Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Reflections from youth in East St. Louis

2020; Wiley; Volume: 47; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/amet.12902

1548-1425

TREASURE SHIELDS REDMOND,

Indigenous and Place-Based Education

A young girl displays her homemade sign at the Mother's March in Clayton, Missouri, outside the St. Louis County courthouse, October 18, 2014. (Jong Bum Kwon) (Elizabeth Stallings) Treasure Shields Redmond, a native of Mississippi, is a St. Louis metro–based poet, performer, and social justice educator, and the daughter of Eugene Redmond, Poet Laureate of East St. Louis. Her collection of poems, chop: a collection of kwansabas for fannie lou hamer, was cowinner of the Winged City Chapbooks RA/AM chapbook contest. She has published poetry in such notable anthologies as Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam and Breaking Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cane Canem's First Decade; received a fellowship to the Fine Arts Works Center; and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Redmond is working on her doctorate with a focus on how Black women poets use sound to impact the canon and justice movements. By Treasure Shields Redmond The essays that follow were written by freshman in my writing class at East St. Louis Senior High School. The students were all in the third grade, about nine years old, when Michael Brown Jr. was murdered and the Ferguson uprising ignited the region. Most do not clearly remember the details or the intensity that gripped the region, the protests, and Darren Wilson's acquittal. But through (over)hearing parents, older relatives, and other adults retell the stories of Black heroism and police brutality, the killing of Brown and the uprising for racial justice are part of their local historical narrative. While they did not directly witness the events of late 2014, they also intimately know the racism, danger, death, and myriad challenges that affect their lives and the lives of their families and communities. The following are their reflections, hopes, and dreams for themselves and for the place they call home. East St. Louis, Illinois, is located 15 miles away from Ferguson, just across the Mississippi River. The two cities epitomize the “new suburbia”—not white, not upwardly mobile, not middle class (Hamer 2011, 1). Both are declining working-class suburbs wracked by white flight, disinvestment, and racial violence and terror. While these are important touchpoints, East St. Louis is often overlooked in conversations about racial equity in the region. There are also key differences. While Ferguson is majority Black (67 percent), East St. Louis is a city of fewer than 30,000 residents and is nearly 100 percent Black. While Ferguson is governed and policed by the white minority, East St. Louis is run by Black officials. For as long as these students have been alive, their immediate community has been a small monoculture, with Black policemen, a Black mayor and city officials, and Black principals, teachers, and preachers. They live in the wake of a city abandoned two generations ago by white residents and industry. It is a city where the illicit economy makes up for economic depression; its rules and its violence play out on the streets daily. They do not see in their immediate community a white police force hunting them. In their reality, the hunters and the prey all look like them. There have been 33 confirmed homicides in 2019, the latest a 13-year-old who was found shot dead in the parking lot of Mason-Clark Middle School, which many of my students attended. The previous school year, a fellow eighth grader was killed in a drive-by shooting after their eighth-grade prom. This is the reality in which they hope and dream and live. The young writers who penned the words you are about to read have been studying the historical atrocities experienced by the Black community and the revolutionaries who ignited change but whose stories are rarely captured in standard textbooks. They read the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. They discussed the 1917 East St. Louis massacre, in which Black residents were murdered by angry white mobs, and how journalist Ida B. Wells came to their city to document the atrocities against its Black residents. They took a historical journey through their city's industrial boom, which was achieved through child labor, and how labor activists such as Mother Jones bravely protested companies’ widespread abuse of children and the poor. They have been shocked by South Africa's apartheid system and inspired by Nelson Mandela's perseverance, humanity, and wisdom. Against this historical reading, their own lived experiences, and within the context of a region forever changed by the Ferguson uprising, I asked these future social critics to reflect on the past and present, and to share their visions of their future and that of their community. Below are a few of their essays and excerpts from others. The past: Back when I was five years old, East St. Louis was very different from what it is now. Like back when there was this car wash, and my dad always worked there. He used to bring me there, and I used to watch him wash cars. Also there was an old church, and my people used to go there before it got destroyed. We used to go there every Sunday. A lot of stuff changed when my momma and dad broke up and things became different. My momma got a job by my school, and my dad, well, he had a lot of other kids. Back then Obama was president, and he was a very great president. He even had something called Obamacare. Back then I was so young, I couldn't even spell, and I used to be scared of the dark. The only game systems I had were Xbox 360 and PS3. So much has changed since then. I used to be scared of the dark, and my momma always used to go to 23rd Street like every day. But our streets there were so raggedy and crooked. The balls we used to have had titties [i.e., they were old and beaten up, and had irregular bumps], and people used to paint on the streets. Back then, we used to go to the park because it was safe and we didn't have to worry about anybody shooting you out of nowhere. I have never moved before. I always lived in the same house. I wonder what it feels like to move. The present: First, I'm in high school! Now my momma works somewhere totally different, and I have different friends from what I had at Clark Middle School and Officer Elementary, except three people I always knew. I have an iPhone now, which is a new good experience, and I have an Xbox One and PS4. Someone burned down that old church, and since it was broken down, they cleared all the pieces of it away. A lot of my family members moved down two blocks from my house, which is great. And a lot of my family members go to East Side. Our president is so bad, and the people disliked him so much that they impeached him. Hopefully they can get him out of office and he leaves the White House! Life feels different because I'm older. Now I'm in high school, and the street has changed. People are different from what they used to be too. My dad is out of jail and trying to get