Last summer, when Davis Police found a noose hanging from the goalpost of the Davis High School Stadium, many in the community looked to Dr. Jann Murray-Garcia, a pediatrician by training who has become, for the better part of the decade, one of the consciences of Davis.
“Though we don’t know the motivation of whomever put the noose there, we are responding as one voice against the centuries of pain and terror that this symbol represents and still produces today in so many of our neighbors,” Dr. Murray-Garcia would write in her biweekly column in the Davis Enterprise that she co-writes with Jonathan London.
In the middle of summer, she was able to bring together a large number of stakeholders – leaders in the community along with residents and the youth. She told the group we have learned as a community that if we try to ignore these incidents, they do not go away; rather, things escalate.
For Jann Murray-Garcia, community activism is just who she is. Her grandfather was the head of a local NAACP in Charleston in the 1930s and 1940s. Other families members were active as well. Her mentors have also had experience in community activism.
“Both my family and my mentors have primed me to be someone who tries to make positive change,” she told the Vanguard.
Her professional interests have been in education and school, in particular the impact of unequal education on the health of all children. This inequality she believes when it becomes normalized, begins to impact the racial identities of all children.
“When those things became very clear that there were active issues going on in the schools where we had children,” she added, “it was natural for me to be involved.”
Jann Murray-Garcia takes most pride in kids she worked with who are doing well – “kids who probably were going to do well anyway but I feel like I had a little part in (their success).
Part and parcel to that work has been the institutionalization of the Youth in Focus program which started at the high school as an extracurricular activity and now continues as a course offering, that is a requirement for graduation. There is also the course offering of US History through the lenses of different people.
“Kevin Williams, Verne O’Brien and Chris Lee are teaching that,” she said. “It’s wonderful what started out as a grant driven experimental program now sits there for hundreds of kids to experience.”
The first year the course was taught, she sat in on the class and acted as a second set of eyes as the class was developed for the first time. At this point, her involvement had dwindled with her taking place only in a few lectures on research methods during the course of the school year.
“It is now independently run,” she said. They were told initially they needed 29 students in order for the class to be funded with a teacher – and 108 students showed up. “So that first year Kevin (Williams) taught three different sections of the class. Six years later there are eight sections and three teachers.”
“The students value the challenge of learning about American History lenses of both white and non-white ethnic groups,” Ms. Murray-Garcia said. “Clearly a lens of examining what has often been buried in the discussion of race relations throughout United States’ history.”
“That is definitely my most rewarding achievement,” she added.
In addition to the idea of exploring US history moving away from the lenses of European History and the dominant culture, there is the much needed dialogue in this community.
“The dialogue and the student’s classmates become the curriculum as they share how they experience race in Davis, race at Davis High School, race in the United States,” Ms. Murray-Garcia explained. “Some of them have never been able to be open about that and to share that with their peers.”
She said even though many of these students end up living and growing up next to each other, they end up experiencing the same events differently.
“A real skill is that they get to engage in dialogue cross-culturally,” Ms. Murray-Garcia said.
It is the hope of many that this kind of educational program will help bring students together across issues and differences that may otherwise divide them.
Unfortunately, as we found out last year, hate crimes are alive and well in Davis. For many the noose was painful reminder that hate and ignorance still exists even in a community like Davis.
She believes education and active discussion to explain why hate crimes can be hurtful.
“A noose is a symbol of terror,” she told a local media source. “You can’t let these incidents go unresponded.”
As Mayor Joe Krovoza stated during the meeting in June 2012, “Davis will not be defined by this event, but by our community’s response to it.”
In the meantime, Jann Murray-Garcia has returned to the university as an Assistant Professor in the school of Nursing, “so that I could have kind of a platform to write more on and a platform where I thought that my writing could resonate.”
“I teach a course on community to masters level nurses, and I’m able to introduce a lot of social justice issues,” she said.
On Saturday, November 9, Jann Murray-Garcia will receive the Vanguard’s Award honoring the Activist of the Year for her great work in Social Justice and racial equity in Davis and the surrounding community.
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—David M. Greenwald reporting
congrats jann! well deserved.
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