May 18, 2020

Chapter One, “Childhood Epiphanies” >>>>> >A Teacher’s Journey from Southern Methodist University to North Minneapolis: Foundations for Overhaul of the Minneapolis Public Schools< >>>>> A Memoir >>>>> Gary Marvin Davison





From my desk in Ms. McMillan’s grade 5 class at Dan D. Rogers Elementary School in Dallas, Texas, I gazed over at Mike;  he was adjusting the leg braces that he wore due to a debilitating muscular affliction.  Mike was preparing to rise, an event that always elicited a dim fear rising from my mental file of my fellow 10 year-old’s many past struggles.

 

Mike rose to go drop off an assignment at Ms. McMillan’s desk.  While he typically made such forays without incident, he had also crashed to the floor many times.  This time was one of those occurrences.  Mike ticked the leg of the desk in front of him.  His knees buckled.  He fell with a firm thud on the hard tile floor.  Mike let out with a blood curdling scream.  Beside him, to his right, I rose and then bent over to place my hands gently under Mike’s armpits and lift him off the floor.  Tears were streaming from the child’s eyes and he continued to cry out in agony.  Ms. McMillan came up the aisle and together we settled Mike back in his seat. 

 

Mike gradually got more comfortable but it was what my glance around the room brought to my astonished eyes, accompanied by the sounds that assaulted my ears, that now most got my attention.

 

Many students were smiling mockingly.

 

Others were making faces and pointing Mike’s way.

 

Not a single student seemed empathetic.

 

I noted the difference in the prevailing classroom attitude with the deep horror and sorrow that I felt, for Mike’s struggles, and for the students’ insensitivity.

 

There were more such incidents, unfolding similarly every two or three weeks.

 

I never forgot. 

 

Theses occasions stuck with me throughout the years and have remained vivid throughout my life.  If this was how my classmates reacted to the physical and emotional pain of a crippled boy who bravely came to school each day, excelled academically, contributed many thoughtful comments to class discussions, and strove with every fiber of his being to be normal and to gain acceptance, then I had little use for these children.

 

I was actually a popular classroom presence but this brought me no joy.

 

I was different from these people.  If they judged me to fit in, so be it.  But I did not care.  Lurking beneath their smiles and amiable comments to me was a cruelty that I could not abide and would not understand more fully until other worldly cruelties in like manner offended my soul.

 

To be liked brought certain advantages but no satisfaction.

 

From those days forward I never again cared what other people thought.

 

My own responses and decisions would have to be un-refereed, except by the Divine.

 

Other than Her, I was on my own.

 

…………………………………………………………………………….

 

Dan D. Rogers was comprised of middle-middle class students hailing from neighborhoods of like description.  But the school had something of that academic quality identified with schools centered in upper middle class communities.  Expectations were high and specialized classes began early.  Even in grades 1 through 3 (I had attended a church kindergarten but in those days public education began in grade 1), we had specific classes in art and music, then beginning in grade 4 we also had specialized mathematics and science classes.

 

At grade 5, then, this would necessitate leaving the base class in which we learned history, current events  (not so much wish-washy social studies at Dan D. as in elementary schools of year 2020), and English, and walking to math and science classes.  To do this, Mike would more safely thrive with an escort.

 

Ms. McMillan asked for volunteers.

 

I paused to look around.  There were smirks on many students’ faces.  There we no volunteers.

 

I raised my hand and said, “I’d be glad to walk with Mike.”

 

Mike was a bright and capable guy.  He was overly thankful for my just doing what was right.  He invited me to his house many times, and we became good friends.  His joy amidst life’s challenges were forever an inspiration.

 

The inspiration that I felt from Mike, in tandem with the contempt that I had for my other classmates, proved instructive throughout the ensuing years.

 

…………………………………………………………………………………….

 

With the iconic Southland Life Insurance building towering over other buildings in downtown Dallas in the northward view as Mom, Dad, sister Jan and I traveled along Central Expressway in our Studebaker, I glanced to the west.  There, close to North Dallas High School (so established when North Dallas was the appellation applied to the area just north of the city, not the area now so designated, surrounding and stretching northward toward Richardson from toney Highland Park), was a large park with basketball courts, baseball diamonds, and a swimming pool.  The month was late June, by which time temperatures Fahrenheit were already ascending to 100 degrees and more.  The calendric year was the same as that ending an epiphany-laden grade 5 academic year:  1961.  The pool was full of humanity, all of it African American.

 

I asked my parents, “Momma-Daddy, why do all the colored folk swim in their own pool?  Why don’t any of they come to ours?”

 

Mom answered rather tautologically”:  The nigras swim in their own pool.  We swim in ours.”

 

“But why’s that, Momma-Daddy?”

 

“That’s just the way it is , Gary.”

 

“But it’s not right.”

 

Dad spoke with final-word authority:  “That’s the way it is, son;  that’s just the way it is.”

 

I spoke no more on the matter but thought plenty, summarily,

 

“Ain’t right.  May be the way it is, but ain’t the way it oughtta to be.”

 

I took Sunday School and sanctuary services at East Dallas Christian Church seriously.

 

In my head was playing a song that we sung frequently at grades 4 and 5:

 

Jesus loves the little children---

all the children of the world.

Red and yellow,

black or white,

they are precious in his sight:

Jesus loves the little children

of the world.

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