cynthia boteler newsletter -feb. 2013
TRANSCRIPT
WHAT IS PAST IS PROLOGUE
Inside this issue:
February 2013
A L U M N I R E C O L L E C T I O N S O F A F R I C A N A M E R I C A N S C H O O L S U N D E R S E G R E G A T I O N
Multiplying Memories: Lessons in Leadership
Students often comment on how they find history difficult—all those dates and facts. But why is it
important, and what does it all mean? Who decides what goes into the textbooks? From whose perspective are we learning about and
interpreting history?
Since 2004, my own search to understand my family’s history led me to ponder these same questions. What I found was that making a personal connection to history enables us to start
understanding the implications of the history of our nation. However, more is required of us. Can we accept the truth of our family’s, community’s, state’s and country’s role in history—whatever that may be? Will we make a conscious decision
to read between the lines, to do our own research rather than accept what we are told by family,
friends, teachers and the media?
How do we feel when we are told, “that’s just the
way it was back then.” But then, you wonder about that when you see that not everyone lived that way. Denial rewrites or deletes history, causing confusion. Acceptance fills in the gaps
and starts answering the questions.
Researching African American history has led me to my family’s history on numerous occasions. Prior to this point, I had never heard of Tuskegee, but this past summer, I attended a conference there and discovered a family connection. My father, a
fighter pilot in WWII, who was part of the D-Day invasion, returned to the U.S. after flying 80 missions, to become a flight instructor in Walter-boro, SC. Researching Walterboro, I discovered that it was where some of the Tuskegee Airmen
received their advanced flight training. While in Tuskegee, I visited Moton Airfield where I learned that my father is considered a Tuskegee Airman as is anyone who worked for the program in any
capacity.
“I BELIEVE THE YOUNG PEOPLE WOULD SEE WHY WE FEEL EDUCATION IS SO IMPORTANT. IT WAS WORTH THE STRUGGLE AND STILL IS." —Watson High School Alumnus
Covington, Virginia
The Tuskegee Airmen paved the way for the Civil
Rights movement. These men and women became leaders, and the following generations of African Americans could point with pride at the Tuskegee Airmen, in the air and on the ground, who proved
to the world once more that they were equal to
their European-American counterparts.
Upon a recent field trip to Richmond, Virginia
to visit the Museum of the Confederacy, Virginia State Capitol and the Civil War Center at Tredegar, students commented that they enjoyed the tour of the State Capitol the most
as it presented both the past and the present. Comments were also made about standing in
the footsteps of history makers.
These trips highlight the importance of heritage
tourism as an effective teaching tool. The study of history is about making connections—both tangible and intangible—to present-day life. It is the job of educators to help students make connections between what they read in the
pages of history to what they are experiencing
today.
On a field trip to Washington, D.C. in 2007,
I passed by the National Archives and saw the words, “What is past is prologue,” etched into the north side of the building. These words planted seeds that bring me to this point today. The essence of Sankofa, a West African
proverb, states that you must know where you have been before you know where you are going. My hope is that students will begin to incorporate this concept into their own lives and start to search for their past in order to move
forward into their future.
Education Is About Making Connections—Research • Oral History • Heritage
Moton Airfield, Tuskegee, Alabama
By Cynthia Boteler
Special Points of interest:
STUDENTS HELP PRESERVE LOCAL
HISTORY.
LEADERSHIP SKILLS LEARNED
FROM ALUMNI OF SEGREGATED
SCHOOLS.
LOCAL SCHOOLS CONNECTED
TO NATIONAL SCHOOL BUILDING
PROGRAM.
ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWS
ARCHIVED IN REGIONAL
LIBRARIES.
AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY IS
AMERICAN HISTORY, TWELVE
MONTHS A YEAR.
ORAL HISTORY: PART I 2
ORAL HISTORY: PART II 2
DOCUMENTARY FILM 2
LEADERSHIP WORKSHOP 3
ROSENWALD SCHOOL 3
CONFERENCE AT TUSKEGEE
UNIVERSITY
VIRGINIA FOUNDATION FOR 3
THE HUMANIITIES GRANT
CYNTHIA BOTELER 4
BIOGRAPHY
College students participated in different aspects of implementing an oral history project focusing on the remembrances of
alumni who attended segregated schools in Alleghany and Bath counties in Virginia.
