This is Democracy – Episode 102: Reckoning with Racism in Our Institutions

Announcers: This is Democracy. A podcast that exploits the interracial, intergenerational, and intersectional unheard voices living in the world’s most influential democracy.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Welcome to our new episode of, This is Democracy. Today is another very special episode as we have the opportunity to talk to a longtime friend and a pioneer in education, John McWilliams. We’re going to talk to John today about a very difficult but ever-present issue in our society, which is how, especially in educational institutions, do we reckon with the history of racism in our own institutions? How do we address the legacy of past injustice within the institutions that we occupy today, and how do we use that recognition and that history to help us move forward rather than trying to sweep it under the rug or pretend it’s not there? How does it become a source of positive movement, and reform, and innovation, and integration for our society as we go forward?

John has been a pioneer working on these issues. He’s the head of school at Montgomery Academy in Montgomery, Alabama. The Montgomery Academy is a very distinguished K-12, co-ed, nonsectarian day school serving the River Region community around Montgomery since 1959. I’ve had the opportunity to visit Montgomery Academy, and it is a truly great school. John graduated from Montgomery Academy in 1996, and he’s the first alumnus to lead the school. It’s quite extraordinary. He’s the alumnus, head of school in this moment. He graduated from Yale University where he received his BA degree in history, of course. That’s where I know John from, we go all the way back to Yale. He also holds a master’s degree in liberal studies from Dartmouth College, and I’ve been on his case to get a PhD, which I hope he’ll do one of these days.

Upon his graduation from Yale, John returned to Montgomery Academy to teach in the History Department to coach speech and debate. Before he became middle school director in 2011, he has acted in every other role at the school from Associate Head of School, acting interim head of school, he has probably coached every team, I know he led the theater program for awhile, and he’s now, as I said, Head of School at Montgomery Academy. John, thank you for joining us today.

John McWilliams: Thank you so much, Jeremi. It’s such a pleasure to be with you and with Zachary. I’m a big fan of the podcast and it’s been many a time that our family has listened to the podcasts when we’ve been in the car together, and so it’s such an honor to be with you today at this critical time in our history.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: We’re so grateful for you taking the time. We know you’ve got a lot on your plate right now, some of which we’ll talk about in a few minutes. We will start, of course, with Mr. Zachary’s scene setting poem. What is the title of your poem today, Zachary?

Zachary Suri: Soiled.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Let’s hear it.

Zachary Suri: My school, it is a substrate of the American miracle, it sticks to us, children of immigrants, and we’ve become the enzymes of bigger reactions, and we ourselves are the glue of American dreams, and we are drinking too much coffee while doing calculus at 08:00 AM, and we are privileged progressives who don’t understand we are the product of resegregation. To us, our school is simply a building nestled between hills and highway, with the hideous parking lot and hallways that look like prisons, and to us it is the place we begin to understand Shakespeare or taught to diagram cell biology, learn to look the other way when the squad cars come to the school downstairs. We eat breakfast on the way to school as we loop the long overpasses and spaghetti off-ramps, the long concrete wall of separation that cut through the city since long before we were here. It is impervious terrain like it is impervious to people, and the McDonald’s and Mexican grocery stores that we avoid like the plague cluster around it like cells to capillaries. Some of us drive miles to buy lunch, like we drive miles to get home. I have always found solace by making the grime into poetry or for mangling the inequalities into rhythm, and some they put their depression to song or pour their anxiety into music. But are we really listening to the pulse of our school, are we truly counting off the heartbeats like metronomes, or are we sticking our stethoscope to the radiator so we don’t have to hear the heartbeat die. Oh, America, when will we learn to recognize the black and white in the grain beige? When will we finally begin to remember the time bombs our great-grandfather set? When will we wake up from the sleep of complicity to find we’ve soiled the bed of freedom?

Dr. Jeremi Suri: That’s a very moving poem, Zachary, and it reminds me of our many drives to school before the COVID crisis. What is your poem really about?

Zachary Suri: My poem on the surface is really about my school and the school that I attend, but it’s really about how racism pervades even the most basic of institutions in our society, and how it really defines not only our larger lifetimes, but also our ordinary lives and our daily lives.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: John, I think that sets the scene perfectly for the world you navigate and lead so brilliantly every day. How do you think about these issues at Montgomery Academy?

