WHAT IS PAST IS PROLOGUE

Inside this issue:

February 2013

A L U M N I R E C O L L E C T I O N S O F A F R I C A N A M E R I C A N S C H O O L S U N D E R S E G R E G A T I O N

Multiplying Memories: Lessons in Leadership

Students often comment on how they find history difficult—all those dates and facts. But why is it

important, and what does it all mean? Who decides what goes into the textbooks? From whose perspective are we learning about and

interpreting history?

Since 2004, my own search to understand my family’s history led me to ponder these same questions. What I found was that making a personal connection to history enables us to start

understanding the implications of the history of our nation. However, more is required of us. Can we accept the truth of our family’s, community’s, state’s and country’s role in history—whatever that may be? Will we make a conscious decision

to read between the lines, to do our own research rather than accept what we are told by family,

friends, teachers and the media?

How do we feel when we are told, “that’s just the

way it was back then.” But then, you wonder about that when you see that not everyone lived that way. Denial rewrites or deletes history, causing confusion. Acceptance fills in the gaps

and starts answering the questions.

Researching African American history has led me to my family’s history on numerous occasions. Prior to this point, I had never heard of Tuskegee, but this past summer, I attended a conference there and discovered a family connection. My father, a

fighter pilot in WWII, who was part of the D-Day invasion, returned to the U.S. after flying 80 missions, to become a flight instructor in Walter-boro, SC. Researching Walterboro, I discovered that it was where some of the Tuskegee Airmen

received their advanced flight training. While in Tuskegee, I visited Moton Airfield where I learned that my father is considered a Tuskegee Airman as is anyone who worked for the program in any

capacity.

“I BELIEVE THE YOUNG PEOPLE WOULD SEE WHY WE FEEL EDUCATION IS SO IMPORTANT. IT WAS WORTH THE STRUGGLE AND STILL IS." —Watson High School Alumnus

Covington, Virginia

The Tuskegee Airmen paved the way for the Civil

Rights movement. These men and women became leaders, and the following generations of African Americans could point with pride at the Tuskegee Airmen, in the air and on the ground, who proved

to the world once more that they were equal to

their European-American counterparts.

Upon a recent field trip to Richmond, Virginia

to visit the Museum of the Confederacy, Virginia State Capitol and the Civil War Center at Tredegar, students commented that they enjoyed the tour of the State Capitol the most

as it presented both the past and the present. Comments were also made about standing in

the footsteps of history makers.

These trips highlight the importance of heritage

tourism as an effective teaching tool. The study of history is about making connections—both tangible and intangible—to present-day life. It is the job of educators to help students make connections between what they read in the

pages of history to what they are experiencing

today.

On a field trip to Washington, D.C. in 2007,

I passed by the National Archives and saw the words, “What is past is prologue,” etched into the north side of the building. These words planted seeds that bring me to this point today. The essence of Sankofa, a West African

proverb, states that you must know where you have been before you know where you are going. My hope is that students will begin to incorporate this concept into their own lives and start to search for their past in order to move

forward into their future.

Education Is About Making Connections—Research • Oral History • Heritage

Moton Airfield, Tuskegee, Alabama

By Cynthia Boteler

Special Points of interest:

STUDENTS HELP PRESERVE LOCAL

HISTORY.

LEADERSHIP SKILLS LEARNED

FROM ALUMNI OF SEGREGATED

SCHOOLS.

LOCAL SCHOOLS CONNECTED

TO NATIONAL SCHOOL BUILDING

PROGRAM.

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWS

ARCHIVED IN REGIONAL

LIBRARIES.

AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY IS

AMERICAN HISTORY, TWELVE

MONTHS A YEAR.

ORAL HISTORY: PART I 2

ORAL HISTORY: PART II 2

DOCUMENTARY FILM 2

LEADERSHIP WORKSHOP 3

ROSENWALD SCHOOL 3

CONFERENCE AT TUSKEGEE

UNIVERSITY

VIRGINIA FOUNDATION FOR 3

THE HUMANIITIES GRANT

CYNTHIA BOTELER 4

BIOGRAPHY

College students participated in different aspects of implementing an oral history project focusing on the remembrances of

alumni who attended segregated schools in Alleghany and Bath counties in Virginia.

