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The latest news and information from Cleo Scott Brown and History Matters Institute, a division of the Scott Brown Group, LLC.
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Race Relations, Class, and Voting Rights


Operating Under the Influence
 
Over the years, I have discovered certain truths about people and leadership. One of the most valuable lessons I learned was from an eighth grade experience when the schools in my hometown were being integrated for the first time. My father, the activist, was one of a few parents to sign his children up to transfer to the “white” school. He felt that access to a school with different choices in courses, a huge library, science laboratories, an auditorium, and up-to-date text books would result in a higher quality education. After all, the state allocated funding by student and since the majority of the town was African American but the majority of the funding was going to the white school, he deduced that his children should be where his children’s money was being spent.

The all African-American school in my hometown
The school in my town for the much smaller number of non-African Americans
 
We were not welcome at our new school. The school offered many opportunities but it lacked the things most necessary for learning—acceptance and high expectations. The Jim Crow legal system under which we lived had trained both adults and children to believe we were inferior to white people academically and morally. There were many fights and much racial verbal abuse by our new teachers and classmates, yet in the midst of the tension, I had a place of safety. In my homeroom, things felt different. Our new white teacher treated her few new African American students with respect. She did not appear to differentiate between her students nor talk down to us. My new classmates took their cue from the adult in the room and followed her lead. 

Unfortunately, my teacher was pregnant and at the end of the first semester, she went on extended maternity leave. A new teacher took her place who obviously did not want us there and who did not accept our equality and she treated us accordingly. I watched the same children, who had once been more accepting of their new African American classmates, take on different personalities. They began to mirror their new teacher’s behavior and attitude and my classroom was no longer was a place of safety.

This experience served as my first powerful lesson on how much people are influenced by the person in charge.  The same people can behave so differently when their leaders change. Throughout history, we have seen this illustrated.
 
We saw President Roosevelt convince a country they could recover from a Depression. We saw President Johnson, a southerner and a Texan who took office after the assassination of President Kennedy, change how the south and southern Congressmen would deal with the legal inhumane treatment of African Americans.  We have read in history how an advisor to Hitler applied theories he had learned from an American eugenicist and how he convinced others of the need to exterminate Germany’s '“undesirables”. These "undesirables"  deemed as unworthy of being alive had only a few years before lived peaceably with neighbors who now murdered them.
 
Integrated classroom at Anacostia High School, Washington, D.C., 1957. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

We have witnessed a peaceful crowd transform into a lynch mob based on the emotion-driven words of a leader or a newscasters or a writer for the Associated Press transform public opinion for a whole country.   We have seen a new CEO change a corporation from a place where people love to work to a place where people hate coming to work.  One adult in a home can make everyone in the home feel happy, organized, miserable or frantic.

A leader sets the tone. When I worked for a school district, some schools I visited immediately felt cheerful and welcoming and a few seemed to say “you are not welcome here” and you would understand the difference when you met the leader.  Even on the playgrounds, children of all races from some classes played together while with other classes, black and white children did not appear to mingle. Children take their cues from the adults around them. 
 


















We are constantly influencing others or being influenced.  As leaders in our homes, workplaces, organizations, and government, we set the tone for everyone under our influence—how others are treated, perceived, promoted or rejected, even how children learn to love or hate learning.   When we make policy decisions and control dollars, what we think and do often overrides who people actually are. 

Often we are too busy with life to stop to consider the long-term impact of the people who influence us most at work or within our social circles. Are your leaders, friends, or even your media preferences taking you to higher heights or to places you should not go? Leaders, who or what are you holding back through your leadership? Followers, where are you being taken?

We are all under the influence of something or someone, so we must choose wisely who or what that will be. As divisions in the country continue to increase, we can become the positive influence that people around us so desperately need.

History teaches us that our daily choices really do matter.
I'm glad history matters to you!

Speaker, Author, Race Relations Strategist
History Matters Institute, A Division of the Scott Brown Group, LLC
www.cleoscottbrown.com
 
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…was it because the politicians had made the rules by which everyone played, that the players could no longer be held accountable?  Was no one accountable for the situation we were in?

Witness to the Truth, pg. 248, University of SC Press

Voting Rights Updates

The Justice Department recently filed a motion to address Texas’ failure to comply with a previous court order. The order required Texas to educate Texans about changes in who can vote without a state issued ID.  The Justice Department contends that Texas press releases, voter education materials, and poll worker training manuals are misleading and claim that the right to vote extends only to voters who comply with a law already declared illegal.  

Remain aware of the changes in your state impacting your right to vote!  

Click HERE for an interactive map showing voting restrictions
implemented by state


History Matters Institute was started two years ago to continue and expand the work that Cleo Scott Brown started many years ago.  Our mission is use history to generate insightful, meaningful discussions about race relations, voting, and class that lead to understanding, introspection and change.  While we have offered classroom lectures and inspirational speeches for some time, we believe that our workshop, “Think About What You Just Thought”, is our most thought-provoking and meaningful offering across age groups.

POWERFUL WORKSHOP Available!

 
Addressing Race & Class Consciously:
Think About What You Just Thought
A 90 minute to two hour interactive workshop designed to help participants recognize and understand how their personal values are applied in determining the value of others and how these valuations impact staff and client interactions, program direction, productivity and the overall success of an organization—all without the discomfort associated with many diversity trainings.  Great workshop for companies and educators. Workshop works best with groups of 75 or less.   

 

Workshop Participant Comments

I really liked this session.  It really opened my eyes.
Profound
Very enlightening!
This session was awesome and brought some amazing things into light. Very telling and valuable exercise.
Interactive session was very engaging.  
Discussion of everyone’s opinion was very informative.  

 
Click here for more info
“I have learned more in that book than in any history I have every read.”

Young Adult Reader


Read First Chapter HERE
Purchase your copy here.
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If you are interested in reprinting this month’s or a previous month’s essay in your publication, please email us at cleo@cleoscottbrown.com. We’d love to share with others. When passing it on, please forward it in its entirety, including the contact and copyright info. Thank you for spreading that HISTORY MATTERS!
 

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Make sure to connect with me for more news, interesting facts, and posted research materials.
 

About Cleo
Cleo Scott Brown, author of Witness to the Truth, speaks nationally on race relations, black history, and voting rights, helping audiences connect the past with the present. She has also lived her subject, and like her father, who is the central figure in her book, she believes that her experiences have been for a greater purpose. Learn more about Cleo here.
Copyright © 2016 Cleo Scott Brown, All rights reserved.


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