The goal of this project was to provide students with a method of self-discovery and identification of their story that incorporates their culture and their region. Students from different college curriculum interacted and
worked on various aspects of a project that will bring enduring educational value to the community.
high school and several public library
Black History programs and other venues.
Approximately two weeks after the premiere of the film, Boteler discovered that the two schools in Bath County are Rosenwald Schools, built in 1924-1925 and 1929-1930 as part of the Rosenwald
School building program developed by Booker T. Washington, president of Tuskegee Institute and Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears Roebuck Company. Between 1912 and 1932, approximately
5,000 Rosenwald schools were built across
fifteen states in the south.
Roanoke native, Montres Henderson and his crew filmed during the12th annual Watson School Reunion in 2010.
Mr. Henderson edited the film along with Ms. Boteler and Ms. Perlista Henry, a 1964 graduate of Watson School. Ms. Henry narrated and Ms. Boteler filmed the Bath County portion of the film and
assembled all of the photographs and narrative. To date, approximately 1,400
people have viewed the film at college,
ORAL HISTORY PART I—A Sample Oral History Project: Connecting Students to Their Community and Preserving Local History
The Watsonians: These Are Our Stories—Watson Elementary/High School, 1882 to 1966
ORAL HISTORY PART II—Multiplying Memories: Researching, Organizing and Archiving the Educational Experiences of African Americans in the Alleghany Highlands, 1930s to 1960s
to inventory and digitize the scrapbooks, documents and memorabilia pertaining to these schools. The long-term goal will
provide content to create a website for an “historic African American school community,” enabling alumni and descendants to research their heritage.
DSLCC students interviewed alumni and helped digitally scan and catalogue images.
A second oral history project, conducted in 2011, focused on the Jefferson School, in Clifton Forge, Virginia, but also
included scanning collections of photographs and documents pertaining to other schools in the area, such as Watson School in Covington, Virginia. The project included preliminary meetings
with alumni who shared details and photographs of their experiences. Several photographs were loaned for scanning and inclusion in a future project.
Volunteers helped to continue the interview process, but a major focus was
Page 2
Multiplying Memories: Lessons in Leadership
Cynthia Boteler received funding for both oral history projects from Paul Lee
Professional Development Grants from the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) in the Summer of 2010 and 2011, respectively, through Dabney S.
Lancaster Community College (DSLCC).
Supported by Coming to the Table, a program of the Center for Justice and Peace-
building at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, Boteler’s documentary film was one of six projects selected nation-wide in an effort to support community projects (one hour and twenty-two minute
feature length documentary film).
The film focuses on the telling of first-hand narratives from the perspective of teachers
and students who were among the genera-tions of African American families who attended segregated schools before federal legislation mandated integration. The film has three parts: Education, Football and
Integration. Excerpts from alumni interviews are woven into the documentary, interspersed with historic photographs of four different communities in Alleghany and Bath Counties in Virginia. Yearbook photographs, mementos
and memorabilia belonging to various alumni
were also included.
Students assisted with the recording of four alumni from two African American schools in
the service area of Dabney S. Lancaster
Community College, Clifton Forge, Virginia.
Mr. and Mrs. W. G. Watson
Multiplying Memories: Lessons in Leadership is a 50-minute multimedia presentation developed for and presented at the 5th
Annual Black Leadership Conference, LIFE (Living Intentionally for Excellence) 101: It’s A Celebration, hosted by Virginia Western Community College in Roanoke, Virginia in February of 2012.
Highlights of the oral history projects and
documentary film provided the basis for creating Multiplying Memories: Lessons in Leadership. The workshop encouraged students to make connections with local history, community service projects and
education to their future as leaders in the community and in the workplace. Partici-pants discussed the meaning of leadership as exemplified in the film and the role of community.
Despite the many challenges faced by both teachers and students in the small, rural segregated Black schools in Virginia’s
Western Highlands, the overriding theme that permeated the oral history project was the unwavering focus on excellence. The teachers expected no less than excellence in student performance, and as such, the pride in
the schools is evident—during every interview
and every scene of the film.
