BWAP 2025: Two Classrooms ~ Shaniya Auxier

The fourth day of our pilgrimage took us to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. Compared to where we had been in Selma and the different levels of funding different sites had, this place was pretty well taken care of. We walked through different settings and times, seeing plaques of information accompanying exhibits, educational videos, and real photographs. After walking through a diner and a music hall, I found myself face-to-face with two side-by-side early elementary classrooms. The label under one classroom read, “White Classroom, c. 1953,” and the other, “Black Classroom, c. 1953”.

The differences between them were stark. The white classroom had bright lights reflecting off of lightly painted walls, casting light everywhere so two young students could learn how to read. The Black classroom had one lightbulb dangling from the ceiling for four students, all sitting in a dark-painted room; even I had to squint to see properly. Where the white students had full-sized children’s desks – the ones where kids can store all of their school supplies – Black students had miniature versions of college desks–half of a desk with nowhere to store their belongings. As the white students learned with the help of a film projector and the cursive ABCs hung up in their room, the Black students had one analog clock and a peeling, brown globe.

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I stood before the exhibit for a while, frozen from shock at just how contrasting the depictions were, and also because I know people who would have been raised in classrooms just like these. 1953 would have been early childhood for two of my grandmothers – one of whom is white, and the other of whom is Black. They would have each spent almost, if not all, of their K-12 education in segregated schools. The time of segregated schools seems so long ago, but as I stood in front of these two classrooms where my own grandparents might have sat, it felt closer than ever; so close it almost felt threatening.

Positioned next to the classrooms was an interactive digital display that allowed visitors to learn about the additional barriers Black folks faced when seeking higher education. There, you could learn about women like Vivian Malone Jones, the first Black graduate from the University of Alabama. In a time when the state of Alabama would literally pay Black students to leave the state for their education, Jones chose to stay in Alabama. On her first day as a college student, the governor of Alabama, George Wallace, tried to physically prevent her from entering a campus building by standing in the doorway. Vivian graduated from the University of Alabama in 1965 despite verbal abuse, discrimination, and even threats to her life; she went on to work in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

There in the Civil Rights Institute, I thought about the saying, “I am my ancestors’ wildest dreams.” Many BIPOC folks proudly display this phrase on t-shirts, jewelry, and art as a way of grounding themselves and uplifting their communities rooted in strife. But standing in front of the juxtaposed classrooms, that phrase just didn’t cut it for me.

My ancestors were enslaved. I have no idea what they thought or what they dreamt, as their every second is so unimaginable that it feels in poor taste to pretend like I could try. But what I do know is that the institution of education is something they had no access to. Did they know what University was? Could they have dreamed of their descendant, Vivian Jones, earning a university degree while desegregating the entire institution? Could they have dreamed of their descendant, me, pursuing a doctorate–the highest degree a university can offer? Saying, “I am my ancestors’ wildest dreams” just doesn’t do justice to how long – how close to today – we have struggled and fought.

Today, when I am in the classroom, I do not face bomb threats. The governor does not block the doors to prevent me from physically accessing an education. No one spits on me. Even as I am still, so often, the only Black person in my classes, I cannot take this position for granted. I get the opportunity to learn and gain credentials; experiences that past generations did not get. Instead of being stopped at doors, my gripe is being stopped at the minds of peers who share ignorant and harmful thoughts in class or professors who find me a little (or a lot) out of place. I still get to sit there and learn.

Standing in front of those two classrooms, it washed over me all at once. We have come so far and yet segregation history is no older than my own grandparents. Even right now, Executive Orders are working to undo access to this American history. I turn back to my community’s phrase for grounding.

Some of my ancestors might not have been able to dream of me at all because who I am was not just inaccessible to them; it was inconceivable for them. Might it be more fitting to say, “I am my grandmother’s wildest dream”?

Shaniya Auxier (she/her) is a first-year PhD student in the counseling psychology department.

Photo: The two classrooms exhibit at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.