AAERO is pleased to announce receipt of funding for “Somebody Had to Do It” – a 
multidisciplinary research project documenting the experience of the first African American children to attend formerly all-White schools. This project, which seeks to identify and interview all of those who desegregated schools in the U.S., will be housed for the next five years at the Jonathan Jasper Wright Institute for the Study of Southern African American History, Culture and Policy at Claflin University (Orangeburg, SC).
The Project is being funded initially by a $20,000 grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation (Battle Creek, MI) and a matching $20,000 grant from the American Friends Service Committee (Philadelphia, PA). “Somebody Had to Do It” seeks to create a database of those “First Children” whose narratives are needed to adequately and accurately interpret the issues and results associated with the Brown vs. Board of Education (1954) Supreme Court decision, and Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The latter declared that all school districts must submit school desegregation plans to the federal government in order to received federal funding.
The Project Director, Dr. Millicent Brown, is herself one of the desegregation pioneers in Charleston, South Carolina. Beyond collecting the narratives and data, the “Somebody” project will encourage critique and interpretations across multiple disciplines to ensure that this mid-twentieth century phenomenon is appreciated as more than a historical or political event. “In fact,” says Brown, “we need artists, psychologists, social workers, and dramatists all to present these events and people from a range of perspectives.”
In addition to the research portion and creation of documentaries, books, masters’ theses or plays, a concentrated effort will assist communities throughout the nation in acknowledging the impact of these personal sacrifices on this country’s progression toward revamping its policies of race-based educational and social discrimination. Considerable emotional, economic and physical repercussions accompanied these important transitions. Full understanding of the impact of the Brown Decision and the 1964 Civil Rights Act is not possible in the absence of this body of knowledge.
The Project takes its name from the often-stated response of the no longer young activists who stepped forward, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, to end educational apartheid. Four scholar-activists under the auspices of a North Carolina based non-profit African American Education & Research Organization (AAERO) initiated the Project and sought support of other groups sharing its mission. Historian, Constance Curry, family therapist, Vanessa Jackson, political scientist Paula Quick Hall join historian, Millicent Brown to create the expansive vision for making the history of youth struggle in the past relevant to the youth and adults of today. For information about AAERO, see www.aaero.org.
The W. K. Kellogg Foundation was established in 1930. The organization supports children, families and adults and communities as they strengthen and create conditions that propel vulnerable children to achieve success as individuals and as contributors to the larger community and society. Grants are concentrated in the United States, Latin American and the Caribbean, and the southern African countries of Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. For further information, visit the Foundation’s website at www.wkkf.org.
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) has a long history of offering support to those individuals and families experiencing adverse effects from their stances for civil rights. In the aftermath of early school desegregation challenges following the 1964 Civil Rights Act, AFSC offered financial support to and advocacy for families across the South suffering repercussions—loss of welfare, evictions, physical violence, job loss and harassment of the children—for their attempts to secure a better education for their children. Information about AFSC may be found at www.afsc.org.
The Jonathan Jasper Wright Institute is a newly established research institute dedicated to scholarly activity examining issues that impact people of African descent in South Carolina, the southern region of United States, and beyond. It is through the institutional support of Claflin University that the “Somebody” project will engage graduate and undergraduate students and youth in its training of community interviewers, in collecting and analyzing the experiences of first line youth activists, and in working toward a more public and critical conversation about contemporary public education. See www.claflin.edu for more information about the Jonathan Jasper Wright Institute.
For Immediate Release: “Somebody Had To Do It”
Date: June 25, 2008
Contact: Dr. Millicent E. Brown, 803-535-5000
