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February Author’s Column from Sheryl Dee Mebane

While expanding and editing my novel Lady Bird with Pearl Street Publishing a few years ago, I was asked lots of interesting questions that led me to venture into the past to share more about Honey Shaker, one of the main characters. I took up the challenge and explored the rural world of segregated eastern North Carolina, interviewing my own family members and doing other research to learn more about the world of the 1940s. Although the challenge was enjoyable and it unearthed engaging drama from Honey’s short life, the process also brought me once again face-to-face with my own African American culture and history. As with many Americans, my relationship to the difficult past of African Americans has grown over the years, at times marked by the observance of Black History Month (link to history of observance: http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmintro1.html

During February, I had my own special tradition while a student in North Carolina. Growing up surrounded by and utterly entrenched in a culture and education system that generally ignored the contributions of African Americans for much of the year, I noted that February’s school observances made for some awkward moments. While teachers struggled with obvious discomfort, middle school students sneered and asked whether the material would be tested. My own frustrations with the inability of some school adults to lead classes through the material as smoothly as they presented the stories of other Americans tempered my curiosity at learning the new names, stories, artworks and ideas brought up during the month. In high school, when I rankled at the trend of presenting only neutered portrayals of radical historic figures and at the emphasis on memorizing tiny facts about a few people’s lives rather than connecting the past to the present, some teachers and family members were able to lead me to stimulating accounts of African American lives.

As an undergraduate chemistry major and creative writing minor at UNC-CH, I decided to meet my history requirement by taking one class on Antebellum African American Life. As you might suspect, the subject matter – subjugation, revolts, daily violence and remarkable and routine resistance – made for a charged, integrated class. Though the course illuminated a core and essential fact of American history in a manner that let me make connections with the inequalities of the present, I still often fought with my anger that these events were ever allowed to happen, that I, generations removed from the time period, connected so immediately to the stories, and that the essential topics broached by the course, personally pivotal selections of which are highlighted below, weren’t required for every UNC student.

1) The proliferation of anti-miscegenation laws in colonial America to counter recurring instances of cooperation between poor white workers, African American slaves and freemen: As I remember Howard Zinn pointing out in A People’s History of the United States, the laws would not have been needed if working people were not so willing to find common ground despite the desires of the land-owning class and the racist ideology created and used to enforce divisions amongst laborers.

2) Gabriel Prosser’s 1800 rebellion: This one of a number of antebellum revolts directly challenged the hypocrisy of American elites, who had gained independence from Britain only decades earlier, through articulate statements that the captured rebels offered at the time of their executions.

The revolt must also be considered alongside less overt attempts at resistance that more slaves may have engaged in.

After college, I moved to northern California and immersed myself in a chemistry doctoral program. Following one semester of neglecting life outside of physical chemistry, I reopened my eyes and my schedule to the progressive struggles going on around me. As I write now, I live, drum, write and work in northern California after earning my PhD in 2003 with a split dissertation on 1) a computer simulation of ultrafast reaction dynamics and 2) a study of a successfully re-integrated chemistry classroom. I am planning a postdoctoral research project in environmental chemistry education and justice that will help coordinate the efforts of researchers, educators and communities. I hope the project will manifest my belief that for the society to move beyond token gestures at equality and multicultural understanding and to claim our inclusive and exciting future, smart efforts at collective learning and action must be incorporated in all our endeavors.