Page 1 |
Save page Remove page | Previous | 1 of 2 | Next |
|
small (250x250 max)
medium (500x500 max)
Large
Extra Large
Full Size
Full Resolution
|
This page
All
|
Loading content ...
Re-examining Greensboro News & Record Sunday, June 25, 1989 the sit-ins Lens of history distorts struggle, activists say By LEX ALEXANDER Staff Writer When Melvin "Skip" Alston appeared before the Greensboro Planning Board last month to champion a proposal to rename Asheboro Street after Martin Luther King Jr., he was challenged by Planning Board member David Dansby, who suggested that other civil rights leaders, overlooked by history, deserved the honor more. Dansby, 49, also questioned Alston's knowledge of civil rights history, asking him if he recognized the names of various figures in the civil rights movement. After the Planning Board voted to recommend against renaming the street, Alston, 32, said angrily, "I don't need a history lesson from David Dansby." He vowed to appeal the decision to the Greensboro City Council, which will consider the proposal Thursday. On one level, the exchange between Dansby and Alston was purely personal: Dansby defeated Alston in December for the presidency of the Greensboro branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the two men remain rivals. But the exchange also demonstrates how the lens of memory and the lens of history can provide two very different vistas. In Greensboro, many who participated in the civil rights movement believe that the historical lens has provided only a fragmented and distorted picture of their struggle. That struggle did not begin in Greensboro, nor did Greensboro's own civil rights movement begin with that first sit-in, when four freshmen at then- all-black N.C. Agricultural and Technical College (now N.C. A&T State University) walked into the Woolworth's downtown and asked for service at a whites-only lunch counter. More sit-ins followed in the days and months to follow. The action marked the beginning of large-scale demonstrations against segregated public accommodations locally and throughout the South. It jump- started what had become an almost dormant civil rights movement. As Greensboro prepares to mark the 30th anniversary of the sit-ins, a lively re-evaluation of the event's place in history is beginning to take shape. The questions have particular poignance for aging Greensboro blacks, who worry that their contributions — and the dangers they endured — will be forgotten and that their grandchildren will never understand the power of ordinary citizens to change history. "History has not been adequately told to these young people," says Angeline Smith, a retired teacher at Smith and Dudley high schools who taught David Richmond and Ezell Blair Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), two of the four A&T freshmen who started the sit-ins. "We need to push that to the forefront with these children. It needs to be brought to them more than just once a year." "Memories are lost if things aren't taught," cautions Jibreel Khazan, who teaches developmentally disabled people in New Bedford, Mass. "If it's not taught over and over again to every new generation, it's lost." And, as Khazan acknowledges, the history of civil-rights struggles in this country and of the sit-in movement in Greensboro are taught in sketchy detail, if at all. As a result, even in Greensboro, young people of all races are unlikely to be aware of the contributions of many people of all races to racial equality. School textbooks typically compress accounts of the civil rights movement and downplay the dangers participants faced. In recent years, more complete histories have been published — books such as Washington Post writer Juan Williams' Eyes on the Prize, which was also made into a series for public television. But schoolchildren are unlikely to benefit from books aimed at adults. And even the newer books tend to give activities in Greensboro short shrift. As a result of the incomplete account they receive, young people are likely to view the civil-rights movement as the product of a few superstar activists, or "demi-gods," as Khazan calls them — people who are now either martyrs like Martin Luther King Jr. or celebrities like the Rev. Jesse Jackson, with even less relevance than pop singers to young people's daily lives. "But in fact, most persons in the movement were
Object Description
Page/Item Description
Title | Page 1 |
Full text | Re-examining Greensboro News & Record Sunday, June 25, 1989 the sit-ins Lens of history distorts struggle, activists say By LEX ALEXANDER Staff Writer When Melvin "Skip" Alston appeared before the Greensboro Planning Board last month to champion a proposal to rename Asheboro Street after Martin Luther King Jr., he was challenged by Planning Board member David Dansby, who suggested that other civil rights leaders, overlooked by history, deserved the honor more. Dansby, 49, also questioned Alston's knowledge of civil rights history, asking him if he recognized the names of various figures in the civil rights movement. After the Planning Board voted to recommend against renaming the street, Alston, 32, said angrily, "I don't need a history lesson from David Dansby." He vowed to appeal the decision to the Greensboro City Council, which will consider the proposal Thursday. On one level, the exchange between Dansby and Alston was purely personal: Dansby defeated Alston in December for the presidency of the Greensboro branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the two men remain rivals. But the exchange also demonstrates how the lens of memory and the lens of history can provide two very different vistas. In Greensboro, many who participated in the civil rights movement believe that the historical lens has provided only a fragmented and distorted picture of their struggle. That struggle did not begin in Greensboro, nor did Greensboro's own civil rights movement begin with that first sit-in, when four freshmen at then- all-black N.C. Agricultural and Technical College (now N.C. A&T State University) walked into the Woolworth's downtown and asked for service at a whites-only lunch counter. More sit-ins followed in the days and months to follow. The action marked the beginning of large-scale demonstrations against segregated public accommodations locally and throughout the South. It jump- started what had become an almost dormant civil rights movement. As Greensboro prepares to mark the 30th anniversary of the sit-ins, a lively re-evaluation of the event's place in history is beginning to take shape. The questions have particular poignance for aging Greensboro blacks, who worry that their contributions — and the dangers they endured — will be forgotten and that their grandchildren will never understand the power of ordinary citizens to change history. "History has not been adequately told to these young people," says Angeline Smith, a retired teacher at Smith and Dudley high schools who taught David Richmond and Ezell Blair Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), two of the four A&T freshmen who started the sit-ins. "We need to push that to the forefront with these children. It needs to be brought to them more than just once a year." "Memories are lost if things aren't taught," cautions Jibreel Khazan, who teaches developmentally disabled people in New Bedford, Mass. "If it's not taught over and over again to every new generation, it's lost." And, as Khazan acknowledges, the history of civil-rights struggles in this country and of the sit-in movement in Greensboro are taught in sketchy detail, if at all. As a result, even in Greensboro, young people of all races are unlikely to be aware of the contributions of many people of all races to racial equality. School textbooks typically compress accounts of the civil rights movement and downplay the dangers participants faced. In recent years, more complete histories have been published — books such as Washington Post writer Juan Williams' Eyes on the Prize, which was also made into a series for public television. But schoolchildren are unlikely to benefit from books aimed at adults. And even the newer books tend to give activities in Greensboro short shrift. As a result of the incomplete account they receive, young people are likely to view the civil-rights movement as the product of a few superstar activists, or "demi-gods," as Khazan calls them — people who are now either martyrs like Martin Luther King Jr. or celebrities like the Rev. Jesse Jackson, with even less relevance than pop singers to young people's daily lives. "But in fact, most persons in the movement were |