masters embodied.
The story ends ambivalently leaving the readers free to engage in critical thinking
and come up with their own answers. In this way, Child further empowers her
students as being the one with the solutions. She strictly defied the dominant
pedagogies of teaching and created a humanistic pedagogy that encouraged
readers to take an active role in their critical engagement and learning.
Another white teacher, Prudence Crandall also felt compelled to teach and
caused quite a bit of controversy when she began instructing a young black girl,
Sarah Harris. Originally, Prudence purchased a house in Canterbury,
Connecticut in 1831, instructing young ladies from that predominantly white
community with widespread support. Canterbury had a flourishing economy that
made it an ideal place for affluent donors to contribute to the livelihood of the
school. During that same year, William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator had come
out and Prudence was an avid reader of the abolitionist newspaper. She then
became influenced by the conditions of black people, and described being
awakened to these injustices and feeling a deep sense to serve as a catalyst for
change. This awakening led to her decision to admit Sarah Harris, the daughter
of a hardworking farmer, to her flourishing school. As one could imagine, this turn
of events caused great distress in the community of Canterbury.
Parents in the community began reacting in fear and started pulling their children
from the school. Prominent community members such as clergymen urged her to
rethink her position, warning her that the school would languish if she continued
to allow Sarah to remain at the school. Prudence Crandall’s reply is historic:
“Then it might sink then, for I should not turn her out” (Foner & Pacheco, 1984, p.
9). To further her cause in educating young black children, she also developed
relationships with black abolitionists such as James Forten, Reverend Theodore
Wright, and Reverend Peter Williams to assist her in overcoming the obstacles in
reinforcing her mission to be inclusive of all students. Despite opposition,
Prudence did not back down and reacted to the boycott with more determination.
She decided to establish her school exclusively for black girls, offering them a full
education and boarding for $25 per quarter. The community erupted with anger,
certain that this change would result in the downfall of the real estate values and
the overall economy of their beloved town. Despite the growing animosity
Prudence encountered, she forged ahead, and the new boarding school opened
its doors to fifteen black girls.
These young girls faced much retaliation against them for their role in attending
the school and seeking a better education. Prudence would take her students for
daily walks for physical exercise, and they would routinely encounter abuse.
“When we walk out, horns are blown and pistols fired. In addition to verbal
assaults from all sides, pellets of manure, dead cats, chicken heads, and other
missiles were thrown at the students and teacher” (Foner & Pacheco, 1984, p.
20). Miraculously, Prudence and her students continued on with support from
humanists in the community, including her father and brother who brought food
and supplies to the school. This was necessary as the storekeepers refused to
sell their goods to Prudence. Sarah Harris’s father traveled two miles daily to
bring the school buckets of water, as inhumane townspeople “threw manure into
the well” (Foner & Pacheco, 1984, p. 20). Prudence and her young students
bravely remained at the schoolhouse despite the daily attacks.
The fifteen courageous girls came from various cities, including Philadelphia,
New York, Providence, Boston, and Connecticut. Community members rallied
against the school quickly, then mobilized to develop and support a law that
would forbid schools to educate black students who are not an inhabitant of a
town in that state. “The bill, which became notorious as Connecticut’s Black
Law, was passed by the Senate and the House of Representatives on May 24,
1833—a mere six weeks after Crandall had reopened her school” (Foner &
Pacheco, 1984, p. 22). It did not take long for Prudence to feel the weight of the
newly enacted law. One month later, a sheriff arrested her and she was
imprisoned for teaching young black girls how to read and write. She endured
two trials and retribution from the town that used to support her wholeheartedly
when she educated white students. Unfortunately, the retaliation did not end
there. Eventually, the terrorism escalated to multiple arson attempts while
Prudence and her students were inside the building. Their bravery continued
nonetheless until one night, a group of men descended on the schools armed
with heavy clubs and iron bars, demolishing the first floor of the schoolhouse. It
was at this point that Prudence could not go on and she made the decision to
close the school.
Although this outcome was heartbreaking, the school garnered support and
acknowledgement suffered by these discriminatory practices and would later fuel
the abatement of the Connecticut Black Law. Prudence did receive admiration
for her boarding school from other cities in the North, Canada, and England. And
finally, in 1858, this law was abolished. One of the most rewarding news that
Prudence would learn was that several of her students, including Sarah Harris,
would become teachers themselves. The school flourished under her guidance
but may have never existed without the cross-cultural alliances with black
community leaders and black abolitionists.