The goal of this project was to provide students with a method of self-discovery and identification of their story that incorporates their culture and their region. Students from different college curriculum interacted and

worked on various aspects of a project that will bring enduring educational value to the community.

high school and several public library

Black History programs and other venues.

Approximately two weeks after the premiere of the film, Boteler discovered that the two schools in Bath County are Rosenwald Schools, built in 1924-1925 and 1929-1930 as part of the Rosenwald

School building program developed by Booker T. Washington, president of Tuskegee Institute and Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears Roebuck Company. Between 1912 and 1932, approximately

5,000 Rosenwald schools were built across

fifteen states in the south.

Roanoke native, Montres Henderson and his crew filmed during the12th annual Watson School Reunion in 2010.

Mr. Henderson edited the film along with Ms. Boteler and Ms. Perlista Henry, a 1964 graduate of Watson School. Ms. Henry narrated and Ms. Boteler filmed the Bath County portion of the film and

assembled all of the photographs and narrative. To date, approximately 1,400

people have viewed the film at college,

ORAL HISTORY PART I—A Sample Oral History Project: Connecting Students to Their Community and Preserving Local History

The Watsonians: These Are Our Stories—Watson Elementary/High School, 1882 to 1966

ORAL HISTORY PART II—Multiplying Memories: Researching, Organizing and Archiving the Educational Experiences of African Americans in the Alleghany Highlands, 1930s to 1960s

to inventory and digitize the scrapbooks, documents and memorabilia pertaining to these schools. The long-term goal will

provide content to create a website for an “historic African American school community,” enabling alumni and descendants to research their heritage.

DSLCC students interviewed alumni and helped digitally scan and catalogue images.

A second oral history project, conducted in 2011, focused on the Jefferson School, in Clifton Forge, Virginia, but also

included scanning collections of photographs and documents pertaining to other schools in the area, such as Watson School in Covington, Virginia. The project included preliminary meetings

with alumni who shared details and photographs of their experiences. Several photographs were loaned for scanning and inclusion in a future project.

Volunteers helped to continue the interview process, but a major focus was

Page 2

Multiplying Memories: Lessons in Leadership

Cynthia Boteler received funding for both oral history projects from Paul Lee

Professional Development Grants from the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) in the Summer of 2010 and 2011, respectively, through Dabney S.

Lancaster Community College (DSLCC).

Supported by Coming to the Table, a program of the Center for Justice and Peace-

building at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, Boteler’s documentary film was one of six projects selected nation-wide in an effort to support community projects (one hour and twenty-two minute

feature length documentary film).

The film focuses on the telling of first-hand narratives from the perspective of teachers

and students who were among the genera-tions of African American families who attended segregated schools before federal legislation mandated integration. The film has three parts: Education, Football and

Integration. Excerpts from alumni interviews are woven into the documentary, interspersed with historic photographs of four different communities in Alleghany and Bath Counties in Virginia. Yearbook photographs, mementos

and memorabilia belonging to various alumni

were also included.

Students assisted with the recording of four alumni from two African American schools in

the service area of Dabney S. Lancaster

Community College, Clifton Forge, Virginia.

Mr. and Mrs. W. G. Watson

Multiplying Memories: Lessons in Leadership is a 50-minute multimedia presentation developed for and presented at the 5th

Annual Black Leadership Conference, LIFE (Living Intentionally for Excellence) 101: It’s A Celebration, hosted by Virginia Western Community College in Roanoke, Virginia in February of 2012.

Highlights of the oral history projects and

documentary film provided the basis for creating Multiplying Memories: Lessons in Leadership. The workshop encouraged students to make connections with local history, community service projects and

education to their future as leaders in the community and in the workplace. Partici-pants discussed the meaning of leadership as exemplified in the film and the role of community.

Despite the many challenges faced by both teachers and students in the small, rural segregated Black schools in Virginia’s

Western Highlands, the overriding theme that permeated the oral history project was the unwavering focus on excellence. The teachers expected no less than excellence in student performance, and as such, the pride in

the schools is evident—during every interview

and every scene of the film.

