And Still We Rise: The Trials and Triumphs of Twelve Gifted Inner-City High School Students

Braxton is crushed when Toya tells him she cannot afford the childcare program he found. She is attending a program in Watts for teenage mothers, but he feels it’s not intellectual enough for her.

He becomes involved in helping Sabreen, a student whose mother beat her savagely for having lost a shirt while doing the family laundry. Sabreen left her mother’s house at age 13 and lived with her father, who told her that her mother had wanted to get an abortion and resented her child. Her mother said simply, “Now there’s one less child to support” (109). She left her father’s house after an argument and stayed in 13 different residences. At her custody hearing, neither of her parents showed up, and she became a ward of the county. She always regarded school as a refuge, and after attending four different high schools in two years, she was let into Crenshaw.

Though she is working 40 hours a week as a saleswoman, Sabreen is ranked ninth in her class of 356. However, in September she went AWOL from living with a friend’s godmother because the woman did not like her returning so late from work. She moved in with a friend 25 miles from Crenshaw. She sleeps little and is often late and missing work: “‘I feel like I went from a child to an adult, with nothing in between,’” she tells Braxton (111). The stress of having to work, take difficult classes, commute, and face an unstable living situation gave her stomach pains last year that caused her to be hospitalized.

One day, Sabreen is summoned to Braxton’s office. She feels that he is the only person in whom she can confide. She prays that there are no police officers, and she is relieved to find only her social worker present. The social worker says that her supervisor wants to take Sabreen out of school and have her locked up in a county facility. The social worker relents and says Sabreen can stay in school if she returns to county foster care right away.

Sabreen is sent to a foster care home that also functions as a daycare. The furniture and carpet are dirty, and the bathroom is so dirty it makes her cry. Braxton talks her out of running away. She returns from school and scrubs the bathroom while making plans to become emancipated and live on her own.

The seniors will be taking the SAT the next Saturday, but like most of the students at Crenshaw, Sabreen will take it without any preparation. However, wealthier students have the resources to take classes, but the parents of students at Crenshaw do not know these options exist for their children and could not have afforded them. There is a testing company called Advantage that costs multiple hundreds of dollars for SAT tutoring and provides specialized help that acquaints students with the content of the test and strategies to help them (114-15). However, the students at Crenshaw work so many hours that they would have no time for this type of preparation.

SAT scores are truly a measure of a student’s socioeconomic background. For reasons no one understands, black scores on standardized tests are lower than those of whites, Asians, and Latinos, though the gap has narrowed. Some social scientists blame the tests for being racially biased, while others point to the black culture of poverty. As Corwin points out, the experience of blacks in America has been marked by slavery, segregation, and exclusion. A study showed that black students with SAT scores in the lowest categories tend to graduate at greater rates from more selective colleges, as these schools have the resources to help them (116-17).

Some of the students at Crenshaw have done well on the SAT, considering they have never prepped for it. Venola scored 100 points higher after her neighbor paid for only three 90-minute prep sessions for her.

Little is in a foul mood during a class in which the students read their parts from The Crucible. A girl from the drill class comes to her with a note from the coach, and Little berates a conscientious student named Curt. The students recite their lines over Little’s screed.

Later that week, Miesha calls from downstairs and says that she is in the administration office. When Little yells at her over the phone, Miesha responds that it’s okay for her to be downstairs because the class is watching the movie version of Inherit the Wind. Little loses her patience and later yells at Miesha, saying that nothing in the class is a waste of time. Later, Danielle, the top-ranked senior, comes over to Little and asks if everything is okay. Little waves her away and says it is. Little relaxes after school while tutoring students. Danielle again stops by to say she is worried about Little and attempts to reassure her.

The following week, Californians approve Proposition 209, an anti-affirmative action measure. This means that California public universities and state colleges will no longer take race into account in admissions, but it will go into effect the following year. This year’s seniors will be admitted under the old laws (122).

Most colleges and universities base their affirmative action programs on a 1978 Supreme Court case involving Allan Bakke, a white engineer who was rejected from the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) medical school, likely because he was already in his 30s (123). He knew that 16 out of 100 spots were reserved for candidates of color (123). The state court and California Supreme Court ruled that the admissions policy was unconstitutional, and when the university appealed to the Supreme Court, that court struck down the school’s admissions policy but said that race could be considered a “plus factor” (124) in admissions. Universities could not have “set aside” policies but could give minorities an edge in admissions (123).

