GUEST

Color Us Connected: Young generation ready to lead

Staff Writer
Fosters Daily Democrat
Guy Trammell Jr. and Amy Miller

This column appears every other week in Foster’s Daily Democrat and the Tuskegee News. This week, Guy Trammell, an African American man from Tuskegee, Alabama, and Amy Miller, a white woman from South Berwick, Maine, take a look at the younger generation.

By Guy Trammell Jr.

The elder Lewis Adams brought a 25-year-old Booker Taliafero Washington to Alabama in June 1881 as the first principal of what became Tuskegee University. Washington in turn brought Olivia America Davidson, a 27-year-old 1881 valedictorian of Hampton Institute, to Tuskegee help him build the school into the largest one in Alabama in less than 10 years.

In 1893, a 20-year-old Emmitt J. Scott, Booker T. Washington’s future executive secretary, established the first African-American newspaper in Houston, Texas, “The Texas Freeman.”

Sammy Leamon Younge, Jr. had registered hundreds of new voters in Alabama and Mississippi and fought for desegregation by the time of his murder at 21 years of age in 1966. From 1964 to 1966, the members of TIAL -- the Tuskegee Institute Advancement League -- had fought for desegregation, integrated public facilities, and organized the first-ever Black Panther Party in Lowndes County, Alabama, which operated a mobile health clinic and economic development for share crop farmers. They also worked to elect the first Black sheriff in the United States since Reconstruction, Lucius Amerson -- and they were in their late teens and early 20s.

In so many instances it has been young people who have made the difference in history, and now in our present era another group of young people has begun the work of making a positive difference in their world. Common Ground, the Sister City project, has a new virtual conversation taking place between teens from the Macon County School District in Alabama and the Marshwood School District in Maine. The virtual collaboration was organized by the Marshwood Civil Rights Team, under the supervision of Renee Caverly.

During the conversation, a Tuskegee teen related the experience of being the only white student in a class, and a South Berwick teen related the experience of being the only Black student in a class. Tuskegee students rode buses to school, while South Berwick students had other transportation.

Both groups spoke of having to shop out of town for many needed items, with South Berwick literally shopping across the state line at times. Both groups also spoke of the lack of Black history in school, but rather the emphasis on European history. The students could readily identify countries in Europe but knew few, if any, in Africa or Asia. They read literature from white authors, but little from Black authors. The teens plan to continue this conversation.

The original focus of the discussion was to be on the current protests and how Black lives do matter; however, the conversation turned more to getting to know each other, how they felt about various racial and discrimination topics, and how life was lived in their locations.

As long as people are categorized as “foreign” in our minds, they will never matter to any of us. It is when we begin relating to the personhood of each of us on this planet that caring, empathy, value and even love can come into focus, so that we can truly be a race of human beings.

By Amy Miller

I notice myself sounding stodgy, and I am struck by the fact that I am, in fact, not the generation in charge anymore. My friends are becoming grandparents, retiring and moving into smaller homes.

Then one day, I tell my daughter that she sounds unrealistic when she waxes on about the nation she would like to see. Now I feel like an impediment to progress, a feeling I am not used to. She wants a nation where we don't have safety officers committing violence. C’mon, I say to her. Be real. We can never be rid of ALL crime. We will forever need police with guns, even if we scale back their power, I insist.

The next day I find myself cringing a tiny bit when I read the challenges issued by a 20-something town resident to the local officials who have just passed a proclamation that declares “Black lives matter” and calls on town employees to be “trained in both implicit and explicit bias.” But what “specific steps” will you take, the Gen Z-er wants to know. Can’t we just celebrate and praise the significant steps these town leaders have taken without confronting them immediately with skepticism, I think.

I almost don’t recognize myself. As I put brakes on the idealism of younger people around me, I wonder if I have changed, as people say you do with age. I don’t want to be so "realistic." I want to reach for the stars like a young person.

I saw a Pew report recently that said Generation Z (those born in 1996 and after) and Millennials (born 1981 to 1996) are significantly more likely than others to say Black people are treated unfairly in the US; are more likely to support gay marriage; believe in higher numbers that people should be able to chose their gender; and, even before Covid 19 hit, thought government had a bigger role to play in improving the lives of Americans.

So perhaps I am just a reflection of my generation, still stuck in the changes of yesterday but not yet believing in the possibility of the changes needed for tomorrow.

During a recent walk in the woods, I told an 11-year-old friend that I am optimistic about one thing. She, her mother and I were talking about what is happening with race relations in this country and what part we might play in it.

“I see your generation growing up with a different view of the world, a view that would be one piece of making tomorrow better,” I say to my young friend. I tell her that her generation of white children already thinks and talks about race in an entirely different way than my generation did, and to a large extent still does.

To begin with, her generation talks directly about race. Which is bigger than it sounds. To this day, many good-hearted white adults avoid referring directly to “black people” or “African Americans” or even “race” for fear of igniting emotions or saying the wrong thing. Instead they refer to “current conditions” or “diversity” or “recent happenings with police,” for instance.

“Your generation,” I told my young friend, “is already more enlightened than we are or ever will be.”

And so, I hope I am ready to listen, to learn and to reach for ideals, as well as an older person can, which I have always believed is necessary for change.

Amy and Guy can be reached at Colorusconnected@gmail.com