The goal is for students to develop and value tools through which they can embrace and acknowledge contributions

and lessons from the past and translate them into meaningful applications to the present. The experience is expected to impact workshop participants to the extent that they will rededicate them-

selves to their personal, educational and occupational goals.

Students are challenged to start a

Multiplying Memories program in their community. The goal is to eventually have a program in all 23 community colleges in

Virginia.

Multiplying Memories: Lessons in Leadership Workshop Developed for Black Leadership Conference

Ethnohistoric Research on the Rosenwald Schools of Bath County: Millboro School (T.C. Walker School) and Switchback School (Union Hurst School)

National Rosenwald School Conference: “Celebrating 100 years of Pride, Progress and Preservation” Sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation

In June 2012, Boteler received a scholarship

to attend the National Rosenwald School

Conference, sponsored by the National Trust

for Historic Preservation, June 14-16, 2012

at Tuskegee University.

Page 3

Switchback School (Union Hurst School)

Millboro School (T.C. Walker School)

Photographs courtesy of Bath County Historical Society

The Oaks, home of Booker T. Washington

Tuskegee University

Education, denied to the enslaved by law, was of paramount importance

during Reconstruction and still is to this day. Religion and faith enabled African Americans to endure and rise above a cruel, unjust society that benefited from their labor, both before and after

Emancipation. When these buildings and stories are gone, there will be no visible reminders of this important heritage. The physical loss of historic African American structures and oral history is tantamount

to the loss of cultural heritage and history.

During the closing plenary session at the National Rosenwald School Conference,

Jacquelyn Days Serwer, Chief Curator for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History & Culture, announced plans to create a Rosenwald School exhibit for the museum’s opening. Rising from the only

remaining space on the National Mall, the museum will take its place next to the Washington Monument between the National Museum of American History and 15th Street. February 22, 2012 marked the official

groundbreaking ceremony for the museum,

scheduled to open in 2015.

Descendants of Booker T. Washington and

Julius Rosenwald spoke at the event.

Dr. Lynn Rainville, an anthropologist and historian based in Charlottesville, Virginia,

was a speaker at the National Rosenwald School Conference at Tuskegee and is the humanities scholar for this project. Dr. Rainville will post information from Ms. Boteler’s research on her website, The

Rosenwald Schools of Virginia.

Bath County Historical Society Presents:

Documenting African American History from School Board Minutes,

Newspapers and Recollections of Alumni—Cynthia Boteler

A Survey of Rosenwald Schools in Virginia—Dr. Lynn Rainville

May 9. 2013 at 7:00 pm

The Dairy at The Homestead Preserve,

Warm Springs, VA

This project is sponsored by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Bath County Historical Society and Virginia Hot

Springs Preservation Trust

A work in progress, this project encompasses comprehensive research of the Switchback

and the Millboro schools, two Rosenwald Schools built during the segregation era in Bath County, Virginia, serving students for forty years. The primary goal is to provide a thorough documentation from a variety of

sources to ensure that the African American community’s school history is not lost. In addition, it is important that this information is shared within the African American community and made accessible to the schools, other

members of the community and visitors as well as the broader Rosenwald School

community in Virginia.

This project celebrates The National Rosenwald Schools Conference theme of

pride, progress and preservation, honoring this legacy in Bath County, Virginia and all the people in the African American community who helped support the tourism industry at the Homestead Resort and other

hotels, inns, private homes, farms, businesses

and enterprises in the local community.

Each semester, Ms. Boteler takes

students on field trips to various

museums and historical sites around

Virginia, West Virginia, and

Washington, D.C.

Ms. Boteler received a Martin Luther

King, Jr. Legacy Award from Dr. Calvin

A. McClinton of the McClinton

Foundation in Wrightsville, Virginia

in appreciation for her work and

performance in the preservation of

the African American experience in

America.

Boteler is currently working on another

research and oral history project in

Bath County, Virginia, where she

resides. The project was funded by

the Virginia Foundation for the

Humanities (VFH).

Cynthia Boteler, a Virginia native,

graduated from the University of

Virginia with a Bachelor of Arts

degree in French. She has twelve

years of experience in higher educa-

tion at the University of Colorado,

Health Sciences Center School of

Nursing as a program assistant for

two years, followed by Dabney S.