A study conducted by UC Davis showed that students admitted under affirmative action programs to medical school were just as competent as other doctors. Many of these students had struggled in their introductory science programs but had caught up in their later classes and had similar experiences to other students in their residency programs (124).

However, in the years after Bakke, many people in California believed that unqualified black and Latino students were being admitted to universities in the state. Particularly contentious were the admissions programs at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), which are very competitive. Many opponents of affirmative action, such as Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom, contend that minority students who are admitted to affirmative action programs with lower scores will be stigmatized. However, a book called The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions by William G. Bowen, formerly the president of Princeton, and Derek Bok, former president of Harvard, found that among students at 28 elite universities, black students had a graduation rate of 75%. This was higher than the rate among all Division I schools of 59%. In addition, black students earned advanced degrees at the same rate as other students and were more likely than white students to be involved in civic affairs. If race had been eliminated from admissions, however, more than half of these applicants would have been rejected (125-26).

Proposition 209 was originally drafted by two obscure California academics, and the measure earned the support of Governor Pete Wilson as he was preparing to run for President in 1996. He had been an earlier supporter of affirmative action and seemed to have changed his mind for political gain. He joined with Ward Connerly, a conservative black businessman. In 1995, they persuaded the Board of Regents, many of whom Wilson had appointed, to disallow the use of race or gender in admissions. However, Wilson, Connerly, and many of the regents had been working to gain admission for friends and family members—a practice that critics denounced as affirmative action for the rich. The applicants these people promoted gained admission over others with better grades and test scores. While Wilson’s presidential campaign faltered, Proposition 209 passed (127-30).

Many whites gain admission to colleges and universities through preferences for the children of alumni, called legacies. These programs are far more widespread and admit more students than do affirmative action programs. At many elite schools, such as Harvard and Stanford, legacies are admitted at much higher rates than other students—which is supposed to help with fundraising efforts. Writers have opined, however, that the reasons for affirmative action programs are far more compelling than those for legacies (131-33).

Cassandra Roy, the college counselor at Crenshaw, stops by Little’s class to remind the students about college application deadlines and to let them know that preferential treatment for blacks and Latinos is over because Proposition 209 has been passed.

Teachers speak about Proposition 209 with Braxton in his office. He is a conservative on many issues but still believes that affirmative action is necessary to level the playing field for his students. He asks one of the teachers to help Toya because her aunt, her legal guardian, lives in one district while the program for teen mothers is in another. However, this teacher says Toya has to fend for herself now.

Sabreen hates her foster home and wants the judge to emancipate her so she can marry her boyfriend and get a GED. Braxton tells her to come by the school to speak with her guidance counselor, and she shows up in the afternoon. Charles Oshiro, her counselor, asks her plans, and he tells her she is bright enough to be anything she wants to be. She plans to go to medical school. Oshiro wants her to stay in school, and he says he’ll speak to another counselor who knows more about emancipation.

Sabreen decides to drop out of Crenshaw that day and to convince a judge to emancipate her from county supervision. She still wrote her essay on The Crucible. Sabreen says goodbye to Little, who cries and praises Sabreen in a note to her next English teacher, if Sabreen continues in school.

Sabreen appears at the court for her hearing, trying to look older and sophisticated. She wishes that she could have a normal life of solely going to school and coming home. Her father does not show up, but her mother shows up with a friend and tries to give Sabreen a book called The Gift of Forgiveness, which Sabreen does not accept.

After the hearing, Sabreen will be emancipated in March, on her 18th birthday. The judge offers Sabreen two toys from a pile on her desk, and Sabreen picks a doll and stuffed bear. Sabreen wants to move into her own place with her boyfriend and get married. In order to do this, Sabreen plans to name her cousin as her legal guardian and lie to her social worker that she is living with her cousin. Sabreen walks away holding her teddy bear, “the last vestiges of an evanescent childhood” (142).

Little reprimands the class for making grammatical errors in their essays on The Crucible. Olivia is worried about her grade; when she was working on her essay, the braces she had received for free from the UCLA dental clinic had been hurting her, and she wasn’t able to concentrate amid the fighting in her group home. She laughs when she receives her grade—the highest in the class. She tells Corwin about her “A+/A” grade, as she has no other adult to share it with.

