To the students at Stephanie Alicea’s charter school in Concord, the 1960s were long ago.
To Alicea, though, the civil rights movement, in relative terms, remains a recent period in our history. That’s what she set out to teach the middle-school-aged kids at her charter school Friday.
Alicea was looking ahead, instilling knowledge and perspective in preparation for Monday’s holiday honoring Martin Luther King. And she was looking back, although not nearly far enough.
The Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act of 1965 and ‘68 secured the black vote in America, even though the United States Constitution had already guaranteed that right in 1870, under the 15th Amendment.
Alicea, who’s 44, was born in 1974. She used her fingers, counting the years from 1968 to her birth year.
“Six years before I was born,” Alicea told her students. “Six years; that’s not a lot of time, that’s not that long ago. Civil rights went on for a long time and it’s still going on. Sometimes equal treatment does not happen.”
She spoke at the recently-closed Bon-Ton department store at the Steeplegate Mall, in a cavernous space that now includes desks and iPads and learning, not sweaters and slacks and coats.
There, she runs her Capital City Charter School – an alternative to public middle schools based on service learning. She opened for business last year and now has about 30 students and a staff of five, including herself. She’s one of three teachers.
Like in all of New Hampshire, the school is predominately white.
Alicea describes herself as brown, not black, but her bottom line falls firmly under the African American heading, the one about discrimination and racism.
She’s felt it up close. Once upon a time, in Tennessee, her mother, Caroletta Alicea, drank from a water fountain for black people, never the one for white people. Her great auntie, though, dared to sip from the white water fountain and was jailed for her disobedience.
More recently, her son, Sam Alicea, who played football at Merrimack Valley High School, chose to kneel – à la quarterback Colin Kaepernick -during the National Anthem before a game in 2016, his way of protesting inequality in general and police brutality against African Americans specifically. His stance created animosity at the school and online, leading to bullying and, eventually, his transfer to the Tilton School.
Sam now attends Morehouse College in Atlanta. Reflecting on his decision to kneel, he told me by phone, “I do not regret anything at all. That has been one of the most impactful decisions I have made as a person. The reaction of other people did catch me off guard.”
That included the day someone shot a BB through the windshield of his grandmother’s car.
“I wasn’t quitting,” Sam said. “But that’s when I decided it was time to transfer – for the safety of my family.”
So it’s hardly surprising that Stephanie chose to highlight the work of King heading into the long weekend. She used images and videos on a big white wall, showing words, King’s words, like “I have a dream,” and “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”
The video also showed quick, staccato-like scenes of children speaking their minds, saying things like “Equal opportunity should be available to all.”
Alicea pushed her students to expand their thoughts throughout the presentation, and although they were often timid, speaking with low, unsure voices, the kids nailed certain questions, causing their teacher to dance with joy.
“You don’t have to be good or say you are good for your race,” one girl said. “Don’t be the best black doctor. Be the best doctor.”
Which prompted Alicea to say, “I’m not the brown head of the school. I’m the head of the school. I just happen to be brown.”
She pointed to a boy with hazel eyes and blond hair and noted that those physical characteristics had nothing to do with his identity.
“Do I describe you with your hair color and eye color?” the teacher asked. “Cut me and I will bleed just like you do.”
She made sure her students realized that some schools have advantages over other schools as far as equipment and resources go, simply because of unequal funding.
She encouraged her students to use their iPads to research Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court decision that ruled school segregation was unconstitutional, and the Little Rock Nine, the group of African American students who enrolled in a formerly all-white high school in Arkansas.
“They walked into school in front of angry mobs,” Alicea told her class. “Think about the meanest bully and magnify that. These were not tomatoes they were throwing. These were rocks and their lives were in danger.”
“I read an article that said they had to have soldiers in the school,” a girl said.
“Yep,” Alicea responded. “The National Guard.”
Afterward, the teacher said, “It’s a hard topic to broach at this age. It’s an uncomfortable topic to broach.”
Students said they like that their school challenges them to think beyond the lesson.
“I like the fact that character should go along with education or it’s not right,” said Melana Mauze of Belmont, 14. “It’s good taking the time and getting people to think about what (African Americans) went through.”
Kameryn Roberge of Concord, also 14, came out of class viewing Monday as more than merely a day off from school.
“I like the thought that we are not identified by our eye color,” Roberge said. “Monday has a purpose. A long time ago, people who were black would not have a day off to honor them. Now they do.”