Lancaster Community College as

Student Activities Coordinator and

Adjunct Faculty for College Success

Skills for the past ten years.

As Student Activities Coordinator,

Ms. Boteler is responsible for

coordinating the college’s Black

History programs. Consequently

she developed an interest in Black

History. Her interests led her to

conceive, develop and implement

projects involving research on local

history, several oral history projects,

a documentary film, an educational

workshop and community presenta-

tions.

Oral history recordings and tran-

scripts of her projects are available

at local libraries and historical

societies.

CYNTHIA BOTELER

M U L T I P L Y I N G M E M O R I E S : L E S S O N S I N L E A D E R S H I P

Cynthia Boteler

P.O. Box 242

Warm Springs, Virginia 24484

Phone: 540-839-9258

E-mail: cboteler1@tds.net

Comments from Watson School Alumni:

“I'm just happy to have lived to view this film. I would have loved for more people in the

area to have been able to view this film. I believe the young people would see why we feel

education is so important. It was worth the struggle and still is."

"The film was very inspiring and should have been done long before now. Thanks to you

who took the time to do such a great job."

“I am deeply appreciative of the opportunity to have the history of Watson School pre-

served and documented. As the Watsonians age, there is also the distinct possibility that

the stories would have otherwise died also."

“A learning experience—community needs to see it.”

“This was very educational. I learned a lot that was not known.”

Music

Amazing Grace

(John Newton, 1800)

Watson School Cheer

Watson School “Alma Mater”

Original Score Composer

Bronson Helm

Special Thanks to:

Shirley Hughes Burks

Dabney S. Lancaster Community College (DSLCC) Virginia Community College

System (VCCS)

Community Assistance

Mrs. Gretel Anderson

Former Mayor of Covington

Stephanie Clark Eddie Graham

Mrs. Doris Hayes

Inna Henderson

Perlista Henry

Dr. Paul Linkenhoker Nancy Mathias

Kathy Nicely

Dr. Calvin André McClinton

Doug & Mattie Smith

Tondalaya Van Lear Darlene Burcham & Andy Morris,

Town of Clifton Forge

Watson Alumni Committee for

2010

Geraldine Allen

Mary Hughes Barber

Shirley Hughes Burks

Teresa Cashwell

Linda Cook

Ralph Fitzpatrick

Thelma Halsey

Regina Laws

Bernedia Minor

Carolyn Ross

Leatha Smith

Elmira Twitty

Linda Venable

Yvonne Williams

© 2010 Cynthia Boteler

All rights reserved.

Documentary Film

Produced & Directed by

Cynthia Boteler

Narration by

Mrs. Gretel Anderson

Cynthia Boteler

Mrs. Doris Hayes

Perlista Henry

Amanda Huffman

Dr. Paul Linkenhoker

Interviews by

Ralph R. Burks

Betty Jean Fields

Jerry N. Johnson

James O. Lowry, M.D.

Lucy Wallace Lewis

Matthew H. Menefee, D.D.S.

Charles R. Nowlin

Ruby Sparrow Wells

Rev. Evelyn Harvey White

Spurlock

Yolanda White

Charlene T. Wicks

Interviewers

Montres Henderson

Perlista Henry Edited by

Montres Henderson

Cynthia Boteler

Color Film Produced by

Montres Henderson

Jasmine Coles

Bronson Helm

Black & White Film Production by

Cynthia Boteler

Sound Recording by

Jasmine Coles

Bronson Helm

Production Assistants

DSLCC Students

Andrew Coburn

Perlista Henry

Amanda Huffman

Shawna Jefferson

Peter Minetree

Jason Slaughter

Mindy Taliaferro

Archival Photographs Alleghany Highland

Genealogical Society

Ethridge Burr

Ernie Miller

Bath County Historical Society

Collection of Perlista Henry

Collection of Cora Poteat

Still Photography by

Cynthia Boteler

Jasmine Coles

Bronson Helm

Montres Henderson

Perlista Henry

To schedule a presentation of the documentary film,

The Watsonians: These Are Our Stories, for your organization,

contact Cynthia Boteler

©2013 Cynthia Boteler. All Rights Reserved.