Junior Alyssa Coleman felt terrified under the stage lights in Hanes Auditorium as she stepped up to read her poem about the achievement gap in schools across the country.
“I’m tired of this, of feeling alone,” the poem read, “with no one to see with a similar skin tone.”
Coleman used her style of writing to reflect her experience at Chapel Hill.
“I tried my best to write the poem in a way that was not super obviously addressing the issue, in order to mirror the way that teachers or administrators discuss the achievement gap,” Coleman said.
The Lift Every Voice Leadership Team—including Coleman, juniors Eve Carter and Victoria Fornville and seniors Corrina Johnson, Anna Rogers, Jeneice Mason-Carter and Nicole Bell—began planning the event, officially called “Lift Every Voice: A Celebration of Black History and Future,” months before it took place in Hanes Auditorium on February 15.
English teacher Michael Irwin organized the event, aiding the leadership team in the assembly’s planning.
“[Students on the team] balanced vulnerability and pride in a collaborative leadership model that provided us all with a lot of faith in our future,” Irwin said.
With the help of local poet and activist C.J. Suitt, Coleman and several other members of the leadership team wrote poems about their unique experiences as students of color.
The assembly featured musical performances, video presentations, a keynote speaker and a panel discussion.
Local activist Pierce Freelon spoke about several topics, including the importance of open conversations about race in the current political climate, and presented a video animation, shown also at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival, about the origins of the division between races in America.
Freelon is the founder of Blackspace, a local organization offering “Black and Brown youth a breathing space to manifest their dreams by any medium necessary,” according to the event’s program. Members of Blackspace produced the video, the first of a 15-episode series entitled The History of White People in America.
Freelon also spoke about the intersectionality of different kinds of oppression.
“Racism is one of the things that invisibilizes people,” Freelon said. “All oppression is connected; also, all liberation is connected, that means none of us get free until we all get free.”
Additionally, the leadership team chose to show a condensed version of Mason-Carter’s documentary Let’s Talk About Race. The video featured a diverse group of Chapel Hill students discussing their personal experiences with race.
Mason-Carter based the video’s format on a project she did about race in her psychology class during her junior year.
“[The assembly’s planning] kind of sparked something in me,” Mason-Carter said. “I just knew [the documentary format] would match the event.”
The panel discussion featured teachers from Chapel Hill, including English teachers Kim Jones and Joanne McClelland, alongside administrators such as Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Superintendent Pamela Baldwin. Several issues, including the achievement gap and Black History Month, came up during the conversation.
“I have a huge problem with Black History Month, only because it’s just our history, so it shouldn’t be just in February,” Baldwin said. “It’s insulting to me. I am offended by it. And I believe that if we’re really going to tell the story, we should tell the whole story.”
Coleman echoed Baldwin’s sentiments.
“I hope [the audience saw] the incredible community that black people have created, which should be celebrated past an assembly and past February,” she said.
Fornville was the only student contributing on the panel. She urged administration to acknowledge students who feel oppressed in the school system and make changes.
“I personally do not feel ignored. I feel oppressed in the system,” Fornville said. “In our district, I want to be heard, but I also want to see changes happen. I want to see more teachers that look like me. I want to see more people who look like me in my AP classes. I want to see more people encouraged to take honors and AP classes.”
Fornville also spoke about the need for difficult conversations about race in school settings.
“The fact that people are so afraid to say that we are a predominantly white high school is the problem,” she said. “We don’t have conversations outside of my African-American Seminar class.”
Bell, Student Government president, emceed the event. She also emphasized the importance in awareness of differences between the school experiences of white and non-white students.
“In high school, I don’t really get to see black excellence or people of color getting a platform to express themselves, show off their talents or be able to talk about their kinds of experiences,” she said. “I think it’s really important to give students of color a platform to use.”
Junior Camden Rutherford, who was in the assembly’s audience, expressed wishes for similar events in the future.
“I thought it was a really powerful assembly. I would have loved if it was longer. I would love to see more of it,” Rutherford said. “I felt like a lot of what was said needs to be said again.”
Johnson noted that conversations about race must to begin and continue at the classroom-level in order to initiate change to a larger degree.
“It’s important for teachers to amplify different cultures in their classrooms, as well as [educate] students about those cultures,” she said.
