Overcomers
“You don’t belong. You ain’t white. You d’token.”
The words seemed a mixture of shout and hiss across a long lunchroom table. Spoken so distinctly, these words caused the general buzz of students talking to become background noise. The speaker, a boy age 12, Josiah, had a frown as he spoke to the two girls I knew, Adesa and Zuri. Both girls participated in the program for academically gifted students. Each of these young people and their closest friends at this lunch table might have ancestry to dozens of people groups of Africa.
Our southernmost county in New Jersey had a unique history of establishing a town exclusively for African Americans at a time when racism had increased in the county. An association of investors, including Booker T. Washington, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, pastors and leaders of the AME churches, and a former Congressman from North Carolina, George H. White, offered inexpensive land good for farming or homes to black families or individuals migrating north at the turn of the 20th century.
George H. White was the last African American to hold a seat in Congress in the decades after reconstruction. He left after Congress due to increasing repression of African American civil rights and Congressional lack of action to challenge and change the oppression. George White believed African Americans should leave the south and he worked with investors and leaders to open land development and homeownership for blacks who came north. The town was named Whitesboro. George H. White was recognized as the leading advocate in the group for opportunities and empowerment for blacks leaving the south to come to this land opportunity in south Jersey.
Now Josiah had told these beautiful smart girls that they didn’t belong in a group exploring extra academic opportunities. Many concerns had been voiced in the community before programs for gifted students emerged. How students would qualify stood as a dominant issue. Teachers of music, art and physical education had extra opportunities for students. Collaborative science programs were open for students during afterschool hours. For students identified as academically gifted in Language Arts and Math, they left their homeroom classrooms and went to another classroom, a resource suited to their pace and needs. People called it the g/t class. Seven different evaluation tools guided the school in identifying a student needing more academic challenge because the school system didn’t want to depend on just test scores or parent or teacher recommendations.
Adesa and Zuri were in the same homeroom as Josiah, but when their class had Language Arts or math, the two girls went to the g/t classroom. Other members of their classes with different needs went to other kinds of resource rooms. Their fifth-grade group in the g/t program had 10 Caucasian students, 3 Asian students, Adesa and Zuri, and one African American young man. All of these students had known one another since kindergarten and many times had the same homeroom classes.
Now, in the spring of their fifth-grade year, Josiah, a popular student and one of their black peers loudly discouraged their participation in the gifted program. Since first-grade Adesa and Zuri had, with dozens of other students, participated in enrichment opportunities. Adesa and Zuri usually had positive attitudes toward school and projects. I’d seen them work well as followers and leaders in small group activities.
At this lunch table, Josiah’s words had caused a lull in normal chatter. Adesa and Zuri sat grouped with longtime friends. Students who had friends in the school but only saw them at lunchtime always chose to sit together if their teacher had not assigned seats. Sometimes this gave the lunchroom tables a throw-back look to times of segregation.
“You best choose before next year,” Josiah continued with less volume but the same warning tone. Next year they would all be in another school, the Middle School. With larger classes, less personal attention, and constantly changing from class to class, students felt more pressure and need for friends, for a group they could belong to, a group that would continue with them into high school.
Adesa and Zuri looked at one another and then back at him. Zuri, who spoke out often about anything she perceived as a slight said, “You just wish you could be in G/T.” People who knew Zuri said she had an instinct for argument and for using offense as a defense.
“No, I don’t. I know where I belong. You should too. If you don’t, you ain’t so smart.”
“We belong just fine in g/t, “ Zuri retorted.
“You believe that?” another student asked.
“Yeah, I do,” Zuri spoke firmly. Then she looked toward Adesa.
Adesa’s dark lashes almost touched her cheekbones as she tipped her head down.
“Adesa knows. She just ain’t sayin.’” Josiah’s almost sounded sad.
Sometimes teachers can be invisible. Overcrowded cafeterias filled with active young students who are glad to see their friend, to be out of a class, and busy talking freely lend the cloak of invisibility to any teacher willing to wear it. 240 fifth graders on their lunch break would not notice me unless I made myself visible. I had to do that sometimes, but now I backed a little farther away from the table still staying within listening distance.
“You want friends to stick with you, you got to choose to be with them. Don’t choose to keep on with white classes.”
“They’re not white classes,” Zuri persisted. “You don’t know much about the g/t classes. We can have lots of different kinds of friends.”
“You’re smart enough you could be in g/t,” Adesa added.
“I don’t belong in there. Don’t wanna be. I do fine.”
The lunch bell sounded. Cleaning up and lining up was required. Everyone moved into action. I watched the students and thought of the spring parent-teacher conferences coming up. Parents of fifth-graders in the g/t program would learn more about the class at the middle school. Parents of students who had shown they could also join the middle school class would also be given information about that transition. No student had to continue.
I did know of one set of parents who removed their child from the g/t program. The reason they gave was based on grades. In the g/t class, every grade was not an A for their child. If their student stayed in the general classes, the child easily earned all As.
Zuri’s mom decided against having her daughter continue in the g/t program at the middle school. Adesa’s mom made the same decision. The young man from Whitesboro did decide to continue, but I lost track of his progress since he moved while he was in middle school. In the general classes, Zuri and Adesa made the honor roll through 6th grade, in 7th grade less often, in 8th grade, rarely.
The high school counselor knew Zuri and Adesa beyond records of their abilities. She had participated in Whitesboro Community Center activities and met the girls outside of a school environment. This counselor tried to encourage them to take at least one honors class so that farther along they could take AP classes and actually earn credit that would help toward college.
Neither Zuri nor Adesa followed her suggestions. Adesa didn’t give a reason but Zuri had accepted Josiah’s idea that she should stay where most of her friends were. Most people from pre-teens to the elderly can see teen years have the strongest pull to belong with the group that declares, “You belong with us.”
Some students just capture one’s heart, and in a small community, as ours was, in all seasons except summer when tourists and summer job employees swelled the population, it is possible to keep up with news about individuals. Adesa and Zuri graduated high school in the top half of their class. Then both found simple local jobs and men they loved, but ultimately, they were left as single parents. Their own families could not offer financial help; both young women struggled to make enough to take care of necessities.
Adesa stayed in the county. Life was a daily struggle for her as a single parent. Over twenty years she had many jobs, but she learned a lot about every one of them. She looked at people who had started businesses and began to think about what entrepreneurs did. She didn’t try to go to any college, not even the community college nearby, but she took some online classes related to needs of entrepreneurs. Now, she has a business that has provided her more income than ever and, in that business, she helps other people start businesses.
Zuri moved to another state. She had to work several jobs, take care of her child, but she began to work slowly toward a college degree. Some semesters she couldn’t take any classes if she wanted to pay rent, but then she learned about special aid for moms who want to earn a degree. It took her more than 4 years to earn a degree. In that time, she also learned about grants and how to apply successfully for them. And what did she do when she finished her degree? She applied to law school. After completing law school, to expand her learning and options, Zuri spent a year overseas at an international school well known for research. When she returned to the United States, she applied for and got a job she calls a dream job.
Overcomers often have to tackle figuring out where they want to belong. J.R.R. Tolkien said, “All those who wander are not lost,” but Adesa and Zuri seemed lost for a while by staying where people told them they belonged. They were weighed down listening to advice to just stay on a traveled path. Their early years and experiences in soaking up learning experiences, their persistence, and abilities showed them new ways to belong first to themselves, then to their dreams.
Once anchored and equipped they found new paths, people, and places where they could feel they belonged. They not only found their way but learned more than they might have imagined through the tough times. The happiest ending to me is that as overcomers, Adesa and Zuri are both working in ways that help others to be overcomers.
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