The goal is for students to develop and value tools through which they can embrace and acknowledge contributions
and lessons from the past and translate them into meaningful applications to the present. The experience is expected to impact workshop participants to the extent that they will rededicate them-
selves to their personal, educational and occupational goals.
Students are challenged to start a
Multiplying Memories program in their community. The goal is to eventually have a program in all 23 community colleges in
Virginia.
Multiplying Memories: Lessons in Leadership Workshop Developed for Black Leadership Conference
Ethnohistoric Research on the Rosenwald Schools of Bath County: Millboro School (T.C. Walker School) and Switchback School (Union Hurst School)
National Rosenwald School Conference: “Celebrating 100 years of Pride, Progress and Preservation” Sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation
In June 2012, Boteler received a scholarship
to attend the National Rosenwald School
Conference, sponsored by the National Trust
for Historic Preservation, June 14-16, 2012
at Tuskegee University.
Page 3
Switchback School (Union Hurst School)
Millboro School (T.C. Walker School)
Photographs courtesy of Bath County Historical Society
The Oaks, home of Booker T. Washington
Tuskegee University
Education, denied to the enslaved by law, was of paramount importance
during Reconstruction and still is to this day. Religion and faith enabled African Americans to endure and rise above a cruel, unjust society that benefited from their labor, both before and after
Emancipation. When these buildings and stories are gone, there will be no visible reminders of this important heritage. The physical loss of historic African American structures and oral history is tantamount
to the loss of cultural heritage and history.
During the closing plenary session at the National Rosenwald School Conference,
Jacquelyn Days Serwer, Chief Curator for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History & Culture, announced plans to create a Rosenwald School exhibit for the museum’s opening. Rising from the only
remaining space on the National Mall, the museum will take its place next to the Washington Monument between the National Museum of American History and 15th Street. February 22, 2012 marked the official
groundbreaking ceremony for the museum,
scheduled to open in 2015.
Descendants of Booker T. Washington and
Julius Rosenwald spoke at the event.
Dr. Lynn Rainville, an anthropologist and historian based in Charlottesville, Virginia,
was a speaker at the National Rosenwald School Conference at Tuskegee and is the humanities scholar for this project. Dr. Rainville will post information from Ms. Boteler’s research on her website, The
Rosenwald Schools of Virginia.
Bath County Historical Society Presents:
Documenting African American History from School Board Minutes,
Newspapers and Recollections of Alumni—Cynthia Boteler
A Survey of Rosenwald Schools in Virginia—Dr. Lynn Rainville
May 9. 2013 at 7:00 pm
The Dairy at The Homestead Preserve,
Warm Springs, VA
This project is sponsored by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Bath County Historical Society and Virginia Hot
Springs Preservation Trust
A work in progress, this project encompasses comprehensive research of the Switchback
and the Millboro schools, two Rosenwald Schools built during the segregation era in Bath County, Virginia, serving students for forty years. The primary goal is to provide a thorough documentation from a variety of
sources to ensure that the African American community’s school history is not lost. In addition, it is important that this information is shared within the African American community and made accessible to the schools, other
members of the community and visitors as well as the broader Rosenwald School
community in Virginia.
This project celebrates The National Rosenwald Schools Conference theme of
pride, progress and preservation, honoring this legacy in Bath County, Virginia and all the people in the African American community who helped support the tourism industry at the Homestead Resort and other
hotels, inns, private homes, farms, businesses
and enterprises in the local community.
Each semester, Ms. Boteler takes
students on field trips to various
museums and historical sites around
Virginia, West Virginia, and
Washington, D.C.
Ms. Boteler received a Martin Luther
King, Jr. Legacy Award from Dr. Calvin
A. McClinton of the McClinton
Foundation in Wrightsville, Virginia
in appreciation for her work and
performance in the preservation of
the African American experience in
America.
Boteler is currently working on another
research and oral history project in
Bath County, Virginia, where she
resides. The project was funded by
the Virginia Foundation for the
Humanities (VFH).
Cynthia Boteler, a Virginia native,
graduated from the University of
Virginia with a Bachelor of Arts
degree in French. She has twelve
years of experience in higher educa-
tion at the University of Colorado,
Health Sciences Center School of
Nursing as a program assistant for
two years, followed by Dabney S.
