[A]retha Franklin’s voice singing “Young, Gifted and Black” broke through a two-minute silence as Montpelier High School raised the Black Lives Matter flag on Thursday morning, the first day of Black History Month.
More than 200 students, teachers, school administrators, community members, and some from law enforcement, gathered in front of the school for the event, which though widely supported by the school community also had generated some outside controversy.
Despite threats earlier in the week that out-of-state groups would rally against the flag, there were no protesters in sight.
The school board voted unanimously to fly the flag throughout the month of February, in response to a letter from the Racial Justice Alliance coalition, a student organization at the school.
Student members of the coalition spoke as the black and white flag flapped from school’s flagpole, below the American flag.
“This flag is a symbol for every black student in this country and a call to end institutional racism,” said MaryAnn Songhurst, a Montpelier High School sophomore and member of the Racial Justice Alliance, a student organization. “Know that the people in this school stand with you in this fight for social justice.”
Joelyn Mensah, one of the leaders of the effort to raise the flag, told those gathered for the ceremony, that students of color “want to be seen, and demand to be represented in our education.”
The school’s principal, Matt McRaith, offered his thoughts. “This is a visible commitment to our black students,” McRaith said of the flag. “We can and we must be better.”
Students at the high school started speaking out a year ago, about their experiences of racism in the school. McRaith is one of the school officials who has been working with them to address the issues raised.
McRaith told students he has learned much from the experience. “With your help, I am better able to understand my privilege,” he said.
Vermont’s secretary of education, Rebecca Holcombe, also attended the flag-raising. She talked of studies that have revealed systemic inequalities within education in Vermont, inequalities that she said span both race and class.
Among the findings, she said, are that students of color are disciplined more and have lower outcomes on exams, both a result of institutional racism and bias within education.
The Montpelier school district is overwhelmingly white, with 3.2 percent of its students identified as African-American, and 4.6 as Hispanic.
Holcombe said that in addition to being a community protest against bias, the event was also a demonstration of free speech.
“This is a case study in democracy,” she said.
School Superintendent Brian Ricca said that while there was some backlash over the past week, the response to the events of the day and the preceding weeks has been overwhelming positive.
