Have you had this policy that allowed students of different races and other backgrounds to participate, but in no way were they provided for. So really, what's the expectation so you can attend the school, but unless Luana brown Sanders Clark opens her home to you, and houses numerous male black students, they would not have graduated because they didn't have homes to live in. You didn't have other people in the area opening their homes, to black students. And so you're put in this position where the policy may sound inclusive, but the reality is far different.
Equal Access is a thorny issue that communities schools and individuals struggle to address. Even as progress is made in law, policy and even in personal attitudes. It's difficult to fully shift a balance of power that has in the past left people on the outside. This is random acts of knowledge presented by Heartland Community College. I'm your host, Steve fast. Today we're discussing who held and holds the power to attain an equal education on the local level. McLean County Museum of History is partnering with a number of organizations, including Heartland Community College to examine the challenges and choices made at key times in the history of the area. In regards to labor, education and civil rights. There is an event scheduled on the campus of Heartland to discuss equal education. Let's welcome to voices who are helping organize the discussion.
Janna Johnson Education Program Coordinator at the McLean County Museum of History,
and Terrence bond Associate Dean of Students and one of the co chairs for the President's Task Force on diversity and inclusion here at Heartland Community College. This is
a unique project in that you have an exhibit at the Glen County Museum of History, but also the series of discussions. The exhibit has examples to inform, and brings out some of the topics that are covered there into discussion in the community. In particular, what we're going to be talking about at Heartland is who has the power to get an education, explain how that is represented in the larger sense in the exhibit.
Sure, the McLean County Museum of History opened our last of five core exhibits this last November. And so this most recent exhibit of community and conflict features various instances of conflict in McLean County's history, and poses the question over and over who has the power. And you can feel that in dot dot dot one of which being who has the power to get an equal education. And so through this program series, were identifying some of these key questions for total, and looking at them through a historic lens inspired by the exhibit, but translating that topic to a modern context. So one of the historic examples in the community and conflict exhibit goes back to the 1870s. Right, we've got school segregation locally, we have the crow family who has children who are told that they can't attend the school that's within their neighborhood, but have to travel 10 blocks away to a lesser resourced school simply because of their race. And you speed ahead 100 years 1970s We've got clashes at Bloomington High School between black and white students, black students and the Afro American club are attempting to display their culture within the school. And that results in a conflict between black and white students. And then you speed up even further to today, where we're still asking these questions about how to get an equal education, not just based on racial minority, but also ability, socio economic background, and language and all of those other factors.
Well, let's go back to that first example. I think the thing that is interesting here is the continuum of how policies don't necessarily solve the larger problem. They're a great step. So if you go to that example you were talking about, which I believe is in the 1870s, of having parents that want to send their children to a school, the schools are completely segregated at the time. And even though in Illinois, that segregation would end officially in 1874. That didn't necessarily mean that everything was the same because before they had that policy, schools were not only separate, but also unequal. And parents that wanted to send their kids to the school that was the all white school, that all white school had a lot more resources than the black school, but even had more grades. You couldn't even go through a complete education.
Exactly right. And, you know, you can look at another historic example, Illinois State right, so another local educational institution. We're accepting black students as early as the 1870s. But into the 1930s 1940s. And later, black students couldn't be housed on campus. So you had this policy that allowed students of different races and other backgrounds to participate, but in no way were they provided for in terms of food and housing. So really, what's the expectation, so you can attend the school, but unless Luana brown Sanders, Clark opens her home to you, and houses numerous male black students, they would not have graduated because they didn't have homes to live in, um, you didn't have other people in the area, opening their homes, to black students. And so you're put in this position where the policy may sound inclusive, but the reality is far different.
It took the fact that there were individuals that basically would offer pretty affordable and sometimes even free housing to African Americans that wanted to go to Illinois State Normal University, as was called back then what was that in the 30s? Yeah, without that one person, or just a few people in that community, there would have been no way for those individuals to go to college, even though the college was integrated by policy released in 1874. And that's interesting me because I think that when people think of benchmarks of history, you see those elements where there is a proclamation, a law that integrates but it doesn't, Terrance when you are working on issues of diversity, and solving the issues that might arise for students at Heartland Community College, obviously, we don't see something as egregious as back then where equal housing isn't offered on the basis of color. But there are other barriers that people still have that keep them from being able to just come to college.
