The Sociohistorical Mandate for Literacy and Education in the Rural South: A Narrative Perspective

IntroductionI am from Pinesville;It is 1965.I hear Civil Rights workers from the North and the SCLCcame down to register black voters.The newspapers report that 80 per cent of the black populationis registered to vote-One of the highest percentages in the state,Infuriating white folks.They say:Five black teachers at Howard Schoollost their jobs due to their poor credit.We say:Poor credit? Really?Those teachers lost their jobsfor participating in voter registration efforts,for demanding quality schools,and for insisting that the school superintendentfulfill promises she once made to the blackcommunity.I remember the SCLC led marches over the firing of our teachers,Reinforcing the law that requires every public facilitybe opened to use by blacks.Martin Luther King, Jr., and Julian Bondvisit Friendship Baptist Church,demanding integrated schoolsand equal employment.The local paper does not cover their visits.The swimming pool at the park is integrated.Stella's Cafe, the only restaurant, applies for private club status.Whites-only.They say:The SCLC's demonstrations are misdirectedand will only damage an already fragile economy.We say:Our economy suffers because of racismand segregation.White flight from Pinesvillewill hurt its economy.We demand equal rights, opportunity,and quality of life.The cafe closes.The federal government intervenesand forces desegregation.The whites enroll in private schoolsand their public school is closed.It is the first time in historythat student transfers wipe out an entire student body of a school.Howard School opens on time,amidst protests of inferior conditions.Some are arrested.Some attend a "freedom school."Some try to enter schools in a neighboring countybut are denied.Black-belt whites are determined to keep powerat all costs.1The above poem was constructed to represent, in the first-person voice, research data on civil rights activities that occurred in an African American majority, rural community (Pinesville2) in the southeastern United States. The people in this small community (population: 521; U.S. Census Bureau, 2010) played a critical role in the school desegregation efforts of the 1960s, receiving attention from both the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In the mid-2000s, I participated in professional development work at what is now the only school in the county, Pinesville Community School (PCS), an African American majority K-12 public charter school. This work, headed by my colleague Deborah Tippins, used literacy as a tool for engaging in community-based scientific inquiry. Using community-based practices (e.g., Arellano, Barcenal, Bilbao, Castellano, Nichols, & Tippins, 2001), we worked with teachers and students to identify funds of knowledge related to science and literacy. As a result, I became curious about the way this specific history of racism and civil rights activity intersected with persons' experiences with literacy. To learn more, I conducted life history interviews with persons in the community. In this article, I share findings from these interviews and engage with the following questions:* How have African American persons who live in a rural community experienced literacy?* What has been the relationship between salient sociohistorical factors and their experiences with literacy?I use a series of data poems (Cahnmann, 2003; Eisner, 1997; Richardson, 1992) to share the life history of Miss Sally Harris, an African American woman from Pinesville. Miss Sally's life history highlights the "mandate" (Royster, 2000) for literacy and education within Pinesville, or how the sociohistorical context of the community has demanded that persons pursue literacy and education. …