Students at St. Margaret of Cortona School are learning about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights era by interviewing community members who lived through it.

        Forty-five students in grades 5-8 interviewed 12 community members at the Madisonville school last week about their roles and impressions of that time. Monday is the holiday honoring the Rev. Dr. King.

St. Margaret of Cortona School students conduct a group interview Jan. 10 for a King holiday project. Mary Ann McDowell speaks as (clockwise from left) Stephen Keeney, Monica Hill, Stefany Waters and Sister Carren Herring look on. (Dick Swaim photo) | ZOOM |

        Four eighth-graders interviewed Mary Ann McDowell, a retired IRS manager from Bond Hill, and Sister Carren Herring, director of the Eastern Catholic Alliance of Schools for Excellence (E-CASE), which includes St. Margaret of Cortona, a racially diverse school.

        Ms. McDowell, who is black, and Sister Herring, who is white, became friends through the Amos Project, a faith-based coalition seeking to bring down barriers of race, class and denomination.

        Both women recalled the Rev. Dr. King's influence in the civil rights movement.

        “All blacks did not embrace him,” Ms. McDowell said. “His philosophy was nonviolence and you turn the other cheek. Not everybody believed in that.”

        If others hadn't joined him, though, he might not have been as successful, said Sister Herring.

        “You can't be a leader unless you have followers.”

        Students wanted to know if the Rev. Dr. King's assassination unraveled some of his work.

        “Certainly, he was missed,” Sister Herring said.

        “Nobody had his charisma and his ability to preach and mobilize people, but his work was carried on. The work isn't over. Some of the progress we made in the Civil Rights Act is being undone.”

        Racial preference policies, for example, are being de-emphasized, she said.

        Students also got a glimpse of life in Cincinnati in the 1950s and early 1960s.

        Before the civil rights movement paved the way for integration, blacks couldn't go to downtown movie theaters and restaurants or to Coney Island. And when Ms. McDowell was in junior high, black and white students were not allowed to swim in the pool together.

        Ms. McDowell lived in Avondale during the 1967 riots, when armed National Guardsmen patrolled the streets. “It was very, very scary,” she said. “It's an image I will never forget.”

        Unemployment, substandard housing and inequality sparked those riots. The women agreed the same conditions contributed to the April riots in Cincinnati. Not much has changed.

        “That's why it's important that you're doing this,” Sister Herring told the students.

        Students asked them if they ever had a racist experience. Ms. McDowell recalled the first time she was called the n-word. She was 9 years old.

        “The first experience you have, you never forget.”

        The project was also a lesson in intergenerational relations. After the students finished the interview, the women asked them about their experiences and what they knew about the civil rights movement.

        “I know it was a good cause,”' said Charlie Weghorn, who is white. “If it wasn't for the civil rights movement, I wouldn't be sitting here with my friends today. Two of my best friends, who lived on my street, are black.”

        “I learned a lot more than I already knew,” said Monica Hill, who is black. “In my family, at a young age you pretty much learn all about black history.”

        Monica knew all about segregation in the South during the 1950s and 1960s. Her cousin was arrested during a sit-in at an Alabama restaurant.

        But Monica didn't know segregation existed in Cincinnati.

        “I didn't think that happened here because we're in the North,” she said.

        To prepare for the interviews, students brainstormed questions with help from the Center for Peace Education.Charlie said the talk with the women crystalized the lesson.

        “It's more realistic coming from them, because it wasn't out of a book or listening to somebody who didn't take part,” he said.
       

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