Eternal
Vigilance… Still no Peace
Rhonda Trigg is a single mother who
attends Johnson Chapel. She has beautiful dimples, and we started off talking
about how they are hereditary, her daughter has them, and how she even has the
cleft in her chin like my father.
She’s 43. She has twin sisters. She
has two kids, 21, and 18 at the time of the interview. What she had to tell me
about were incidents and issues that had affected her son.
In 2013, when her son Marquis (Quiz)
was a Senior, he got into a scuffle at school because someone called him a
“nigger.”
While he was still in high school, he
was harassed by a police officer outside a basketball game, for smoking. The
officer, who was later let go, also called her son, “nigger,” according to
Rhonda.
Rhonda had been a self-appointed
watchdog of the school system throughout the time her kids were students.
Numerous times, she’d gone to the superintendent to complain about the lack of
Black teachers but she had been rebuffed. She kept notes. She accosted people.
They wanted to know how she knew what she did about how things happened in the
school system. She called it a buddy system, where jobs were awarded, “not by
degrees,” but by who you knew. This would be a disincentive for most Black
residents to pursue education as a career if they wanted to stay in the
community.
I asked her, “How did you get this…. I
mean, what I’ve observed since I’ve talked with people here is that they are
aware of the inequities, but not a lot of people want to say anything… but you
have this… where did you get it from?”
“My dad. My uncle I have an uncle
named John Bell, he used to go to all the school board meetings, and stand up,
so I started with my own kids, my sister’s kids, any kids that have ADHD, any
kids, I would go to the school… I called the school every day, e-mail the
teachers, get their homework, then I would go out to the kid’s house and make
sure they got their homework done.”
“You’re a leader. You’re not just a
leader, you’re a leader, you’re an advocate.”
I wondered aloud whether church gave
Rhonda the strength or courage to carry on with her one-woman crusade in the
schools, a crusade for Black children, not only her own, but the community’s. I
mentioned the then-pastor, Michelle, and how forceful and outspoken she was,
and how passionate: did she inspire Rhonda.
The answer was not what I expected.
But that’s the thing about interviews.
You know you are doing a good job if people don’t just tell you what they think
you want to hear, but tell you what they are thinking. They don’t sit there and
search around for words, they just spill out their answer and so-be-it.
I don’t know about all that, she said,
I’m getting kind of tired, I’m about to be done with it. She’s always telling
me what to do next: Rhonda, go down in
the kitchen. Rhonda, get on this committee. There’s always something needs
to be done. I’m about done with that kitchen.
Could it be that Rhonda’s real skills
aren’t being recognized? It appears to me that she may have what it takes to
lead a movement to improve conditions for the Black community. It must be
frustrating for her to be doing it alone. They say the price of peace is
eternal vigilance. Rhonda’s been vigilant for a long, long time now. But there
is no peace.
And why, two years later, are there
still no full-time teachers or staff in the school system?