Absolutely. That was one of the major tasks that we've taken on the Presidential Task Force on diversity and inclusion is just trying to figure out where are our students running into these roadblocks? Or where are they having challenges and oftentimes, they're, they're hidden to the majority of us, if we've already made it through college, you sometimes missed some of the barriers that may be running up against on some of our students, what we find is that oftentimes, what we may assume, is an issue that a student is facing our presenting challenge, when we actually sit down and talk to our students. It's a completely different challenge that they're facing. And so often, we really just have to take a step back and speak to our students and find out what is it that their experience is telling us? And what can we learn from there, that'll help us to modify our policy or to adapt our processes to better help individuals.
And that can take a while to because there's an institutional learning, that also kind of applies to the folks that haven't been disenfranchised. So once that eight block walk to the other school of the people that you had an example earlier that well, they're like, great, I can't wait to walk the eight blocks to the other neighborhood to go to the school, instead of saying, Well wait a minute that I still have to do that just to go to any school. So there's a little bit of that idea that you have to work a little bit harder, you have to get so far just to even get to the point where you can ask to be equal,
right? And oftentimes, policy are people who write policy are often doing it for the sake of the masses, you know, so our policies are really defined to help everybody, you know, we want to do something that the largest group of people are going to be benefited, which should often be the result of a good policy. But the flip side is, is that there's more times than not groups of individuals who aren't supported by that policy or who may be negatively or adversely impacted. And if we don't take the time to review, who's being negatively impacted, and how, then we run into those roadblocks, as in the case of, you know, ISU in the, in the early 40s, where, you know, you're saying, Yes, we're open institution, but you have one area of your campus that's not really open. That's a pivotal for anyone who's coming from outside of the town. And so we need to take the time to really consider what kind of policies do we have today, that may inhibit one portion of our community even though when we write them, it's supposed to be for the benefit of all.
That's when you get into The idea of equality versus equity, right? And even within the museum field and others, especially in nonprofits, you have this paid internship question, right? So internships are an integral part of a student's educational experience, especially if you're thinking of that school work pipeline. But it's a privilege to be able to work for free. And there are students out there who rely on that compensation, no matter how small to be able to justify them participating in an internship. And that internship could be the difference, you know, between a job out of school or not, or knowing what you want to be in which you don't. And if we can't offer those opportunities to everyone, then we're kind of failing in that way. So the museum actually, just only this year, are we able to offer sponsored internships from a recent gift, but that's a big deal for us. And so we're trying to do as much as possible in that area. And there's institutions grappling with that all over.
One of the things that is interesting about that is, you still get to that same bias that people have where they think, okay, we know there's a cost of entry to something like an internship, some people can't afford an unpaid internship, right. And some people can, if you can afford to have somebody else helping pay your bills, while you work for free, to meet the people to network to do all those things, then does that put you in an advantageous position,
right, and there's so many programs that are like that, that are so special and so important to our community. And on the surface, they seem everybody is welcome to participate, everyone is welcome to benefit from the program. Unless you have to have a job while you're in high school to support your needs, or unless you also are taking care of family and you don't have the available time to be able to then partake. And so there are so many moments where we feel like we have a program or we have something for for the masses and and we miss out on on the margins.
You when You spoke a little bit earlier, Terrence, about people making policy, people do tend to make policy initially from their perspective. And I know that great efforts are made to get as many voices to the table as possible, when especially you're dealing with the issues that the Presidential Task Force on diversity inclusion at Heartland is involved. But I think that also kind of shows just in day to day life, a bit more was illustrated by the example, that you brought up Hannah, of Bloomington High School, this is in the 70s, maybe 1970. So not too far, from what we call the civil rights era, there was a basketball coach that had a player. And he told him that he wanted to cut his hair. And you know, basically, he didn't appreciate elements of his culture, there was an actual Afro American club at the time, right at Bloomington High School. But he said he would cut him from the team. Now, even today, pretty much or a few years ago, there would be coaches that would say, Well, I don't want any players on my team with long hair. And that is sort of like an old school idea of everybody needs to look like a certain type of person. So those attitudes were not separated from those attitudes by a whole big distance.
