Turning their monthly meeting into a town hall for the public, the Spokane NAACP transformed the Central Library’s top floor into a stage for the voiceless. Wilson Elementary, located on Spokane’s South Hill off Bernard Street, has been the talk of the town after their music teacher released a newsletter March 1 encouraging students to dress like slaves.
The NAACP welcomed local education experts and Spokane Public Schools students to the stage the night of March 20 to speak about the Wilson Elementary newsletter and their own experience in Spokane and the Spokane Public Schools system. Panelists included Adams Elementary teacher Allie Campbell; Eastern Washington University Africana Studies professor Dr. Scott Finnie; Lewis and Clark educator, Natasha Carpenter; and James Alexander with the Washington State Education Association.
With over 60 members of the public in attendance, the town hall began with: “Seemingly each year, we have some form of racial incident, microaggression, and insensitivity or pure racism and each time we hear that there will be training – is training enough anymore?”
Dr. Scott Finnie from EWU shared, “The basic issue is, just like what Dr. King was all about, his whole nonviolent approach was to awaken people’s conscience and to admit that something is seriously broken and I think the key to this is not more training, but more of a widespread universal coming to truth that what is happening in Spokane is a symptom of something that is seriously broken.”
“I think the first step is to admit that something is really wrong and to have that voiced, put out in a public statement is the beginning of that,” Dr. Finnie said.
From question to question surrounding racism in Spokane schools, the microphone flowed through the semi-circle on stage, with every question, their answers raising red flags for Spokane’s past, current and future children.
“Why are our kids learning more about the Holocaust than they are about their own history? That is a crime,” stated Natasha Carpenter from Lewis and Clark High School.
Adams Elementary teacher Allie Campbell spoke up to echo Carpenter’s message by saying, “I will fight for some type of curriculum only because by the time my kids get to fifth grade and we’ve talked to them about – sometimes their first experience with being anti-racist is slavery, and that needs to change.”
Among the panelists was a senior student from Shadle Park High School, Kanani Park, who shared her experience of moving from the Mead School District into SPS.
“I feel like switching was probably the best decision I ever made for myself. I feel like I rescued myself from drowning waters,” Park shared. She gave a nod to Shadle as her best experience learning about Black history.
“I remember when I switched to Shadle, I was put in African American literature and it was probably the best class I’ve ever taken in all of high school. I learned so much.”
The conversation on stage transitioned to the question and format part of the night, which shined a long-deserved spotlight on Spokane’s Black community’s heartbreak and hurt in the school system.
One student’s mother kicked off the conversation about the Wilson Elementary newsletter when she was the first to stand up and say, “I haven’t heard a lot of conversation about what happened at the elementary school, I haven’t heard … We’re talking about racists,” Kerra Bower said, redirecting from the conversation about training to the post at issue.
“What we should be talking about is why is it OK that a school adult, administration, or administrators, teachers thought it was appropriate to ask students to dress up like hobos and slaves” she stated. She then asked “How do we activate?”
A double standard was called out, in which a Black woman speaking passionately is labeled an “Angry Black Woman,” but a white teacher can say the N-word in class with little repercussions.
Men and women from Spokane Public Schools and parents of the system stood in line to advocate for final change within Spokane. Parents and recent graduates expressed that they don’t want their younger family members to have the same experience they did in public school. “We learned history from a white man’s perspective … We didn’t learn the confidence, because it was taught we were so heavily oppressed,” an audience member said, describing the lack of Black history beyond slavery and civil rights.
“I teach at Sacajawea Middle School and I wanted to say that I’ve only been in this community three-and-a-half years and experiencing racism, the way I’ve experienced it here, never in my life,” stated Sacajawea teacher Connie Knipprath, who moved here from Louisiana and grew up in the deep South.
It wasn’t just an outside perspective: Women who have lived in Spokane for decades shared the same shocking sentiment. One woman, Virla Spencer with the nonprofit Way to Justice, stood up to advocate for her seven children, all affected negatively by the Spokane Public School system.