Sadi asks for Braxton’s help because Sadi was thrown out of auto mechanics class for fighting with his teacher to get his CD player back. Braxton convinces the teacher, Daniel Vidaure, to let Sadi back into his class. Sadi tells Braxton about his trip to black colleges in the South. He wants to attend Clark, a college in Atlanta. Braxton tells him to be serious about his work if he wants to earn a scholarship.

On a Friday afternoon in mid-November, Crenshaw, a Crip school, plays its rival, Dorsey, a Blood school. Five years ago, there was a gang shootout at the game that wounded two people. Two years ago, there was again gunfire, but no one was wounded. This year, 20 officers patrol the grounds. There is no violence. Miesha is part of the cheerleading team. She plans to invite Raymond when her routines are perfect.

Little reads A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. This is her favorite book, and she thinks the students should identify with Stephen Dedalus, the protagonist, and his sense of alienation. She asks the students what has shaped their own identity.

The next morning, Little finds gang-related graffiti on her door that Sadi decodes for her. In discussing A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the students discuss racial identity and use “‘I’m dope as crack’” (150) as a metaphor. Little tells the class to write an autobiography with episodes from their childhoods, and Sadi recalls with sadness the day his father left the family.

Little asks the students to dig into their childhoods to figure out what made them the people they are today. Little recalls that Sadi changed in 10th grade when he read The Great Gatsby: “‘It was like Fitzgerald inhabited your soul’” (152), she says.

Latisha stops by Little’s classroom after school to tell her how much Joyce’s book has affected her. She relates to Stephen’s “messed-up” (153) family. Much of Stephen’s images captured her own experiences, including “his childhood was dead or lost” (153). Latisha cries and says she may not have the strength to capture what happened in her childhood.

Latisha grew up in Huntsville, Alabama in a housing project with her mother, brother, and mother’s boyfriend. She was accepted into a gifted program. Reading Joyce had reminded her of painful episodes from her past in which she was sexually abused by her mother’s boyfriend. When her mother split up with her boyfriend, the abuse ended, but her mother began using crack when Latisha was in middle school. She also began to abuse Latisha, and her relatives decided she’d be better off with her father in Los Angeles. She lived with an aunt who put her to work, and then she moved in with her father, who enrolled her at Crenshaw. Braxton found out about her test scores and transferred her to the gifted program. She began to drink to drown out memories of her sexual abuse. She finally told an aunt in Alabama about the abuse, and she stopped drinking. Writing her autobiography proves cathartic for her. It’s been difficult for her to write about, and Latisha uses a stream-of-consciousness style to get her experiences down on paper.

She is determined not to become a teenage mother—like her mother and many of her relatives—and to graduate and study journalism. In addition to working, she is the managing editor of the school newspaper and on the cheerleading squad. She doesn’t often see her father, who works a graveyard shift. She is ecstatic about being named homecoming queen. She speaks more in class since reading Joyce, and she often expresses herself in a style the other students refer to as “ghetto” (158) She relates to Stephen in Joyce’s book because she has “big dreams” (158).

Little meets with Braxton and the school principal about her personal differences with other teachers. She bad-mouths teachers who are “‘teaching African folk tales, when they’re supposed to be teaching contemporary American literature’” (159), clearly referring to Moultrie. Some of her students tell her to relax.

Braxton comes to class to speak to a student, and he notices another student, Kevin, wearing a do-rag, which is against the school dress code. He asks Kevin to take it off, and when Kevin refuses, he brings him to Noble. Noble also asks Kevin to take off the do-rag, and when he again refuses, he is suspended for the day. Braxton, now angry about Kevin, returns to Little’s class, but she is too angry about Moultrie to speak with him rationally and he leaves.

Moultrie does not understand why Little is so angry at her for teaching Othello in her American literature class. Braxton regards Little as the typical gifted child, who is bright but difficult to deal with.

Little and Moultrie attend the meeting in the principal’s office. Moultrie passes around a sheet with complaints about Little, who Moultrie says is speaking badly about her in front of other students. Moultrie walks out of the meeting, and the principal tells Little she has to learn to get along with colleagues. Little regards the affair as “‘black-on-white harassment’” (164).

Braxton tells Little’s students to keep up their grades during senior year, but Olivia misses class because she was in jail. Olivia was part of a check-cashing scam in which the ringleader approached Crenshaw students as his accomplices. Olivia appears unconcerned about the arrest. Her life has caused her to develop a ruthless attitude.