No, definitely not. And I get I think you could look at at any major sports team today, right? And you've got coaches and owners who are happy to rely on the labor, right of their athletes, but feel as though they have the right and again, the privilege to dictate how they express their individuality or how they express their political leanings or what have you, right, even in terms of collective bargaining and all of that. So I mean, that's a little outside of the conversation we're having, but it's amazing, you know, our first program in the series is looking at labor, and wage disparity, and the connection, right between economics and access, and the connection between economics and status in terms of again, race, ability, gender, they're so integrated and connected, it's hard to separate yourself from kind of this systemic issue. In the case of the Bloomington high school, you know, it was simply a student wearing their hair, the way that it naturally grows. Right. And that was somehow offensive to the coach. And it's hard to make that argument that that's not prejudice and oppressive.
One of the things is interesting in that particular instance and in the era, and I think we see it, you know, everything comes around is that African Americans growing out their hair naturally, kind of became politicized. At that time, that might have been the interpretation of the code. which is that the way you wear your hair is directly related to this expression that he may or may not have found threatening, or what's interesting to me is the reaction of the administration. In this case, there was really nothing that said, hey, basketball coach don't do that. And the situation therefore kind of escalated.
So in terms of the escalation, there was, again, this Afro American culture group, who did request that they be able to essentially put on an assembly and introduce their fellow classmates to certain cultural interpretations or traditions that they may have. And after that assembly, it wasn't necessarily the underclassmen, but it was the upperclassmen, where it resulted in 50, some students engaging in basically white students walked out, and it was offensive to the black students who were presenting, police were called in, and there was a rests on, you know, or suspensions, I suppose on both sides, but for the police were involved. But that's what results when there's not space provided for these constructive conversations and for understanding. So again, are we at the brink of some sort of major conflict like this? Maybe not. But at the same time, if we're able to provide space for conversations like we're having, then maybe we can help mitigate those issues. And you can still see that tensions are high about expression, and when is it appropriate? And where can it come from? And you know, who's making those decisions in terms of policy and rulemaking? Where do people file in to those policies?
And one of the things I should ask Terrence is, what is the college's role in this partnership,
Heartland is always looking for opportunities to, to be out in the community and engage our community. And so when we heard about this program, or the exhibit, it was just a exciting opportunity to be a part of and once I went over to see what the museum had put together, I was floored, I thought it was an amazing exhibit. And just showing the history, you know, so you get a sense of what was going on in the world, from the 1800s to today, but not just what was going on in the world. But what was happening right here in Bloomington Normal and how synonymous things were at certain times, you know, and so we'd really, as a community, we'd love to see our heartland employees and staff going over to see the exhibit in full and getting some ideas about what they could do to, to have these conversations go on because it does it. Even though we're talking just about the education and February. There's so many other power dynamics and power structures that can be talked about throughout our campus, that it would be just a great moment for us to be able to engage the community a little more in depth.
What are you hoping people really start to talk about when they get into these conversations and, and take it out beyond the museum.
In terms of the museum's goal, it's maybe a little incongruent for a History Museum. But in terms of this program, we're really just focused on the present, we want people to see not only the museum, but our other partner organizations as spaces for this discourse and this dialogue. And so someone who attends one of these programs can expect to be introduced, again, to a certain amount of historical context, we are at the McLean County Museum of History. But really, that'll be short and sweet. And we'll establish some guidelines for constructive conversation. And then leave it in the hands of our community facilitators, who are all members of affinity groups or kind of experts in their own way in these various topics, and really not lead but facilitate and scaffold and support the conversation that our community members come to have. So we expect each small group to kind of take a different spin on each of these topics. We expect certain questions to resonate with some groups more than others. But we're really just hoping to establish a space in which people feel like they can talk about these things, and that it's the beginning of the conversation, not the end of that.
Well, I'd like to thank you both for coming in and talking about this hope it's a really good conversation that all of them are over the course of the series because there's the one of course here at Heartland, but you've got them in other places too correctly. museum right at
the museum. So we'll have two on site at the museum January and April, one off site here at Heartland in February, and one at the YWCA in March.
Thank you both for coming in. Thank you. Thank you. Anna Johnson is an education program coordinator at McLean County Museum of History. Terrence bond is an Associate Dean of Students at Heartland Community College. If you enjoyed this podcast, check out some of our other episodes which cover history, civil rights in many other topics. Just subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you found this podcast episode. Thanks for listening