Myrtilla Miner was another teacher who dedicated her career to educating black
children. There was nothing to suggest that this would be her life’s passion based
on her early upbringing. Born on March 4, 1815 in upstate New York, Myrtilla
grew up in a deeply religious household with 10 to 12 siblings. Her family relied
on farming hops as their primary source of income. Myrtilla was underdeveloped
as a child, and this fragility led to her being susceptible to illness. Throughout her
life, she battled sickness and ill health, and perhaps this is what led to a sense of
empathy for others that faced obstacles. It wasn’t until she accepted a teaching
position in Mississippi that she was confronted by the horrific conditions of
enslaved people and started to shift her views of slavery. During this era, the
Deep South was viewed as a foreign country in comparison to conditions in the
North. Myrtilla confronted her principal with her opposition to slavery in a letter,
“Nothing in all I have seen of the ‘blessings of slavery’ has been able to abate my
suffering on account of it one iota” (Foner & Pacheco, 1984, p. 108). She also
expanded her empathy of enslaved people through a humanistic lens that ran
contradictory to the principal’s views. “I want to treat them like humans. The truth
is, there is so much meanness here, the more anyone breaks their neck to do
good, the more they are hated” (Foner & Pacheco, 1984, p. 108). Her message
exemplified her awakening of the problems of living with white supremacy and
led her to reexamine the role she played in being complicit as a teacher
instructing more privileged girls.
She continued to voice her opposition to others on the moral abandonment that
was institutionalized by slavery. She wrote letters to her friends back home
illustrating the horrors and evil nature of slavery. Borne out by this newfound
awareness, Myrtilla set forth determined to open a school for black girls. With
only $100 to her name, she began building alliances with other humanists, such
as abolitionist Gerrit Smith, writing to senators, and fund-raising to support her
dream of starting a school in Washington. She also reached out to Frederick
Douglass for advisement. He barely noticed her entrance into the room, resigned
to continue working on his paper The North Star, when he realized that “her
presence demanded my whole attention” (Foner & Pacheco, 1984, p. 115). Once
Myrtilla began talking about her plan to open up a new school, her passion
overcame any doubt that Douglass initially had in their meeting:
Isaw at a glance that the fire of a real enthusiasm lighted her eyes, and the
true martyr spirit flamed in her soul. My feelings were those of mingled joy
and sadness. Here, I thought, is another enterprise, wild, dangerous,
desperate, and impracticable, destined only to bring failure and suffering.
Yet I was deeply moved with admiration by the heroic purpose of the
delicate and fragile person who stood, or rather moved, to and fro before
me. (Foner & Pacheco, 1984, p. 115)
He found that she was unmoved by his warnings of violence against her, with
their meeting ending in her resolve to organize a school. She made the
connections to the power of education:
Ipropose nothing new in principle—which is that no race or people can ever
enjoy their right without cultivation—& one of the best methods of securing
to any oppressed people their God-given-but man-prevented rights, is to
elevate them. (Foner & Pacheco, 1984, p. 117). She was completely
convinced that black people had the inherent talents and academic
intelligence to further their education if given the chance. Once more
people were educated, they could educate and empower others in their
community. For this reason, her plan was to prepare young girls to become
teachers.
Due to limited funds, she found a small schoolhouse, which seated six students
that quickly grew to 40 pupils. She also had to somehow find supplies such as
books and papers for her impoverished students. To compound the issues she
faced in providing enough resources for her school, she also encountered routine
opposition in finding an adequate place to live. No one wanted to rent her a
room, since she was seen as a radical and controversial figure. She finally found
a place to live, one mile away from the school. Her black landlady also became
reticent about allowing Myrtilla to remain as a tenant due to mob threats (Foner &
Pacheco, 1984). Over time, her vision of education as a great liberator also
emanated from her work to close the wage gap for female teachers and to
elevate the field of teaching by providing increased teaching training. Her belief
on female empowerment through education would strike a blow to the
inequalities between the sexes. Just as she made the same connection to black
education being correlated to emancipation, she began advocating for women’s
rights in education later in her life. Myrtilla’s mission was to recast education as a
means to emancipate marginalized groups in their efforts to become educated.
While there is more historical research on white teachers who played an integral
part of black children’s schooling, lesser-known history centers on black teachers
who navigated the complexities and dangers of teaching during enslavement.
The consequences for black teachers came at a higher price. They faced $100
fines and up to 32 lashes in the public square if they were caught educating black
children. Mary S. Peake was one of the first heroines who challenged the rigid
educational laws in the early 1800s. Mary spent a good deal of her childhood
living with her aunt, who lived in a home owned by Rollins Fowle. Rollins was
characterized as someone who often tried to assist people of color in setting up
their own businesses or intervening on their behalf to prevent them from being
sold. His good intentions enabled the amiable Mary to receive a higher quality of
education. Once Mary began teaching prior to the Civil War, she realized that it
was going to have to be done in secret. She risked persecution in order to teach
young black children in an effort to empower future generations.
