jackson grown

Vol. 5, Issue 3 | December 2019 - March 2020

In Partnership With

editor's note

"Don't follow the path. Go where there is no path and begin the trail. When you start a new trail equipped with courage, strength and conviction, the only thing that can stop you is you!"

- Ruby Bridges

In 1960, Ruby Bridges became one of the first Black children to integrate New Orleans’ public school system — the image of a small child flanked by U.S. Marshal escorts stuck with me from my elementary school lessons on Civil Rights history. I still remember where I was when I learned that those black and white photos weren't really all that long ago, and that integration continued to send ripples into Jackson’s schools until 1990, which was just a few years before I would have started Kindergarten myself.

I learned this sitting in a metal folding chair in the church of a pastor who had previously taught in those schools, who had a binder full of news clippings that told the story of the various paths set before his students. In that space, for 10 years, I believe those stories were what he carried into many sermons. Those stories are the reason I learned to listen to the stories we get to tell in this journal today, the reason I care at all about a place I wasn’t born or raised in, and the reason I was elated that we'd get to create this issue with the Jackson-Madison County School System.

There’s no way this journal could contain all of the stories, all the ripples of how one pastor, one teacher, one neighbor, or one word of encouragement can lead a student down a path that puts them on a major news network or behind the desk in the principal’s office of the very school they attended at one time.

To reference the musical Hamilton, this sampling of stories reminds us that history has its eyes on us. In this case, an entire generation of students are history in the making, and they have their eyes on us. The people in this issue have forged a trail for us all to follow with the same courage, strength, and conviction Ruby Bridges spoke of.

Sure, "Jackson Grown" might stand for where we start, but it also reminds us that growth happens best in an environment of nurturing care, something that is sure to lead us all down new paths we never imagined. It’s my hope that the stories in this issue lead to more people than ever before sitting next to students in cafeterias repeating sight words, mentoring them in after school programs, and providing every student with the resources they need to thrive in school and beyond.

Courtney Searcy, Editor-in-Chief