John McWilliams: First of all, thank you, Zachary, for such a beautiful poem that does, I think, set the stage for this conversation. I’ve been thinking about the history of the Montgomery Academy as long as I have been a part of the academy community, particularly as an adult, as a teacher of history. I had a poster in my classroom when I taught AP US History for a decade that said that you cannot know where you are going until you know where you have been. I think it’s important for us to take a serious look at how our institutions have functioned over the course of time, and to be willing to go places where sometimes we may not have felt comfortable going before. While I had thought about it a lot, and had done a lot of independent research into the history of the school, I really had never spoken out until this moment. But as I considered what was happening in the world around us, I felt compelled, I felt that we have to speak up and we have to show a willingness to experience some discomfort. That’s how we’re going to grow through a willingness to think about the past, but really to think about the present and to use the ways that we think about the past as a mechanism through which we can challenge ourselves to look at our current realities.

I think that’s the beauty of what your poem is getting at, Zachary, is that it’s not just to relegate the past to the past. As the great Faulkner quote that, “The past isn’t dead, it isn’t even past.” I think it’s something along those lines, and that we also have to think about that in the present and focus on ourselves today. I think that your poem also, Zachary, pointed to the idea, you mentioned privileged progressives. Even as we are engaged in very altruistic educational missions, we have to think about the impact that we have in our society, what role privilege plays, and how that shapes the world that we create for our students today, and the impact that that has had in the past on where we’re going.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: It’s such an important point, John, but it’s such a difficult topic to talk about. I was so moved by the letter that you published on the 6th of June, it’s such a courageous letter. If I might, I want to read a little bit of it and ask you to elaborate because I think it builds perfectly on your reflections on how that history is actually part of the present also. You wrote, “We must be willing to confront the uncomfortable fact that the Montgomery Academy, like many other independent schools founded in the South during the late 1950s,” and that’s true across the South and in parts of the North as well, that it “was not immune to the divisive forces of racism that shaped this city, Montgomery, and community over the course of its history. We don’t like to talk about it, but in 1959, Montgomery Academy first opened its doors in the old governor’s mansion as an all white school. It was initially designed as an all white school. Montgomery Academy remained an all white school for the first 14 years of its existence. It was seen by many as one of the early catalysts for white flight from Montgomery’s public schools.” This is a topic we’ve talked about, white flight from public schools in many of our episodes. Thankfully, you wrote, John, “Much has changed in Montgomery Academy in the decades following the admission of the first African American student in 1973. Our current mission statement, core values, and portrait of a graduate, create a framework for transcending the problematic origins of our school and the complicated legacy that it has created.” Those are very courageous words for a head of school, for any person to articulate to the community that supports your institution, many of whom were part of the institution in the past, right?

John McWilliams: Absolutely. I appreciate your pointing the courageous aspect of it. I am thankful that there has been a tremendous outpouring of support for the statement that I have made from alumni and faculty and parents as well. But it is still a hard thing to address. I think it’s worth expounding upon a little bit of the history here.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Please.

John McWilliams: The narrative that has often been reported about the history of the Montgomery Academy, was that there were a group of prominent Montgomery citizens who came together to create a organization, a school that would elevate the standard for primary and secondary education in Montgomery, and that their focus was on academic mission. To a large extent, the historic record of the school supports that narrative and their stories about gatherings, and living rooms to talk about the status of education in Montgomery and a desire to elevate through a school that according to the the documents that created it, the purpose of the corporation is to create, maintain, operate, and conduct a modern private school in the city of Montgomery, Alabama, for the purpose of providing the highest quality instruction, the program of studies– and I’m reading this– will be vigorously academic pointed to prepare students for successful entrance to the most selective colleges and universities in the nation, and would point towards high achievement on the college entrance examination board. But at the time, in the original advertisement placed on February the 8th, 1959 in the Montgomery Advertiser, interested individuals were invited to attend the meeting. That advertisement clearly stated that the school would be for boys and girls of white parentage.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: It said that explicitly.

