ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 11, 1996 TAG: 9602090029
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON
Ann Morgan likes to share stories about herself with her fourth-grade class at Crystal Spring Elementary School in South Roanoke. Whether they are stories about her doll collection or her family or how she cries while watching the movie ``Sounder,'' she says, they help her connect with her students.
So, when it comes to introducing her students to civil rights, she tells them a few stories from her own experience. She tells them about getting her booster shots before starting school and how a nurse scrubbed her little arm until the skin was raw.
``She said, `You're dirty. Look how dirty you are.'''
Morgan had just bathed.
``Then she stabbed me with a needle, and I mean stabbed me.'' Her arm remained swollen for weeks, she said. ``It was absolutely unreal. It was absolutely terrible. I'm still terrified of needles.''
Morgan also tells her class about going to segregated schools in Roanoke, about the used textbooks that were passed down to her schools after the white schools had finished with them, and about spending the first days of school erasing the racial slurs from the books that had been added by the previous users.
``I remember the anger on my teachers' faces.''
And she tells them about going downtown every Saturday with her grandmother, who would buy her a Coke and a doughnut from the drug store to take to the market with them. Then, when she turned 12, she was allowed to go downtown by herself. She went to the drug store to buy her Coke and doughnut. She sat down at the counter, but nobody took her order.
``They didn't even speak to me.'' After awhile, she spied a sign on the wall directing people of her race to a designated line where they could order food to go only. ``I was so hurt. I walked out and never went back in there.''
Of course, not every teacher has similar stories to tell. Morgan's advice for the teachers who don't is to read up on someone who lived through the civil-rights movement and tell that person's story.
Make it personal, she said.
Like almost every teacher interviewed for these stories, Morgan also said civil-rights education should not be confined to Black History Month in February. It should be covered throughout the year and throughout a variety of subjects.
LENGTH: Short : 50 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Ann Morgan color WAYNE DEEL STAFFby CNB