Engaging in Antiracist Advocacy: The Black Student Union at Charlottesville High School

• In Event: Moscone Center North Roundtable Session 10
  In Roundtable Session: Challenging White Supremacy in Education in Charlottesville Post-2017

Abstract

In 2015 an African-American women freshmen at Charlottesville High School started a petition to form a Black Student Union. “Over the past year we have been looking closely at the issue surrounding the achievement gap, police brutality, and the Black lives matter movement. All of these things do affect us as black students in America, and we want to make a change. … Here at Charlottesville High School …we are simply starting the initiative to empower the Black student body and to educate the student population in Charlottesville on issues dealing with social injustices and racial inequity ... .”

The objectives of this presentation are to provide a description and analysis of anti-racist activism and organizing conducted by the Black Student Union at Charlottesville High School prior to, and after, the white supremacist violence in Charlottesville in 2017. It chronicles from the perspective of the leader and founder of the BSU the need for, and formation of, the BSU in 2015 as a space for anti-racist activism and its strategies for organizing against racism and educational inequalities prior to August 12, 2017. The presentation describes the response by the BSU activists to the October 2018 NYT/Pro-Publica expose of historical and present-day institutionalized racism and inequalities in the CCS system. It further describes the interaction between the student activists and the school administration in the wake of that expose. Also discussed will be the anti-racist activism centered on the 2019 racist threat against the school, the resulting protest as well as the demands made by the BSU and the ensuing responses to those demands.

This presentation will employ perspectives from critical race theory and anti-racist activism. The methods employed are rooted in autobiographical and auto-ethnographic narrative methodologies. The data sources and evidence derive from the personal experience of the presenter over a four-year period as President of the organization. Additional data sources and evidence used include media reports, correspondence with school administrators and statistical data on educational inequalities extent in the school system.

The 2017 white supremacist incident reflected historical and endemic inequality and white supremacy in the City School system. The community must address whole systems and whole institutions that maintain inequity in education in Charlottesville. Inequalities such as the absence of black students in Advanced Placement Courses and disparities in school discipline along racial lines. Research found that 7.4 percent of black students in Charlottesville were placed on short-term suspension in the 2016-2017 academic year, compared to 1.3 percent of white students. Classrooms were found to be segregated. Overall there was a connection between the white supremacists events and the racist history of Charlottesville that remains evident in educational inequality. The beginnings of progress have only come through activism after decades or centuries of white supremacist and institutional racism that are baked into the school system. Moving beyond the events of 2017 will require significant work to reckon with white supremacy of the town’s racist past including amplifying voices and experiences of people of color who are disproportionately affected by the racial violence.

Author

• Zyahna Bryant, University of Virginia