John McWilliams: It said that explicitly and while it is true that in the newspaper articles that followed at the time, that a number of the founders pointed out that they did not want this school to be seen as a, “stopgap measure, ” the school advertised itself as an all white school and opened as an all-white school, and remained an all-white school for the first 14 years of its existence. These were not the individuals who founded our school. These were not individuals who are outspoken in the Citizens’ Council leadership. These were not people who were active members of extremist organizations. These were businessmen, community leaders, people who had led united appeal efforts or these were people who had served the country in World War II. There was a Supreme Court judge among these people, a two-star general was among these people. So these were a leaders, doctors, lawyers, as members of the Montgomery community. But I still think that we have to recognize that with that phrase, “boys and girls of white parentage”, that this school began with a specific trajectory and in a specific moment.

That happened in February of 1959. In December of 1958, actually in the Montgomery Advertiser on December 30th, there were two main articles on appearing on the front page. One was the decision of the City Commission at the time to close all of the parks of Montgomery in response to a lawsuit that was seeking to integrate the parks and rather than integrate, there was a closure of all the parks. Also in that same issue of the newspaper, there was an article pointing out that the Montgomery Improvement Association, MIA and Dr. King, announced that their next focus would be on the integration of Montgomery schools. That led, on January the 2nd, to the leader of the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama, making a proclamation that there would be bloodshed in Alabama if there was an effort to integrate schools. Of course, this is all after Brown and Brown II. Governor Patterson, who had his inaugural address in January of 1959, also pointed out the fears of what was happening related to this movement towards integration and basically threatened in his speech that the efforts of agitators, as he labeled them, might lead to the dissolving of the public school system altogether.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Sure.

John McWilliams: So I think that in that context, you had a number of people who probably were concerned about what was going to happen, but they also had a position of privilege to create an institution for white families that would certainly not be available, at least at first to black members of the community.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: John, what do you say to many, well-meaning citizens who would say to you, this is all history and it’s important, but we’re a different society now and this doesn’t matter so much to us now. Obviously, you believe it does matter. How does it matter now? How do you think about the role that history plays in the day-to-day education of young people in your school today.

John McWilliams: Thank you for that. It is important that we understand the uses of the past. Why are we doing this? Why are we bringing up this that happened over 60 years ago? Am I in bringing this up trying to judge people in the past based on current standards? Well, first of all, I would say that one of the reasons why we have to address this history is that we have not openly discussed it before. It’s not a matter of judgment. It’s not a matter of trying to make people feel bad, but it is about an honest accounting of where we have been. So that we can have these, although there are sometimes uncomfortable, these important conversations to lead us forward. It’s very important for us as a institution now, that states as a part of our core values that we seek and value diversity in its many forms, that we have these honest conversations with our students of color, our faculty or staff members of color, as a part of the Montgomery academy community that we can have this conversation about the challenges that that existed in the past.

Furthermore, I think that having that sense of, I might say freedom, to talk about the past also leads us to be more introspective about the impact that it’s having on us today. While I did focus on talking about the history of Montgomery Academy, in the statement, I spent a lot of time talking about where we are now and making sure that we are doing all that we can do to really think critically about this particular moment in our history, and how we as an educational institution whose mission is to create leaders. If we are developing leaders, how are we going to equip our young people today with the skills and habits of thought that they will need in order to be those leaders in the world tomorrow. I would say that you cannot do that without an appreciation of difference, a respect for the diversity that exists within our society and world, and without grappling with the issues of privilege and how that impacts some of the challenges that we face as a society today.

Zachary Suri: On that note, I found in my experience at my high school, which is  a overall very privileged magnet school that sits right on top of a very underprivileged, majority-minority school, that even though many of my peers and their parents are willing to recognize the racism that exists in our society and has existed, it’s very hard for them to look at their own community and their own experience in that way. How do we force kids and parents to recognize their own privilege without shutting down communication?

John McWilliams: That is a big challenge, Zachary, and I appreciate your pointing that out. I think the first place to start is having conversations and be willing to lean into the discomfort a little bit and say, “Hey, this is a tough thing for us to grapple with. We may struggle with this, we may come of it from different perspectives, but the opportunity to engage is worth it in the end.” I hope that here in Montgomery of all places in the world, we are starting to see our community really deal with the history in new ways. I’m really excited about what I’ve seen in Montgomery. I’m sorry that the COVID-19 challenge has in some ways hurt some of the museums and monuments here in terms of bringing people to Montgomery because we were really on a momentum. I have to say a lot of that has to do with the bold work that Bryan Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative have done. I think we’ve started some conversations here in our community that have moved into our school as well and it’s all a part of that process of really understanding the history. I certainly began my career as a educator in the history classroom and I owe a great debt of gratitude to Jeremi, to your mentorship as my teacher at Yale, so I do come from this bias of the importance of history. But I have to say that there is no more important time for us to really make sure that we are studying the past, that we read books, that we listen to people who can reflect on what happened in the past, and that we learn from those opportunities in order to shape how we can move forward.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Well, you’re much too kind, John, in pointing to me. I certainly have learned as much from you if not more than you’ve learned from me. On that note, I hope this is not an uncomfortable question, but how do you think of yourself as a white leader of such an important institution in Montgomery during this moment? How do you situate yourself in the historical discussions and also in the contemporary decisions that have to be made about how to address these issues?

