In the accounts of Maya Angelou and Mah’Ria Pruitt-Martin, similarities arise as each girl encounters a battle to gain an her education amidst deterring circumstances. Angelou’s educational battle can be seen in her essay “Graduation,” in which she recounts her eight-grade graduation in the 1930s and her new found awareness of racial prejudice. The story of Pruitt-Martin, a black girl whom experienced integration in the 2010s, was brought to public attention through the work of a reporter named Nikole Hannah Jones – which was broadcasted through a podcast series called This American Life. Pruitt-Martin’s integration experience occurred after the Normandy school district, a predominantly black district, lost its state accreditation, and the
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The difficulty involved in Angelou and Pruitt-Martin’s reach for education placed a greater level of importance the knowledge they could attain. One example occurred at Angelou’s graduation as Mr. Donleavy spoke about what Central School (the all-white school in the Sample district) would be receiving the next year: “They were going to have the newest microscopes and chemistry equipment for their laboratory” (Angelou 54). There was a severe gap in resources between the white and black schools of Sample - the gap was even promoted by the legislators at the lesser supplied black school – which only momentarily deterred Angelou’s determination to follow her dreams. The community showed their …show more content…
Angelou recounts a stereotype in Donleavy’s speech which promoted that white children “were going to have a chance to” achieve highly educated positions, such as scientists like Madame Curie and Thomas Edison, while black “boys (the girls weren’t even in on it) would try to” become athletes, such as Jesse Owens and Joe Louise (Angelou 54). The attitude that blacks were incapable of achieving education - black girls achieving at all – degraded individuals like Angelou, who were completely intellectually capable of holding highly educated positions such as scientists. After being told this, Angelou’s first reaction was that “Donleavy had exposed us. We were maids and farmers, handymen and washerwomen, and anything higher that we aspired to was farcical and presumptuous” (55). In Angelou’s initial agreement with Donleavy, she completely threw all of her hard work aside, gave into Donleavy’s restrictions, and mentally became what he expected of her. Similarly, in Pruitt-Martin’s situation, continuity of stereotypes was shown through the input of a woman at the Francis Howell meeting which addressed the integration of Normandy students. Nikole Jones recounts, “A woman says she was an education professor and warned Francis Howell officials not to be naïve about the type of students they’d be receiving” (“The Problem”). Without actually meeting any of
The difficulty involved in Angelou and Pruitt-Martin’s reach for education placed a greater level of importance the knowledge they could attain. One example occurred at Angelou’s graduation as Mr. Donleavy spoke about what Central School (the all-white school in the Sample district) would be receiving the next year: “They were going to have the newest microscopes and chemistry equipment for their laboratory” (Angelou 54). There was a severe gap in resources between the white and black schools of Sample - the gap was even promoted by the legislators at the lesser supplied black school – which only momentarily deterred Angelou’s determination to follow her dreams. The community showed their …show more content…
Angelou recounts a stereotype in Donleavy’s speech which promoted that white children “were going to have a chance to” achieve highly educated positions, such as scientists like Madame Curie and Thomas Edison, while black “boys (the girls weren’t even in on it) would try to” become athletes, such as Jesse Owens and Joe Louise (Angelou 54). The attitude that blacks were incapable of achieving education - black girls achieving at all – degraded individuals like Angelou, who were completely intellectually capable of holding highly educated positions such as scientists. After being told this, Angelou’s first reaction was that “Donleavy had exposed us. We were maids and farmers, handymen and washerwomen, and anything higher that we aspired to was farcical and presumptuous” (55). In Angelou’s initial agreement with Donleavy, she completely threw all of her hard work aside, gave into Donleavy’s restrictions, and mentally became what he expected of her. Similarly, in Pruitt-Martin’s situation, continuity of stereotypes was shown through the input of a woman at the Francis Howell meeting which addressed the integration of Normandy students. Nikole Jones recounts, “A woman says she was an education professor and warned Francis Howell officials not to be naïve about the type of students they’d be receiving” (“The Problem”). Without actually meeting any of