Lancaster Community College as
Student Activities Coordinator and
Adjunct Faculty for College Success
Skills for the past ten years.
As Student Activities Coordinator,
Ms. Boteler is responsible for
coordinating the college’s Black
History programs. Consequently
she developed an interest in Black
History. Her interests led her to
conceive, develop and implement
projects involving research on local
history, several oral history projects,
a documentary film, an educational
workshop and community presenta-
tions.
Oral history recordings and tran-
scripts of her projects are available
at local libraries and historical
societies.
CYNTHIA BOTELER
M U L T I P L Y I N G M E M O R I E S : L E S S O N S I N L E A D E R S H I P
Cynthia Boteler
P.O. Box 242
Warm Springs, Virginia 24484
Phone: 540-839-9258
E-mail: [email protected]
Comments from Watson School Alumni:
“I'm just happy to have lived to view this film. I would have loved for more people in the
area to have been able to view this film. I believe the young people would see why we feel
education is so important. It was worth the struggle and still is."
"The film was very inspiring and should have been done long before now. Thanks to you
who took the time to do such a great job."
“I am deeply appreciative of the opportunity to have the history of Watson School pre-
served and documented. As the Watsonians age, there is also the distinct possibility that
the stories would have otherwise died also."
“A learning experience—community needs to see it.”
“This was very educational. I learned a lot that was not known.”
Music
Amazing Grace
(John Newton, 1800)
Watson School Cheer
Watson School “Alma Mater”
Original Score Composer
Bronson Helm
Special Thanks to:
Shirley Hughes Burks
Dabney S. Lancaster Community College (DSLCC) Virginia Community College
System (VCCS)
Community Assistance
Mrs. Gretel Anderson
Former Mayor of Covington
Stephanie Clark Eddie Graham
Mrs. Doris Hayes
Inna Henderson
Perlista Henry
Dr. Paul Linkenhoker Nancy Mathias
Kathy Nicely
Dr. Calvin André McClinton
Doug & Mattie Smith
Tondalaya Van Lear Darlene Burcham & Andy Morris,
Town of Clifton Forge
Watson Alumni Committee for
2010
Geraldine Allen
Mary Hughes Barber
Shirley Hughes Burks
Teresa Cashwell
Linda Cook
Ralph Fitzpatrick
Thelma Halsey
Regina Laws
Bernedia Minor
Carolyn Ross
Leatha Smith
Elmira Twitty
Linda Venable
Yvonne Williams
© 2010 Cynthia Boteler
All rights reserved.
Documentary Film
Produced & Directed by
Cynthia Boteler
Narration by
Mrs. Gretel Anderson
Cynthia Boteler
Mrs. Doris Hayes
Perlista Henry
Amanda Huffman
Dr. Paul Linkenhoker
Interviews by
Ralph R. Burks
Betty Jean Fields
Jerry N. Johnson
James O. Lowry, M.D.
Lucy Wallace Lewis
Matthew H. Menefee, D.D.S.
Charles R. Nowlin
Ruby Sparrow Wells
Rev. Evelyn Harvey White
Spurlock
Yolanda White
Charlene T. Wicks
Interviewers
Montres Henderson
Perlista Henry Edited by
Montres Henderson
Cynthia Boteler
Color Film Produced by
Montres Henderson
Jasmine Coles
Bronson Helm
Black & White Film Production by
Cynthia Boteler
Sound Recording by
Jasmine Coles
Bronson Helm
Production Assistants
DSLCC Students
Andrew Coburn
Perlista Henry
Amanda Huffman
Shawna Jefferson
Peter Minetree
Jason Slaughter
Mindy Taliaferro
Archival Photographs Alleghany Highland
Genealogical Society
Ethridge Burr
Ernie Miller
Bath County Historical Society
Collection of Perlista Henry
Collection of Cora Poteat
Still Photography by
Cynthia Boteler
Jasmine Coles
Bronson Helm
Montres Henderson
Perlista Henry
To schedule a presentation of the documentary film,
The Watsonians: These Are Our Stories, for your organization,
contact Cynthia Boteler
©2013 Cynthia Boteler. All Rights Reserved.