Hey ya’ll,
Just like that: we are back to school. Well, maybe. If you live in Seattle, you know that there is currently the threat of a teacher strike that would delay the start of school. By the time you read this, we will know whether school is starting on September 2nd.
This story is adapted from the Out & Back newsletter. If you’re not a subscriber, you can sign up here.
The threat of this strike made me curious about historic school strikes, which led me down a rabbit hole where I finally landed at the Moton School Strike and Prince Edward County School Closings, which many historians consider the precursor to the desegregation movement in the United States. From Encylopedia Virginia, an online local history anthology:
"On April 23, 1951, students at Robert Russa Moton High School in the town of Farmville, in Prince Edward County, walked out of school to protest the conditions of their education, which they claimed were vastly inferior to those enjoyed by white students at nearby Farmville High School. The strike, led by student Barbara Johns, is considered by many historians to signal the start of the desegregation movement in America and resulted in a court case that was later bundled with other, similar cases into Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.”
Brown vs Board of Education in 1954 led to a mandate to desegregate public schools, which was met with resistance across the United States and effectively disregarded in places like Prince Edward County. The Prince Edward County Board of supervisors went so far as to close its public schools for five years, rather than integrate them. It wouldn’t be until 1964 and another U.S. Supreme Court decision that the county’s public schools were forced to reopen.
When people think about segregation, they often think almost exclusively about the South. However, segregation existed across the entire United States and, in many cases, still exists. If you really think about it, most people live highly segregated lives. Consider the folks in your closest circle — I bet they look a lot like you! And this isn’t by personal choice or by accident, it’s by design. I’ve done a lot of work about spatial injustice and the making of the United States. Policies like school segregation, redlining, highway construction, zoning, to name a few, have left a permanent mark on who we know and how we move.
Now, let me bring us back to Seattle schools as an example. Seattle began to desegregate its schools in 1978 — the first major city to voluntarily take on racial segregation in schools. And yet, an analysis by The Seattle Times in 2023 found that Seattle schools are resegregating: “As the city’s population grows more diverse, children attend schools markedly more racially isolated than those their parents attended. Black students are just as segregated now as they were during the Nixon administration. The number of schools where white students are in the majority has nearly doubled since the 1990s, even as white student enrollment has declined. But schools are still largely a product of where kids live, and where they live is often a vestige of racist housing laws, generational wealth and government neglect. Left unaddressed, these forces seep into classrooms.”
Whether students go back to public school this week or not, Seattle Public Schools (and schools in general) remain the site of unaddressed institutional racism that continues to impact student outcomes and opportunities. There is no easy or quick solution but, as a student of history and activist, I am deeply interested in watching and participating in how it all unfolds.
Behind the scenes
I recently had the opportunity to film an episode of Out and Back with Sirius Astronomy for Season 5. We set up in Jefferson Park, right in the middle of the city, on a summer evening and got to see some of the most amazing sights I’ve ever seen! For example, Saturn (!!) as seen through a telescope that night.
Aaron Yoon, founder of Sirius Astronomy, shared, "You can see different weather bands, the Cassini Division gap in the rings, the shadow of the planet on the ring and the ring casting a shadow on the planet!”
Recap
I recently launched a campaign called “Here for the Women of Color” to celebrate the joy, wisdom, and creativity of women of color. Initially launched as a reaction to the lack of racial diversity in trail running, this campaign has grown to become something much bigger.
Proceeds from this campaign will benefit social justice causes chosen by the hosts of Earthmovers Podcast on a quarterly basis. Proceeds from the first batch of shirts was given to Trail Mix Fund, an organization that supports getting underrepresented folks to the start line of trail races by paying for race fees. You can buy a shirt here!
Get outdoors: Upcoming events
- Sirius Astronomy at Camp Long – September 11th and 12th. Join Sirius Astronomy for stargazing and adventure at Camp Long in West Seattle.
- Black Forager event – September 14th at Town Hall Seattle. Alexis Nikole Nelson (@BlackForager) will speak about her debut cookbook, Happy Snacking, Don't Die!, foraging, wild food, and why your backyard is basically a snack aisle. There's also the option to tune into the event online.