Library of Congress
An unlikely alliance came as Lewis C. Lockwood, a white missionary for the
American Missionary Association who was able to convince the people of
Hampton to not only allow Mary to continue teaching but also to expand on the
school (Taylor, 2005). Lewis viewed Mary’s work with deep admiration, which
was helped by her emphasis on morals and religion. Part of the curriculum at her
school included arithmetic, writing, and how to pray. The school’s focus on
morality and religion most likely tamed the white community’s perceptions of the
school as well as reinforced the ideas of the cult of domesticity. Although these
cross-racial alliances were sometimes paternalistic, sometimes white activists
were key in securing changes, garnering fund-raising, and influencing other white
community members.
Susie King Taylor served as another role model who traversed the complexities
of seeking an education during slavery. She grew up in Georgia where it was
illegal to teach enslaved or free people, so Susie learned in secret through an
underground network of educators. She had to hide her schoolbooks in an effort
to remain undetected by police on her way to Susan Woodhouse’s home, a black
teacher. Woodhouse instructed 25 children, but they all had to sneak into her
house one at a time to not arouse suspicion. After a couple of years of
instruction, Susie then needed more advanced schooling and found another
black teacher, Mary Beasley, to assist her. Her next teacher happened to be a
white friend who helped her for a couple of months until the teacher entered a
convent. Afterward, Susie found her next instructor to be the son of her white
landlord, who taught her for several months until he joined the Confederate
Army. Susie was able to become literate and educated by piecing together these
white and black educators who were willing to help her in defiance of laws and
threats of a racist society.
Charlotte Forten, another black educator, grew up in an affluent family
surrounded by black activists and white abolitionists such as William Lloyd
Garrison and John Wittier. After graduating Salem Normal School, she became a
champion of teachers, while trying to balance the hypocrisies of white
supremacy. She reflected on how teachers viewed abilities of students to grasp
new ideas and learning based on racial stereotypes. She emphasized that her
students learned at a fast pace and their parents also had a great desire to learn.
“It is wonderful,” Forten remarked, “how a people who have been so long
crushed to the earth, so imbruted as these have been can have so great a desire
for knowledge, and such a capability for attaining it” (Williams, 2005, p. 154).
Charlotte as well as many other black teachers embodied other humanists
throughout history who negotiated cross-cultural relationships and served as role
models in order to uplift their own communities as a form of cultural wealth
(Yosso, 2005).
RESISTING THE MASTER
NARRATIVE
Women of color were emblematic of strength and courage in their abilities to
become educated in segregated schools where the focus was on assimilation.
Earlier in this chapter, girls, in general, regardless of their race were only allowed
single-sex schooling with a religious and morally centered curriculum. Women of
color not only had to contend with the gendered assumptions of these schools
but also had to fight against the dominant narratives of their education. Native
American girls’ sole educational opportunities were to attend female seminaries
or boarding schools such as the Carlisle Indian School. Much of the curriculum
focused on the conformity of gendered ideals of femininity and how this would
then further refine Native American communities. This type of education came at
a high cost. The Cherokee Female Seminary and the Carlisle Indian School’s
militarized mission were to effectively strip culture from their students and teach
them how to adopt the cult of domesticity.
Gertrude Kasebier Collection, Division of Work and Industry, National
Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
One redeeming aspect of the female seminaries was that some Native American
females became teachers themselves and then resisted the gendered
expectations of the teaching profession and spoke out against the injustices of
boarding schools. Zitkála-Šá from the Sioux Reservation was a woman who
excelled in oratory speeches, music, and writing. On the outside, it appeared that
she had all of the ladylike qualities that adhered to the gendered goals of the
Carlisle School; however, she often wrote essays in The Atlantic
Monthly outlining the savage treatment that students received, shedding light on
the fact that it was indeed white people that were savage, which contradicted the
stereotypes of her own people. The irony of this discrepancy was that white
teachers were supposed to be the embodiment of what a woman should be,
genteel and fair-minded by societal standards, but in the classroom would often
physically harm and berate their indigenous students (Enoch, 2008).
Not only did Native American children endure barbaric treatment, but they were
also subjected to racist curriculum that contributed to the master
narrative. Stories and lesson plans often reinforced derogatory stereotypes about
marginalized groups. Emma Miller Bolenius created an English curriculum
entitled Advanced Lessons in Everyday English. One of the projects included in a
lesson plan for “Celebrating Indian Day” suggested that students research “tribes
of Indians” and then ask pupils the question, “What troubles did the red men
cause the white settlers in those days?” (Bolenius, 1921, p. 157). Another
passage in this section includes a lesson on how to effectively structure
paragraphs in a letter that includes the sentence, “The squaws do most of the
work, as the men are too lazy” (Bolenius, 1921, p. 158). Other propaganda
included literature in textbooks and newspapers that espoused how women had
become civilized by Americanized education. One periodical highlighted a
teacher, Mrs. Mary Smith who claimed “that leaving the tribe and speaking
English are the best things for her people” (Enoch, 2008, p. 89). Mary reiterated
propagandist views on the benefits of conforming to American standards, while
Zitkála-Šá countered with the costs of assimilation—loss of culture. Furthermore,
her writings in The Atlantic Monthly had a predominantly white audience who
largely bought into the idea that education and Americanization were going to
“save” Native Americans from their “savage” inclinations. Zitkála-Šá sought to
call attention to the contradictions of these rhetorical educational practices while
simultaneously teaching in an institution that typified patriarchal and racist
norms.
