A Conversation with History

It is not often that students of History get the opportunity to sit down, listen, and learn from those who initiated the change and reaped its benefits. One of the draws to contemporary historical topics over the years has been the ability to hear the perspective of the participants. The students from the Creating a Usable Past program were afforded the chance to sit down with icons of the Charlotte area civil rights movement this past Thursday (June 10) at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Culture and Arts. Below are two journal entries written by Bryanna Norwood and Ayana Daniel about their impressions of the evening.

Bryanna Norwood

Thursday night, we got to meet three important people who helped with the Civil Rights Movement in Charlotte: Sarah Stevenson, who helped with the integration of the schools through busing; Julius Chambers, a lawyer who went to the Supreme Court with a case against CMS because of their non-compliance with integration; and Harvey Gantt, who was the first African-American major of Charlotte [and the first to integrate Clemson University].

Meeting them let me see that there are people in my own backyard who have changed cities, states, and maybe even the country. They inspire me to change places by taking just one step at a time. All of these activists before me did something for my good. I can do the same for someone else.

Seeing all the people who came out Thursday night showed me that we have support. There is a challenge at hand with the support we have. I know we can accomplish it.

Ayana Daniel

Most of the previous civil rights leaders are dead. So when you are living in a society where everything they fought and [were willing to] die for seems to be retrogressing, the first thing I want to know is “How do they feel about society today, and do they feel as if their work is in vain?”

On Thursday at the Harvey B. Gantt Center, I had the opportunity to meet three civil rights advocates. I was honored to sit in front of three of the most significant people in Charlotte [Harvey Gantt, Sarah Stevenson, and Julius Chambers]. I was particularly interested and impressed by Mr. Chambers. He has argued and won many court cases, yet the most significant to me is Swann v. CMS, which was taken to the Supreme Court.

From my perspective, life is a pyramid; at the bottom there is knowledge, in the middle there is application, and on the top is creation. Mr. Chambers fascinates me because he dwells at the top of my pyramid, which is absolutely where I am headed with the help of the Creating a Usable Past program. Mr. Chambers created a way to integrate public schools with busing and his idea was a success; therefore, my future plans will not only include applying what I am learning from this program to my everyday life, but also using it to lead to many successful creations such as Mr. Chambers has done. I would like to thank Mr. Gantt, Mr. Chambers, and Mrs. Stevenson for sharing their very interesting past with me. I’m sure it will help me structure not only my future, but the world’s future, also.