a bond with me, and I'm going to get a job soon, hopefully. The future: I don't really know what to say about the future. A lot of things could happen in East St. Louis. I know more technology will come out and people will get smarter. That there will be different presidents and different rappers. There are people who will have side hustles like making a brand and selling it, and making rap music. In the future, I will be older and smart, and I won't be in school no more. I will have a job and hopefully a wife and kids as well. I'm from East St. Louis, where it's shoot or get shot. Where you are 15 in a cell doing life. Mommas are burying their kids (girls and boys). Nowadays you can't go out to have fun with your friends because of the stuff that happens: kidnapping, getting shot. You can't really make it to the real whole [live to your fullest potential] with this new generation. Not too many people's families are happy. It is sad to see my hometown like this. I would like to make a change. I plan to become a doctor and have my own dance studio. I'm very good with dancing. Also, I know if I want to be a doctor, I will have to keep my grades up. I will need to be good in school. I will become the first doctor in my family. I love being the first to do stuff so the little ones in my family will see how good I am doing. I can teach people how to dance and learn how to be better than they were before. I will need to learn how to keep my own space for a dance studio. I will have lots of support for my dance studio. I will also get people off the streets. In the words of Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” When Mandela said this, he was saying we need to educate children more and if we get more and more children into schools, more good will come out. Now, I was around when he was alive, but I was too young to understand. First, it is important to know the past because if you don't know about your past, you will most likely repeat it. We have been learning about revolutionaries like Ida B. Wells, who came to East St. Louis and helped people dealing with racial violence. When Wells came to East St. Louis, the violence had a turnaround and not as many people were getting killed, and more and more kids were living and getting an education. A young girl displays her homemade sign at the Mother's March in Clayton, Missouri, outside the St. Louis County courthouse, October 18, 2014. (Jong Bum Kwon) Next, when violence comes to mind, I think about my community. Growing up in East St. Louis is not easy. Many kids don't have homes and many more things. I still think violence is beginning to be more and more of a problem, with all these kids running the streets and being in gangs. For example, I had a friend that I played football with my whole life, not only on the same team but also against him. The night after our eighth-grade prom an altercation happened between two girls, and some dudes started shooting. My friend got hit and was rushed to the hospital and he died. Finally, my future is very bright. I plan to become an NFL football player. I plan to give back to my community and help out those in need. I know that's going to take a lot of blood, sweat, and tears on the field and off the field, at school getting in them books, and keeping my grades up. It's not a common thing to do living in the city of East St. Louis with all the violence and everything going on. If I go to the NFL (when I go to the NFL), I will come back to my community and give back and give the city someone to be proud of. I will also invest in the schools and in centers for kids to stay away from violence. In conclusion, we must know about the past, we must protect the present, and we must live for the future. So many young people are being killed because of these gang shootings and violence overall in our community. I feel as if all Blacks put their minds together and get over whatever they're beefing about, we can protect and build our community more. I know I will come back and support my community when I get older if I am able. Young people should learn about the past struggles for equality and freedom because it explains and gives details on how so many people fought to have equal rights. People fought against child labor and for freedom. Now that we have schools and teachers, we learn how so many people struggled to fight for what we have now. East Saint Louis's past affects me today on how in the past it had over 60,000 African Americans and now has less than 30,000 people. This was caused because white people tried to overrun them by killing and burning African Americans alive. But now East St. Louis is filled with African Americans and less whites are killing them. Right now the biggest issue that communities are facing is major violence. People are shooting and killing each other. People are shooting to the point that they are killing innocent people and children around them. These shootings are becoming more and more dangerous to the community, where people in the neighborhood are scared to stay down in their homes. The government needs to do something to stop the dangerous acts. Finally, my career in the future is to be a police officer. I want to protect and defend the people. I want to document about the community to show the government that it needs more help and to stop the violence. Therefore, I'll protect the lives and property of citizens. To conclude, I will also build a school. Hopefully building a school could help other children that are willing to learn to succeed in life and not be around criminal violence. In conclusion, these past events help younger children my age to see how people struggled to gain freedom and that anything can happen if you just try. From Ida B. Wells, who taught me to strive for African American justice. Her determination and courage helped change the course of history. From this I learned to put effort into your work and continue to fight for anything you believe in, and one day it can happen. So many people in my generation are getting killed by violence, but I do not believe we are a lost cause. With a clear plan, and a positive attitude, I know that I will be an NBA basketball star, and I will come back and help my family and friends that believe in me, and that I will make it. I plan on going to college to become a software developer for a couple of reasons. One reason is that the pay is very good and all you have to do is update or rework games or computers, and you're sitting down. The only thing in danger is your hands. In East St. Louis the current state of it is no better than it was in the past. Some might argue that it's worse, even though there isn't any racial violence. Though there aren't African Americans getting killed by whites as much, there are high numbers of “black on black” crimes. I hope this city will become an all-American city again. All we need is for the community to help me make this city great again so more people from around the world can come see the history of East St. Louis like I see it. It makes me think more about the city and how hard Black people work to keep this city together and not fall apart like a hole in the ground.