Feb. 22, 2006

Something seemed a little off about the picture in Mrs. Tuccio&8217;s classroom Monday.

The white teacher stood in front of her all-black class telling them that years ago schools were segregated by race.

The fourth-graders probably don&8217;t use the word segregation, but they know their school isn&8217;t that far from it. Sure, nothing&8217;s forced anymore, but even first-graders in Natchez know that, for the most part, black children go to one school and white children go to others.

Whether school choice in Natchez is now determined by academic standing or race is debatable, and, I believe, varies family to family.

The historical segregation Mrs. Tuccio was talking about wasn&8217;t forced out of Natchez schools until 1989, nearly 35 years after the Supreme Court&8217;s desegregation ruling, and 27 years after James Meredith integrated Ole Miss.

In 1989. That blows my mind. I was 8 years old, and had I lived in Natchez, I guess I would have attended a mainly all-white school.

Civil rights comes up in Mrs. Tuccio&8217;s social studies book in February. It wasn&8217;t planned that way, and she doesn&8217;t teach it as black history; she teaches it as history.

So, she said, she feels nothing awkward in standing in an all-black room telling students about their heritage, because their heritage is our history.

But the sad part, she said Monday night, is how little these children know about black history.

A student this year asked her who Rosa Parks was. But more than the names, dates and facts, these children don&8217;t realize what those who&8217;ve gone before did for them.

Mrs. Tuccio admits she doesn&8217;t put a huge emphasis on black history (she teaches math, science and social studies &8212; it doesn&8217;t always fit in). But she knows students get it in other classrooms. They&8217;ve been exposed to it since kindergarten, and reading teachers often emphasize it, she said. In Ms. Bell&8217;s class the students are doing reports on famous black Americans.

But when the section on segregation comes up in the curriculum, Mrs. Tuccio supplements the textbook with a book, &8220;The Story of Ruby Bridges.&8221; Bridges, at 6, was the first black student in an all white New Orleans school.

The book tells of her daily walk through an angry mob to an empty classroom deserted by the white children because of her. It&8217;s a powerful children&8217;s book, and one Mrs. Tuccio has always loved.

&8220;Every day when you walk in this school you are not threatened,&8221; she told her class. &8220;We are always happy to see you. You have to come in and really take advantage of what you come in these doors to do.&8221;

She also reads them the story of Jackie Robinson as part of the civil rights lessons.

They like the stories, but they don&8217;t see that big picture she was trying to drill home, she said.

&8220;I don&8217;t think they realize that there was a time when they didn&8217;t have opportunity,&8221; she said.

And she can&8217;t teach them that. True black history &8212; like almost everything else in education &8212; has to come from the home, she said.

In 2003 a federal judge ruled that Natchez had successfully desegregated its schools and lifted the 1989 court order. In 2003.

Apparently that judge didn&8217;t really visit our schools. At no fault of the school district, I&8217;d say our schools are far from truly integrated. We still have an all-white non-public school.

By choice, segregation in Natchez is not history, and hanging onto the past makes moving into the future impossible.

Julie Finley is the education reporter for The Natchez Democrat. She writes a weekly column based on experiences with Marty Tuccio&8217;s homeroom class at McLaurin Elementary. She can be reached at 601-445-3551 or

julie.finley@natchezdemocrat.com

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