Leonor Villegas de Magnón and Aracelito Garcia with flag of La Cruz
Blanca (Leonor Villegas de Magnón Papers, 1914)
Similarly, Chicana teachers also had to deal with the tensions of teaching
Mexican students under the educational system of Americanization. Many
Chicana teachers rebelled against these prejudicial norms and activated their
voices through the newspaper La Crónica. Jovita Idár, Marta Peña, and Leonor
Villegas de Magnón were Mexican American teachers expected to uphold
American ideals and values. These three teachers successfully advocated for
their communities through their newspaper articles. They fought for the need for
better partnerships with the community, increased instruction in Mexican culture,
and the inclusion of Spanish to assist students gain efficacy in their English skills.
This was increasingly difficult at a time when curriculum was heavily influenced
by ideas of English only instruction. For example, Emma Miller Bolenius, a
staunch proponent of Americanization, perpetuated these prejudicial views in her
creative scaffolding of words in the Pledge of Allegiance, “We pledge allegiance
to the flag and to the language for which it stands—the English language, which
we pledge ourselves to speak and to write correctly, a little better each day”
(Bolenius, 1921, p. xviii).
Jovita Idár used her voice in La Crónica to make the links to language and
cultural identity. She advocated for Mexican students as she called into question
the practice of schools and teachers for “Americanizing their students and
disconnecting them from those who value and use the language of Cervantes”
(Enoch, 2008, p. 145). She made the case for the importance of learning English
and maintaining their home language as a way to promote bilingualism. She
further extended her argument to incorporating Mexican culture into all subjects
as a way to empower young students to keep and increase their knowledge of
their cultural heritage. Jovita was far ahead of her time for her progressive ideas
on bilingual education and culturally relevant pedagogy.
Marta Peña also sought to empower Mexican American youth in her writings
in La Crónica with more of an emphasis on cultural and civic duty. Although the
emphasis of her curricular plans were focused on the Mexican government, the
application of the civic lessons were undeniably transferable for children learning
how to navigate their cultural identities surrounded by a society that denigrated
Mexican people. She urged her young readers to take advantage of educational
opportunities and leadership roles while staying loyal to their families and
communities (Enoch, 2008). Her essays contain countless ways for young
people to become engaged in politics and to become change agents in society.
These three Mexican American teachers directly resisted gender norms and the
stereotypes of Mexican females as being passive. Their empowered messages
ran counter to the negative images of Mexican American people and offered
youth a different curriculum that contradicted the biased mainstream curriculum.
Leonor Villegas de Magnón, another teacher, underscored the importance of
Mexican cultural lessons and language to balance the traditional curriculum.
Correspondingly, Jovita believed that Mexican American students deserved an
education that emphasized the importance of both cultures. Leonor as well as
Marta and Jovita embodied progressive teachers that successfully balanced
forwarding political beliefs under an oppressive educational system.
The teachers used a mestiza consciousness, living in two worlds, embracing the
contradictions and ambiguities of their duality while resisting and transforming
their communities to create educational changes (Anzaldúa, 1987). Leonor took it
one step further and opened a school in order to offer students a bicultural
education. “In Laredo, Villegas opened one of the first bilingual kindergartens in
the city, and as a teacher there, she made no distinction between her educational
and political agenda” (Enoch, 2008, p. 154). Outside of the class, she directed
her attention to her creative writing, to wit, The Rebel, her autobiography, and
essays for La Crónica. Her essays and poems entitled “The Greaser” and
“Tomales” served to resist stereotypes about her Mexican culture and offered
readers a critique of societal oppression.
All of the teachers in this chapter interrupted collective stereotypes about gender
and cultural norms to create change for marginalized groups of students.
Teachers faced all of these obstacles, while also being confronted with hostile
people in the communities and the threat of law enforcement raids that could
happen at any time. These teachers would be routinely threatened and
persecuted for teaching from a humanistic perspective—that all people deserved
the chance to learn. The teachers in the aforementioned counterstories reveal
the determination and hope for a future of inclusive education in integrated
schools. Little did they know that they would have to wait one hundred years
for Brown vs. the Board of Education (1954) to pass, which would legally
integrate U.S. schools. The fight was just beginning.