These chapters revealed further emphasis Charlayne Hunter0Gault’s family placed on education. We see on page 61, that Charlyane was taught education would be her salvation. More specifically, her family placed high value on words, telling her “If you master words, you will walk with kings and queens.” This perhaps gives insight on Charlayne’s chosen profession as a journalist.
Charlayne provides a glimpse into her school curriculum on page 75 and the way Black identity was infused in the formal education Black children received:
“We learned Black history routinely, taught by people who understood that while It was not within their power to confer first-class citizenship legally, they could prepare us through the power they knew no one could deny them: the transmission of a heritage that we could be proud of and inspired by.”
What a powerful education that must have been for Charlayne and her classmates – to have an education that went much deeper than any textbook learning could, especially since they were not given appropriate textbooks by the public school system.
These chapters also begin the build up to desegregation at UGA as Charlayne begins to mention sense of place and difference. When she speaks of going to the white school in Atlanta, she mentions the experience of “sitting down in one of ‘their’ seats for the first time” (p. 83) and how different that was for her.
She later goes on to her describe her experience in Alaska being the only Black student in the school (p. 93). Charlayne talks about her revelation of how she had always assumed that “white education was superior, and it wasn’t too much of a leap to conclude that so were white people” (p. 93), but realizes through experiences that “White people were not superior; they were just different” (p. 94).
What impact do you think this realization had on Charlayne’s future? How do you think the instilled value of education influenced Charlyane’s experiences with the University of Georgia?
What other thoughts have you had in reading this book so far?
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