“…If District 81 is oppressing, then it’s time we tear it down,” she said. “I am speaking from a standpoint of raising seven children in the district and every one of them has been the poster child that has suffered racial discrimination. I’m talking about teachers, I’m talking about people we are supposed to trust our kids with, harming our kids.
“So when I come to these types of spaces, I am trying to figure out what are we asking the district to do. It’s been 20 years and we are still having the same conversation and nothing is happening.”
Another woman from Spokane Valley, Leslie McCaully, shared how her children were deeply affected by racism while under the care of area schools.
“As long as I can earth, I’m going to walk right up to that Central Valley District and I’m going to talk to them about how they treated my children,” she said. “I don’t get over that and how your children are being treated. It’s the same conversation for 30 years.”
After many shared thoughts on the school system, a representative from the Wilson Elementary community and father of a student there, Mike Dicks, stood up to read a letter on behalf of the Wilson community.
“I’m sorry for this issue,” Dicks stated. “We are sorry for this issue. It was a mistake using inappropriate words in a music flyer in Wilson’s weekly newsletter. I know the Wilson community is compassionate, open, and never intended to cause anyone harm,” he said.
“I feel this issue was blown out of proportion,” he said. “I wrote that, now listening to everyone, maybe it wasn’t blown out of proportion.”
“In no way should music teacher Miss Knapp have been punished so harshly and removed from her position as a music teacher at Wilson where she has taught for 20-plus years the art and history of music to our kids.”
“Overall, the Wilson community is sorry for the issue, has learned and should move on positively. Miss Knapp should be welcomed back to Wilson as a music teacher–” he said before the room erupted with backlash.
Through discussion and more listening, the town hall continued and addressed the serious impact racism has on a students psyche, overall well-being and sense of belonging in community. How the history of slavery and the harmful stereotypes propagated by minstrel shows and black-face as discussed in the work of Donald Bogle, are often mocked, speaking to the overall offensiveness of trivializing slavery, while ignoring the numerous notable contributions of black people to America that go far beyond jazz.
Community leader Stephaine Courtney shared that there are often misconceptions about what slavery is: “It’s more than picking cotton, realizing your grandmother’s hands are bleeding.” Reminding us how during slavery, “about wetnurses, Black families being pulled apart during slavery … ancestors that were murdered, killed, watching their fathers and grandmothers hung and burned … it’s more than Black people living on the plantation. It’s knowing the essence of when you’re pregnant and feel the kicking of your child they will not stay with you, because they do not belong to you, your body does not belong to you, your child doesn’t belong to you, your life doesn’t belong to you.”
“We are asking children to fight a battle that grown adults need to stand up against. And if you hear me speaking passionately and saying no, that doesn’t mean I am being hostile, that means you’ve crossed a boundary a child may not recover from. Not every child comes from a supportive family that when being knocked down they can stand back up.”
With so many unheard voices coming to the forefront, they all called upon the Spokane Public School District to enter the conversation.
A white teacher who worked on culturally responsive training informed the crowd their training was discontinued by the district without explanation. He further proclaimed, “Training doesn’t work, because it defaults to white comfort.” “As long as white people are comfortable in what they’ve always done in schools, curriculum wise, behavior wise,” he said. “Nothing is going to change,” advising that until privileged white males like himself show up, nothing is going to change.
“Where is Adam (Swinyard)?” one mother asked into the microphone referring to the Superintendent of Spokane Public Schools. “We all know you show up to the things that matter.”
One parent’s call to action, “Let’s shift from safety to accountability,” resonated across the room. Another community member suggested small groups organizing and calling for change.
Before the town hall came to a close, the president of the NAACP, Lisa Gardner, introduced the next phase of initiative towards change in Spokane’s schools. She along with other executive members of the Spokane NAACP will be sitting down with Swinyard in April to receive answers that generations of Spokane residents have been asking: “What is going to change?”