Not a history to be proud of
Note: As we all struggle to come to terms with current events, it may prove helpful to look back at some of our history. Believing firmly that knowing how we got here may help us all see the way forward, The Legal Genealogist will reprise posts that provide historical context.
There is often a dark side to genealogical records.
Something in a record or in a document we find that shines a light on something in ourselves, or our families, or our histories, that we are not proud of.
Those wonderful Mississippi school records highlighted in this blog (in 2016)?1
They have that dark side.
An ugly side that makes The Legal Genealogist‘s skin crawl.
An ugly side that should have us all looking mournfully at a past that isn’t all that far in the past.
An ugly side that we’re seeing too often even today.
Because as recently as 1927 some of the educable children in the school censuses of Mississippi weren’t simply called educable children.
Some of them were called worse.
Much worse.
On the 1927 school census of Lauderdale County, in a town called Meehan Junction, children were labeled as Colored.2
Doesn’t sit very well here in the 21st century, does it?
But that really wasn’t so bad.
In the Triplett School District in that same county, children were labeled as Darkies.3
Sounds like something out of the period of slavery, doesn’t it?
And even that wasn’t quite as bad as other children in that same school district in that same county, whose race was labeled Dark Blotches.4
Hard to imagine, isn’t it?
And even that — even that — wasn’t as bad as it got.
In that same county, in the town of Meridian, in the Tunnell School District, just 89 years ago, little children — children with bright faces and bright dreams, children as young as five years old — children were labeled… as Black Niggers.5
I have no words for those kinds of labels.
Even in genealogical records, they make my skin crawl.
As they shine that light on a dark side of the past… that isn’t all that far in the past.
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Review: The dark side,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 17 June 2020). Originally posted 11 Mar 2016.
SOURCES
- Judy G. Russell, “Educable children,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 10 Mar 2016 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 11 Mar 2016). ↩
- Lauderdale County, Mississippi, List of Educable Children, Meehan Junction (1927), Tallanatta West School District, p. 578; digital images, “Mississippi Enumeration of Educable Children, 1850-1892; 1908-1957,” FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : accessed 10 Mar 2016). ↩
- Ibid., Triplett School District, p. 584. ↩
- Ibid., Triplett School District, p. 585. And thanks to Shelley Murphy for pointing this out… ↩
- Ibid., Tunnell School District, p. 586. ↩
I have seen the MS Educable Children Index of Harrison Co MS – with our family members listed – As Colored, Black, Negro. But never seen those other terms used. 🙁
Judy,
When I saw that word Educable on these school records it reminded me of something disturbing from my own school past.
When I was in Junior High School there was one classroom of students we never met. We were never told about these children except that they were called EMRs. I found out that this awful acronym meant Educably Mentally Retarded. I heard others making fun of them when they would pass by in the halls or on the grounds. The school officials, who conducted regular student assemblies never once took the opportunity to explain anything at all about these people who were somehow different but shared our school. I had never personally known or spent any time with such persons my own age. I knew one older person at church that my parents said was “slow.” He had a job working in the cafeteria at a local church facility and seemed friendly.
I lived in a major city, close to a well-known university. Those studying to become teachers were often our student teachers, trying out new education ideas and programs on us. So there was no reason for this lack of instruction regarding these students with challenges. I think things could have gone much better for the Special Education people at my Jr. High if someone would just have explained things to us. From what I see and hear young people are doing much better in this area today, with Special Olympics, Special Prom Kings and Queens, buddy programs at school, etc. My own children were good to those who had these special struggles so I know they had school teachers and church youth leaders that had the right attitudes. I also tried to help them and answer their questions.
I shudder to think what some of the records from my school look like.
We must learn from these situations so the records of our day will not be an indictment against us.
Laurie