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Opening Case Study It was the morning of Sept. 16, 2016, and a…
Opening Case Study
It was the morning of Sept. 16, 2016, and a conscious party of resistance, courage, and community uplift was happening on the sidewalk in front of John Muir Elementary in Seattle. Dozens of Black men were lined up from the street to the school doorway, giving high-fives and praise to all the students who entered as part of a locally organized event called “Black Men Uniting to Change the Narrative.” African American drummers pounded defiant rhythms. Students smiled and laughed as they made their way to the entrance. And teachers and parents milled about in #BlackLivesMatter T-shirts, developed and worn in solidarity with the movement to make Black lives matter at John Muir Elementary.
You never would have known that, just hours before, the school was closed and emptied as bomb-sniffing dogs scoured the building looking for explosives.
That September morning was the culmination of a combination of purposeful conversations among John Muir administration and staff, activism, and media attention. John Muir Elementary sits in Seattle’s Rainier Valley, and its student population reflects the community: 68 percent of Muir’s roughly 400 students qualify for free or reduced lunch, 33 percent are officially designated transition bilingual, 10 percent are Hispanic, 11 percent are Asian American, 11 percent identify as multiracial, and almost 50 percent are African Americanmostly a mix of East African immigrants and families from this historically Black neighborhood.
By that autumn, John Muir Elementary had been actively working on issues of race equity, with special attention to Black students, for months. The previous year, Muir’s staff began a deliberate process of examining privilege and the politics of race. With the support of both the school and the PTA, Ruby Bridgeswho as a child famously desegregated the all-White William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans in 1960had also visited Muir as part of a longer discussion of racism in education among staff and students. During end-of-summer professional development, with the support of administration and in the aftermath of the police shooting deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, school staff read and discussed an article on #BlackLivesMatter and renewed their commitment to working for racial justice at Muir.
As part of these efforts, DeShawn Jackson, an African American male student support worker, organized the “Black Men Uniting to Change the Narrative” event for that September morning, and in solidarity, school staff decided to wear T-shirts that read “Black Lives Matter/We Stand Together/John Muir Elementary,” designed by the school’s art teacher.
A local TV station reported on the teachers wearing #BlackLivesMatter T-shirts, and as the story went public, political tensions exploded. Soon the White supremacist, hate group-fueled news source Breitbart picked up the story, and the right-wing police support group Blue Lives Matter publicly denounced the effort. Hateful emails and phone calls began to flood the John Muir administration and the Seattle School Board, and then the horrifying happened: Someone made a bomb threat against the school. Even though the threat was deemed not very credible by authorities, Seattle Public Schools officially canceled the “Black Men Uniting to Change the Narrative” event at Muir out of extreme caution.
All of this is what made that September morning all the more powerful. The bomb-sniffing dogs found nothing, and school was kept open that day. The drummers drummed, and the crowd cheered every child coming through the doors of John Muir Elementary. Everyone was there in celebration, loudly proclaiming that, yes, despite the bomb threat, the community of John Muir Elementary would not be cowed by hate and fear. Black men showed up to change the narrative around education and race. School staff wore their #BlackLivesMatter T-shirts and devoted the day’s teaching to issues of racial justice, all bravely and proudly celebrating their power. In the process, this single South Seattle elementary galvanized a growing citywide movement to make Black lives matter in Seattle schools.
Reflect
1. What was the purpose of the Black Lives Matter day at the John Muir Elementary School in Seattle?
2. Why was it important for the John Muir Elementary School faculty to involve the PTA and broader community in their Black Lives Matter day?
3. If you were a teacher at Muir on this day, what would you have taught about racial justice?
4. Why was professional development for the Muir teachers important to a successful Black Lives Matter day?
