An Education Story
The opening words of President John F. Kennedy’s Special Message to the Congress on February 6, 1962, are ones that rings true more than sixty years later, “No task before our Nation is more important than expanding and improving the educational opportunities of all our people.” He went on to extol public education as “both the foundation and the unifying force of our democratic way of life…it is at the same time the most profitable investment society can make and the richest reward it can offer.” Eight years after Brown v. Board of Education, President Kennedy’s sentiments spoke to ideals that had not materialized for students from communities marginalized by race, class and geography – communities of students that continue to be underserved or disserved by our education systems.
In the period following the Brown decision, Black students and families attempting to desegregate schools were subjected to physical and emotional abuse. By the 1970s, more than 200 private “segregation academies” had been established in states across the South, offering vouchers to white families to incentivize their leaving desegregated public schools. In Raleigh, North Carolina another story was also unfolding. In 1964, Margaret Rose Murray and her husband established Vital Link Private School at the corner of Tarboro Road and Lenoir Street in Southeast Raleigh.
Margaret Rose Murray was born on June 20, 1931, to a family with roots in Greenville, North Carolina. Her parents and grandmother migrated to Baltimore, Maryland where Murry attended public schools. She was raised with a strong sense of heritage and a love of education – she would continue her education throughout each stage of her life. In 1958, Murray moved to Raleigh with her husband and three small children as missionaries of a sort – they joined a growing community of Muslims hoping to “spread the word of Islam in the South.” Murray worked in a chicken factory, cleaned hotel rooms and took in laundry, but it was her work as a substitute teacher that became a manifestation of her life’s purpose.
Murray found the Raleigh school system lacking in both preschool offerings for Black children and in teaching Black history. Murray channeled her frustration with these shortcomings, and her belief that a strong early foundation rooted in appreciation for their heritage and history was essential for Black children to succeed, into the Vital Link school. “For more than 50 years, generations of children learned and succeeded academically – with a cultural and historical awareness of Black achievement in all aspects of life, from education, sports and entertainment, to business, politics, and religion.” The school remains open today, renamed MarrKens Learning Academy, with a curriculum that infuses Black history year-round and provides its learners with pre-reading and pre-numeracy skills as a foundation for their early childhood knowledge base as early as 18 months. “Preparing students today to lead tomorrow.”
Murray’s championing of learning extended even beyond Vital Link. In 1974 she started the Womanhood Development program at the North Carolina Correctional Institute for Women. She volunteered at the prison for more than 30 years, encouraging and supporting incarcerated women as they completed high school education and studied for trades. Her advocacy for education extended to fundraising for the United Negro College Fund, the O.A. Dupree Scholarship Fund, St. Augustine’s College, Shaw University and the Garner Road YMCA. Practicing what she preached, Murray completed the early childhood education certificate program at NC State University in 1982 and received a master’s degree in African American Studies from Virginia Theological University in 1997. At almost seventy-years old, she completed an associate’s degree in early childhood education at Wake Technical Community College in 2000. Read more about her extraordinary life, narrated by those who knew her best, here.
Murray is quoted as having said, “I look at a situation and I know it should not be, so I do what it takes to change it. Even a cursory look at conditions that frame the experiences and outcomes of students from communities marginalized by race and class in the South should prompt change. We see echoes of the past in the present. Segregation academies may no longer exist in truth, but a multi-tiered system of public schools, charter schools and non-subsidized private schools often stratify the educational experiences and outcomes for their students. Schools too often become sites of violence and emotional harm, where students with marginalized identities suffer as political fodder. Public education as Kennedy’s “profitable investment” is increasingly separate, unequal and uninterested in nurturing the potential of all students.
What changes shall we make? The Education Equity team at MDC is committed to supporting communities to improve educational systems and increase equitable outcomes. Read more about their work here.
Reading
“The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935″ by James D. Anderson
