Journalism I students pose for a picture with Mary Frances Early (third from left), the first black graduate from the University of Georgia. Early talked to Clarke County School District students before the 2019 Holmes-Hunter lecture, a lecture focusing on race relations, civil rights and education given by Monica Kaufman Pearson, about her decision to transfer from the University of Michigan to UGA to join Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Hamilton Holmes. Photo by Sophia Long
Journalism I student Natalie Schliekelman talks about her new motivation to make a difference in the world around her after attending the 2019 Holmes-Hunter lecture.
Getting to meet living history is not something you get to do every day. People like Monica Kaufman Pearson, the first woman and minority to anchor the evening news in Atlanta, and Mary Frances Early, the first black University of Georgia graduate, seem more akin to the likes of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln than an ordinary person you can actually talk to.
And yet, at the Holmes-Hunter lecture I was able to shake hands with Early, get a picture taken with Pearson, and listen to them both speak.
It made me think.
So many of the people in the history books, the people who made a difference in the world, it was because they saw a problem in the world and decided to fix it. They didn’t sit around or wait for someone else to solve it for them, they just did it.
Pearson discussed this exact idea in her lecture.
“It’s finally time for us—and you young people are going to be the ones to do it—to get to that root of racism, yank it out of our culture and destroy it,” she said.
As the next generation, we have to make the changes we want to see in the world. We can only begin to end racism if we get to know each other as people instead of just as races.
When we allow ourselves to be ruled by generation long racist stereotypes and don’t bother to look beyond the surface, we continue the centuries-long oppression of those who are different.
It can be something as small as saying hi to someone you wouldn’t normally talk to, or sitting at a lunch table with someone who is different than you.
Look around you. If there’s a change you can make, don’t hesitate.
Make it.
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