John McWilliams: Well, I think the first thing is that I– and I tried to highlight this in my statement, but I have to be willing to check my own privilege and to recognize that many of the opportunities that I have had, I’ve certainly worked hard and I’ve certainly tried to earn the positions that I have gained but I do recognize that I, as a result of my skin color, have been afforded opportunities that so many people have not in this world. I have not had to occupy spaces where I have been doubted because of color of my skin, of my presence in a room, or the way that somebody perceives me in pretty much any situation that I’ve encountered in my life.

The first thing I have to say as a leader of an organization in Montgomery at this time is to recognize that and accept that and work through it. The other thing is that I try, and this is something I struggled with about whether to write or not to write. At first, I wondered, what can I add? I do think it’s important that we approach with a sense of humility and a focus on listening rather than necessarily speaking. I ultimately decided that I needed to speak, that a head of an independent school in Montgomery, Alabama needed to address these issues in an open way, but I also say that in the sense of knowing that I still have so much to learn and I’m continually challenging myself to learn more and learn how to approach these issues in productive and positive ways. But of course, that’s what the pursuit of excellence means to me. Of course, that’s the tagline of our school and the core of our mission. But I have a tendency when I talk to our faculty and staff to remind them when we talk about the cultural norms of our faculty and staff, I say the pursuit applies to all of us. For me as the head of school, it has to begin with me as a leader in that and being willing to challenge myself, be willing to get uncomfortable myself in order to chart a path forward for the school.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Well and as you show in your letter, just in the style as well as the substance, you’re embodying servant leadership, which by its nature requires an understanding, a bathing in the history, and a willingness to constantly learn and rethink assumptions. I think your letter is a model of that, John and I know your leadership is too. How have students from minority backgrounds, in particular, and faculty from minority backgrounds, how have they reacted to this moment? How are they working through this?

John McWilliams: I have received a number of communications that have pointed out how significant this moment was, perhaps even more than I had anticipated, where people have reached out via text or an email or call to say, “Your letter brought tears to my eyes,” one said. Another said, “You have no idea how important hearing that is for our community.” I’ve been deeply touched by people reaching out, and I hope that it will create the space for continued work. It’s not just about a statement, it’s about the work that it’s going to accompany that. We’ve been engaging in work over the years, and that goes back sometime in some very intentional work over the course of the past two years in particular, but I know that there’s still more work to be done and we’re going to keep doing that. I’ve been very thankful and humbled by the expressions of gratitude and I hope that will continue.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Well, building goodwill and building stronger relationships might be one of the real values that comes out of this. Recognizing that it is by talking about these uncomfortable experiences in the past and the present that we can learn to understand one another better and become more effective, more happy in our relationships with one another across backgrounds.

John McWilliams: Right. I was having a conversation with someone the other day who said, “You know what, I almost feel like you have lightened our load a little bit.” I want to be clear about that. It hasn’t lightened our load in terms of the work that has to be done.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: I’m sure not. No.

John McWilliams: But in terms of once you make that point and Bryan Stevenson makes this point so beautifully in some of his remarks on this subject is that we are all liberated by these moments of just leaning in to the discomfort. It’s uncomfortable. But once you go there, we’ve now will be able to have conversations that we have not had on the campus before. I’m hopeful that that will be a transformative moment for us. It sounds simple enough. I hope that what people can see and when we talk about this, take for example, the concept of implicit bias. So long in this country when we’ve talked about bias or when we talk about structures of racism, particularly when white people talk about it, we get very uncomfortable and it leads to this moment of defensiveness of saying, wait a second, are you calling me a racist? What we have to recognize is that we have to get beyond this– Robin DiAngelo in White Fragility talks about the good bad binary. That we have to be able to move beyond that and recognize this; it’s not about whether you’re a good person or a bad person, we all have bias. Once you recognize that, then you are able to move through it. How do you recognize it? How do you create that awareness? Because of the history of this country, there are structures of racism that are prevalent. But once we accept that, that’s where the work begins. Let’s accept that and let’s figure out how we can move through it. How can we be our best selves in that environment?

