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

Olivia is running late on the date of her next court appointment, and her foster mother, Fairconnetue, is angry. When Corwin drives Olivia to court, her foster mother tells her she looks like a “prostitute” (246) because her skirt is too short. Olivia’s lawyer, Weiss, who is always harried, grabs Olivia’s transcripts and heads into the courtroom. He returns and tells Olivia that she can avoid being locked up in a camp if she agrees to a camp stay and then has probation. Otherwise, she will go to trial. However, Fairconnetue has to agree to keep Olivia. She does, as long as Olivia doesn’t get in trouble again. Weiss warns her that if she gets in trouble again, her probation will be revoked, but he tells her she can go to college.

Fairconnetue resents Olivia because she acquired a key to the house and comes and goes as she pleases. She hopes Olivia can go to college. Weiss says that Olivia and her foster mother will have to come back next week, as the judge needs time to look at Olivia’s file.

The students in Little’s class receive their first-semester grades. Only six receive “A’s,” including Olivia, Curt, Miesha, and Danielle. Most of the gifted students receive “B’s.” Little reads aloud from a newspaper article about a student named Naila Mosely, an all-American basketball player who has earned a full scholarship to Stanford.

Naila has always been a natural athlete. Her father, Isaac, enrolled her in a private Christian school. He is a clerical worker at an elementary school in South-Central, and his wife, Margie, is a sales representative for a telephone company. They wanted her to have the education they never had. Naila then transferred to the public school system and grew up in Oakwood, a “mini-ghetto surrounded by affluence” (250). Though she is not in the gifted program, she is in the teacher-training magnet program and is a motivated student who takes AP classes.

Little begins a class about trust, and several of the students say they trust her. Little seems buoyant and ready to put her emotional outbursts behind her. However, one day Little sends a student to pick up a pizza she has ordered, and parent monitors in the hallway stop the student for wearing a short skirt. The parent monitors denounce Little. Little is now energized and wants to file a racial discrimination suit with the Board of Education. She instructs her students to write about her and whether she lets race interfere with her teaching. She rails against students who are late and plans to file a teacher transfer form that night.

Olivia shows up to her hearing with a Bible—she borrowed it from Little to impress the judge but is now absorbed in reading it—and her acceptance letter from California State University, San Diego. Fairconnetue decides she won’t keep Olivia, possibly because she won’t get more money if Olivia is on probation, but Weiss thinks Olivia can move to another foster home. Olivia tells him that her classmate’s parents who took her in before will take her in again.

Olivia looks deflated as she leaves the courtroom.. She is on crutches, the result of slipping in the florist shop where she now works. The judge was impressed by the letters from her teachers and Olivia’s college potential, but her foster mother “‘crucified Olivia’” (260). The foster mother told the judge that Olivia has a fake ID and is collecting aid from the county. The judge ordered Olivia locked up that afternoon (Olivia had planned to flee to Las Vegas if she were convicted). Over lunch, Weiss tells Corwin he has never represented a kid as bright as Olivia and that if Olivia had parents, she would have received probation, not jail time.

The judge sentences Olivia to the Dorothy Kirby Center, which is for nonviolent offenders and offers therapeutic help. Olivia can finish high school, and the judge will review her case in August and decide if she can go to college. If Olivia isn’t cooperative, she will remain in the center. 

Braxton is crushed when he hears the news about Olivia, as he had put in four years trying to help her. When Little hears about Olivia, she says that the system ignored Olivia when she needed help and is now giving her attention she doesn’t need. She tears up thinking about Olivia.

Toya tried to get into a program that trains teenage mothers to become registered nurses and provides them with childcare, but her aunt refused to sign the necessary papers. Toya discovered that her cousin had left the apartment after taking everything, and Toya was close to being on the street with her son. She went to the mother of a classmate, a woman named Alta Ray whose daughter Kemit goes to Crenshaw, for help. Alta took her in, though her family lives in a two-bedroom bungalow with her husband and four children. Alta helped Toya apply to programs that provide childcare and allow students to attend any school in the county, so Toya is returning to Crenshaw.

Toya is ecstatic to return to Crenshaw, though she has to drop Kaelen off at daycare early in the morning, attend regular and night classes to make up her missing semester, and then pick up her son and attempt to do some homework. Toya, whose teachers have always liked her because she loves learning, is thrilled to be back in school, living the life of a 17-year-old.

Little speaks to her class about Dr. Frederick Treves, the surgeon who helped John Merrick—the Elephant Man—and engages her class in a discussion about moral courage. Latisha says she considers Tommie Smith, an Olympic athlete who made a black power fist at the 1968 games, to have been morally courageous. A student says that Tommie Smith is the father of Danielle, a student in the class, and Little invites Tommie Smith to speak to the class.

Tommie Smith shows up in the classroom a week later, and teachers and counselors line the classroom to hear him speak. Sadi first recites a poem he has written that includes a reference to Smith, and Latisha introduces him and speaks about how inspiring Smith is. Smith then delivers an inspirational speech in a staccato tone. He tells the students, “‘A person is only real if he’s true to himself’” (271). He speaks about how academics are more important than athletics, the price he paid to do what he thought was right, and his work in the Olympic Project for Human Rights. He passes around his Olympic medal.

