Honoring Civil Rights ‘Nana’ with poetry
Pictured are four generations: Catherine Allen, from left, desegregation pioneer Ernestine Avery-Johnson, Ernestine Foster and Cali Foster. (photo:Ben Pounds )
Ernestine Avery-Johnson was one of the 85 black students who entered Oak Ridge Schools on Sept. 6, 1955.
A crowd gathered under a tent and umbrellas in A.K. Bissell Park Sept. 6 this year amid light rain to mark the event’s anniversary.
Speakers included Oak Ridge Mayor Pro Tem Jim Dodson and Anderson County Commission Chairman Joshua Anderson. The event promoted fundraising for a future monument, also in A.K. Bissell Park.
Cali Foster Johnson’s great-great granddaughter read a poem “Because of her I can” in her Nana’s honor.
“She was really scared, but now I can come to school not scared,” Foster said of Johnson. Foster said thanks to her Nana helping to end segregation, she could sit at lunch with her friends. She told The Courier News that was the change she liked best of all the ones her Nana helped bring about.
The Scarboro 85, named for the Oak Ridge neighborhood from which they came, entered Oak Ridge High School and Robertsville Middle School on Sept. 6, 1955, one year after the Brown v. Board of Education decision called for public schools to integrate. The Atomic Energy Commission ran Oak Ridge Schools at the time rather than the state of Tennessee.
The Clinton 12 in neighboring Clinton became the first black students to attend a formerly white state-run high school in the Southeast a year later.
Avery-Johnson said she had never imagined her descendant writing something like “Because of her I can.”
“She spoke from the heart,” Avery-Johnson said of Foster. She also appreciated the support for a monument to her and her classmates.
“Oak Ridge is a city where there’s love and where we can all be together,” she said.
Larry Gipson, another of the Scarboro 85, said more than half of the 85 are now dead.
“We’re not going to be around much longer; It will be a living legacy,” he said of the planned monument.
Rose Weaver, a local history enthusiast. said she started the Scarboro Youth Project to engage young people about the Scarboro 85. She said three students related to the Scarboro 85 students. including Foster, had already raised more than $1,500 to go to the monument and scholarships for students in the Scarboro neighborhood.
Musicians presenting at the event included drummer Corey Hodge, Robertsville Middle School Band, Oak Ridge High School Band, Delores Cole of Mount Sinai Baptist Church, Lashemia Pruitt of Oak Valley Baptist Church, Jeff Kile and Naomi Asher of First United Methodist Church, the unity choir made up of different church choir groups, the Oak Ridge High School Choir and a final song led by Leroy Sims at Spurgeon Chapel AME Church.
Speakers included Pastor David Allred of High Places Church, the Rev. Anette Flynn of First United Methodist Church, Senior Pastor Mark Flynn at First United Methodist Church, Pastor Darius Waters of True Life Baptist Church, Rose Weaver of Weaver Consulting, Vanessa Spratling of the Scarboro 85 Celebration Committee and Keziah Strickland, another member of the 2023 Scarboro Youth. Ram Uppuluri and D. Ray Smith rang the International Friendship Bell.
For more information on the monument, go to scarboro85monument.com. Contributions for the monument can be taken to Pinnacle Bank, 231 Jackson Square, Oak Ridge.
Or they can be mailed to P.O. Box 4158, Oak Ridge, TN 37831.
Make checks payable to United Way of Anderson County and note “Scarboro 85 Monument.”
Foster’s poem
On September 6, 1955, my grandmother was one of the first to integrate the United States.
Because she was scared when she walked in her school knowing if she would be hurt and knowing people would say racial slurs to her,
I am able to go to school where I am safe.
Because she faced her fears of not knowing if children would be mean to her,
I can go to school and make friends with children of all colors.
Because she was treated differently from the other students because of her color,
I can be accepted by my teachers for my intellect and character.
Because she couldn’t raise her hand,
I can raise my hand in class with confidence and the teacher will call on me when I know the answer.
Because she wasn’t recognized by her teachers,
I can and am currently in the gifted program at Glenwood Elementary and scored 410 out of 450 on my third-grade TCAP 24.
Because she couldn’t eat lunch with her white peers,
I can enjoy lunch with my friends in the cafeteria.
Because she went through the worst treatment,
I can receive a great education.
I am very proud of my nana, and she is my best friend.