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Right. How can we take these institutions as they are and work on improving them? Again, bringing that point about excellence to everything that we do. John, we always, as you know, like to close on a positive note and there’s so much hope in everything you say, so much optimism in your realistic recognition of the difficulties around us. How do you think we can make certain that in the fall, when we hope we’ll be able to return to our schools, and workplaces, and our restaurants, and vacations, and things of that sort, that we will continue to talk about these things? How can we make certain we don’t replay some of our history, which is to have these moments of intense focus and then go back to the status quo? How do we keep the positive conversations going?

John McWilliams: Well, I think it has to come with a continued awareness and retraining ourselves to think about these things on a more regular basis and to accept that. I also think that it can come through in the everyday acts. I think about our lower school and I think about we have a wonderful program that lot of schools use called responsive classroom. Each day begins with a morning meeting and a child looking in the eyes of another child. Of course, it was on Zoom a lot this spring, but it could be again in the future. But a child look into the eyes of another child and recognizing that child’s humanity and something about them that day. When I think about the work that has to be done, I think that if we really dedicated ourselves to the building blocks of the ways that we can operate in empathy towards our fellow humans in respect of them and their dignity as individual, that through those everyday acts, that we can build an awareness of these issues. It does sound optimistic, I know, but I live in that world. I try to wake up every day focusing on that pursuit in the way that I live my life and in the way that I want to lead our community to take those steps forward. But I’m very hopeful.

My wife has a t-shirt– you know Sarah, but she has a t-shirt that came out, that– there was a company that does little sayings from the South and it says the teachers are going to turn this thing around. Of course, you can insert whatever you believe into this thing, but I do believe that teachers are the core of how we can address these issues. The educational institutions, whether they be public schools, independent schools, colleges, universities, graduate schools, that by engaging in the work that we do each and every day and engaging in it intentionally and honestly, that we really can make a difference in this world. I’ve dedicated my career to doing that and want to keep doing it.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Well, and you are leading, inspiring, and creating hope, which as we know is the most powerful element of change. If you have hope, you have a reason to try, you have a reason to go forward. Leadership that offers realistic hope is leadership that offers a pathway that allows us to move forward and think about positive change. Zachary, do you think these conversations will continue and do you see this as a different moment for our society and for your generation? As you’ve heard me say many times, Zachary, historical change is generational. Are we in this moment? Do you see these conversations that John is leading so well? Do you see these conversations continuing as we go forward?

Zachary Suri: Yeah. I think that this moment is particularly special, not because it’s going to change everyone’s minds, but I think it’s making people more willing to listen to these issues and to learn about the history. I think that’s going to be really powerful moving forward. For my generation, a generation of younger people growing up today in America, that’s going to be even more important, because we will be learning about these issues in real time.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Seeing this history as your future, not just the past, right? Well, John, thank you so much for sharing your insights, your experience, and most of all, your optimistic, hopeful, and just inspiring perspective on these issues, John. It’s really a privilege to be your friend and to watch you do what you’re doing as a leader in our educational world. Thank you for joining us, John.

John McWilliams: Well, thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure and I look forward to staying in touch in the years to come and continuing to listen to your podcast. Thank you.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: Thank you. Zachary, thank you for your realistic, inspiring, and a hopeful poem, and for all that you and your generation are doing. The only change I’d make to Sarah’s t-shirt that John described is it’s not just the teachers that are going to help fix this, it’s the young people who are going to help fix this.

John McWilliams: Absolutely, I agree.

Dr. Jeremi Suri: We’re so fortunate to have in all of our communities so many dedicated educators like John and so many open-minded, idealistic young people like Zachary. Thank you to our listeners, who I think embody this as well. Thank you for joining us for this episode of This is Democracy.

Announcer 1: This podcast is produced by the liberal arts Development Studio and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin.

Announcer 2: The music in this episode was written and recorded by Harrison Lemke and you can find his music at harrisonlemke.com.

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