Smith was born in a small Texas town as one of 11 children. His father moved the family to California so they could get a better education than in the segregated South. There, they worked as migrant workers, and the children worked alongside their father. Smith attended a small country school, and he often missed school, putting him behind in academics. However, he was determined and became one of the best 200-meter runners in history. He was motivated to run to avoid working in the fields as an adult, and his father allowed him to race on Saturdays—as long as he won.

Smith won a scholarship to San Jose State and worked hard to be a “C” student. He also played basketball but gave that up and refused to play football to dedicate himself to his studies. By his senior year, he had broken several world records. He was later recruited by a San Jose State professor to organize athletes to potentially boycott the 1968 Olympics to protest racism. He also joined the Olympic Project for Human Rights, which wanted to ban South Africa from the games, hire more black coaches and administrators, and force International Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage, who was considered racist, to resign from his post (276).

The boycott of the 1968 Olympics was canceled, but the athletes decided that if they won, they would make a gesture on the podium. Smith pulled a muscle in the semifinal of the 200-meter race, but he recovered and won the race with a record that stood for 11 years. On the way to the podium, he and teammate John Carlos donned black gloves, stood in stocking feet to symbolize black poverty, and wore beads and a scarf to symbolize black lynching. As the American national anthem played, Carlos and Smith raised their fists and bowed their heads as Smith recited the Lord’s Prayer to himself. Though tame by today’s standards, their protest was widely criticized, and Smith received death threats. He had to drop out of college and finish later, and he struggled to support his wife and son. The Los Angeles Rams, who had drafted him, reneged, and he played on the Cincinnati Bengals taxi squad for three years at a low salary. His wife committed suicide (277-79).

Smith survived because of his education. While Carlos dropped out of school, Smith earned a master’s in sociology, and after the Bengals team cut him, he taught and coached at a high school in the Bay Area. He was hired at Oberlin College to teach sociology and coach track. He later married an Oberlin graduate and had another child—Danielle—and returned to California, where he was hired by Santa Monica College as a track coach, where he still works. He tells his athletes to focus on their education, which saved him during the hard times. He tells them “‘education before athletics’” (281). Even though Danielle is a gifted runner, he did not encourage her in the sport. He and his wife chose Crenshaw so that Danielle could stay connected to the neighborhood, and she is currently ranked first in the class. She receives an academic scholarship to Pitzer and is still waiting to hear from Stanford.

After Little’s success in inviting Smith to speak in her class, she stops Smith in the hallway to speak about how she was called a “fucking white bitch” (284). Braxton believes these two incidents capture Little’s talent as a teacher and her problems as a person.

Little is so upset about the “fucking white bitch” (285) incident that she does little to instruct her students in Hamlet. They begin reading the play, and Corwin has to step in to try to explain it to them. The students are appreciative of his help, and they explain to Little that their parents are too busy working to step in on her behalf in this situation.

She seems better the next day. Danielle spoke to her and tried to help her realize that the students need her. She begins teaching in earnest, and during the next class, she starts a conversation about why Hamlet is reluctant to kill.

The students begin receiving their college acceptance letters in March. Nikia, a cheerleader, is accepted at UC Irvine and San Diego, as well as USC. Curt is accepted at UCLA and is still waiting to hear from Stanford. Danielle is accepted at Pitzer and is still waiting to hear from Stanford as well. Miesha is accepted into UC Santa Barbara and USC and is waiting to hear from her top choice, Berkeley. Venola has just come back from a weekend at Colby in Maine; she will be accepted to study English, but she is waiting on a scholarship to attend.

Princess tells her friends that a lot has been happening with her. She was just two when her parents split up, and she and her mom went to live in her maternal grandparents’ comfortable pink house. Her parents were from rural Louisiana, and her grandfather owned a janitorial business. Her mother, Marie, attended a few semesters of community college but then dropped out. Princess’ grandparents wanted their only grandchild to do better, and these were comfortable years for Princess and her mother.

However, when she was 12, her grandfather died of cancer. He had left the family in bad financial straits, and the family lost their house. Marie had to move to a rundown one-bedroom apartment and work as a nurse’s aide. What followed was a series of evictions, moves to drug-infested places, and struggles to pay the bills. Princess now works as an usher in a movie theater to help pay the bills.

Princess is beautiful, and many teachers think she is “vapid” (296); however, she is a good student who is just worried. She and Marie are now living with friends. For a while, Marie could not afford Princess’ school ring cap and gown, or senior picture. Princess felt like dying, and she was going to drop out of school. Just in time, Marie found full-time work and was able to buy what her daughter wanted. Princess is accepted at UC Riverside and UC Santa Barbara and will be able to receive aid. As Marie says, Princess’ story has “‘a happy ending’” (299).

Little again loses her serenity when she discovers the principal might file a disciplinary action against her for speaking ill of the administration and school before her 10th grade students. A student who is a gang member approaches her after class and tells her he can have something done to the people who are bothering her. She is horrified and says she will solve her problems in another way.

When Little goes on a rampage instead of teaching, a student named Tashana interrupts her and tells her to solve her problems instead of complaining. Little sends her to Braxton’s office while Tashana says she is sick of Little’s “‘bitchin’’” (302). Tashana is transferred to another class, and Little spends some time teaching Hamlet before spring break. Little forgets to assign Jane Eyre over spring break because she is consumed by her upcoming meeting with the principal. After her meeting, she says that the school is “‘driving me to the brink of madness!’” (305).