
Essie Jones
For three decades, Essie Jones taught in Montgomery’s schools. In a 2020 interview, she recalled, “Segregated Black schools may have been crumbling, but they were environments that fostered love, protection and pride for African American students. At Black schools, teachers gave you what you needed. They were your doctor, they were your pastor, they were your mother, they were all of that.” After teaching in a desegregated school, she discovered the isolation and harassment both African American teachers and students endured. “It was miserable. They didn’t want you there and the children wouldn’t cooperate.” To make matters worse, white parents came to the school to sit in Black teachers’ classrooms as skeptical and, at times, hostile observers. Two of her second-grade students, a Black boy and girl, were bussed in and bullied repeatedly. She witnessed white children exclude them, refusing to hold their hands during group activities.
Jones concluded they were better off in their own communities. “I felt like our children were getting better results from us because we cared.”