How do you help Macon’s at-risk youth? Teach them history, Pleasant Hill native says
In a quiet corner of the genealogy archives at Washington Memorial Library, Dr. Thomas Duval flipped through the pages of a thick book about Macon’s black history.
As light spilled through the windows behind him on a sunny Monday in April, Duval pointed to a faded photograph of his father and uncle as children, growing up in Pleasant Hill. Then his mouth spread into a grin as he shared stories of his family’s deep roots in the historic neighborhood northwest of downtown.
Macon’s black history is at the core of Duval’s identity. His great-grandparents moved to Pleasant Hill during the Great Migration, and their descendants lived through decades of prosperity in the community, before the interstate cut the neighborhood in two in the 1960s.
Duval’s family taught him to take pride in those who came before who made it possible for a boy from Pleasant Hill to go to college, earn a master’s degree and doctor of dental surgery degree, and spend his career providing dental care to some of Georgia’s most vulnerable populations.
Now retired, Duval hopes to inspire a new generation of Macon youth to appreciate their heritage. He thinks it might be the best way to steer struggling Macon youth in the right direction.
“In my old age, what I’ve finally realized is that the solution is going to be found in our history and culture,” Duval said.
He knows history alone can’t eliminate teen violence, low standardized test scores or bad behavior in school. But it can serve as a catalyst, he said.
“The kids don’t have an idea of who they are,” Duval said. “They need to have an identity. They need to have mental mentors that they can identify with.”
Duval wants to be that mentor. That’s why he’s created a multimedia curriculum to teach local children and teens about Macon’s black history.
‘The next generation has to learn’
After Duval retired in 2007, he started spending his free time in the library, researching his hometown’s black history. Duval’s grandmother had instilled in him a love of learning from a young age, he said, and the retired dentist was excited to learn more about Macon’s past.
As Duval pored over books, archives, articles and old photos, he discovered dozens of historical figures born in Macon, like John Oliver Killens, founder of the Harlem Writers Guild, and William Sanders Scarborough, a former slave who many academics consider the first black classical scholar.
Duval wondered why more local residents didn’t seem to know about the city’s rich history. He didn’t remember reading about any prominent black figures from Macon in the tattered textbooks he read as a student at L.H. Williams Elementary School.
“Those hand-me-down books that we got, they didn’t represent my community. They didn’t look anything like my community,” he said.
But when Duval was a kid, he said, the elders in the neighborhood filled some of the gaps in knowledge.
“We had teachers and old folks that were the buffers to shape what we learned,” he said.
Now, Duval feels like that sense of collective memory has largely disappeared. And he thinks that loss has affected the younger generations.
Duval worries about the academic outcomes of black students. More than a third received Beginning Learners scores on the Georgia Milestones Assessment System during the 2017-2018 school year, which means they weren’t on track to pass onto the next grade level.
Black students, especially boys, are also disproportionately disciplined in school, a 2018 report by the United States Government Accountability Office revealed. Though they account for only 15% of public school students nationwide, black youth make up nearly 40% of student suspensions, according to the report.
Researchers have grappled with these disparities for decades. Duval hypothesizes some children’s struggles in school stem from a lack of understanding of the significance of their education.
“The next generation has to learn that they have an ancestral obligation to learn, based upon the hardships their ancestors went through to provide them an opportunity for a free public school education,” he said.
An innovative way to teach history
Duval has a plan to inspire a love of history in Macon’s most vulnerable youth. He doesn’t want to bore them with textbooks and encyclopedias. Instead, Duval has created educational resources that are both information and fun. He calls it “edutainment.”
Now 72, Duval has taught himself digital animation and video editing, so he can make videos about historic black residents. Duval has also created comic books and coloring books filled with about black educators, business owners, soldiers and activists. He regularly posts snippets of history on the “African American History Macon Middle Georgia” Facebook page, which he started in 2015.
Recently, Duval met with a group of students at Street to Success, an enrichment program in south Macon. Duval has partnered with the organization’s executive director, Ray Rover, for years, filling the walls of the computer lab where students do homework every Tuesday and Wednesday with portraits of Macon’s prominent black residents.
As several dozen boys munched on slices of pizza, Duval and Rover asked them questions about their families, their community and their sense of history. They wanted to know what struggles the kids faced, hoping to find a way to help. At first, Rover said, the boys were hesitant to participate. They didn’t want to dig deep into their emotions, he said. But with time, they started to open up.
Rover owes his students’ success largely to mentors like Duval, who teach them to take pride in where they came from.
“I think Dr. Duval’s impact and passion is yet to be fully appreciated,” Rover said. “If we continue down the path that Dr. Duval has laid out for us, in teaching history, we’ll eventually see life-changing things happen for these kids.”
The next step, Duval said, is to find more educators and organizations to help him carry the load.
“What I want to stop being is a one-man band,” Duval said with a laugh. He knows he can’t execute this mission alone.
“It’s going to take a movement,” Duval said.
Samantha Max is a Report for America corps member and reports for The Telegraph with support from the News/CoLab at Arizona State University. Follow her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/smax1996 and on Twitter @samanthaellimax. You can also join her Facebook group. Learn more about Report for America at www.reportforamerica.org.
