Meade High School students were in awe after hearing a history lesson spanning African descendants, landmark Supreme Court decisions and the life of one extraordinary family.
George Haley, the brother of late author Alex Haley, spoke Wednesday as part of the Black History Month events at the Fort Meade school in Anne Arundel. Haley wrote “Roots: The Saga of an American Family,” a story based on their family?s African roots.
“I thought meeting him was important to me,” said senior Tauren Robinson, 17. “His family alone is the link to my past. Looking at him I know where I come from.”
“Honestly, I didn?t know much about him, but he?s famous and the things he did were very important,” said freshman Morgan Barnhart, 14.
“They teach you about black history in school, but they don?t go into this much detail. It was nice to hear.”
In his remarks to students, many of whom were in leadership classes or mentoring younger students, Haley spoke of Kunta Kinte, his ancestor from Gambia who was kidnapped in the late 1700s and shipped to Maryland to be sold into slavery.
Haley has held numerous positions in his life, including in a law practice, and has served in various government posts under several presidents. In the 1990s, President Clinton named him as a U.S. ambassador to Gambia.
Haley gave students a history lesson on three U.S. Supreme Court cases:
» The Dred Scott Decision in 1856, which ruled that blacks couldn?t be counted as citizens;
» Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, which ruled in favor of “separate but equal” facilities for blacks;
» Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka in 1954, which overturned the Plessy decision.
“It?s simply incredible to think we moved along these lines,” Haley said.
“We should use our abilities or whatever else we have to make our country what it ought to be.”
