An ambitious student and three-sport athlete, Anne Laurie Pierre has taken full advantage of the many offerings available at Everett High School, but she thought something was missing — a space where Black students can talk about being Black.
“A lot of us, when we learn about our history in school, think that our history starts at slavery, but it actually doesn't,” said Pierre, who is chronicling her senior year with GBH News as part of our COVID and the Classroomseries. “We have way more history and we have successes and we have oppressions. We have both sides.”
Two years ago, when she was a sophomore, she founded a club called Empowering Young Black Excellence (EYBE), and with it, a long-term vision to facilitate discussion about race beyond the walls of her school.
“I said that I want this club to even reach other cities, and people know about it. And I want it to be a big thing,” she said. “I guess I was very ambitious about it.”
This February, as the nation marks Black History Month during a pandemic and a racial reckoning, EYBE is living up to those ambitions. It’s attracting attention beyond Everett and during a month of daily programs has become a forum for enlightening, inspiring and sometimes difficult conversations. The group has also organized events, including inviting Black authors to speak with students and hosting a student art expo.
“We get to meet people who are successful, and we get to see and hear the voices of amazing Black people,” she said. “That's where we get to celebrate our Blackness.”
This school year, the club’s membership has grown, even though Everett High has been fully remote. And students of all races have joined.
“Let's just give people what they deserve and help people understand that their history is Black history as well,” said Cory McCarthy, a vice principal at Everett High who helped EYBE book guests this month. “That's just integration, right? So what we said is that we're going to give folks, not just Black kids, the whole community, a true, true Black education, one-on-one.”
Earlier this month, EYBE organized a Black Educators' Night, where Everett High teachers and administrators gathered virtually to discuss their experiences, as students listened and asked questions.
Oswaldo Constanza, an English teacher, spoke about the isolation that often comes with being a teacher of color.
“It’s the loneliness that I feel is the toughest part, where a lot of times you’ll be sitting there and it could be a small group of teachers, it could be a large meeting and you’ll hear something that seemed kinda low-key racist but not overtly offensive. It feels like that a lot of time — like microaggressions.” he said. “You wanna walk around and say, ‘Yo, did anyone else catch that?'”
Over the span of almost two hours, the EYBE event covered a wide range of topics, including institutional racism, representation and generational trauma. The meetings — held via Zoom — attract not just students from Everett, but also Chelsea, Malden and Saugus. It’s a surprise twist born out of the pandemic — the virtual space has accelerated a cultural shift.
McCarthy credits teenagers.
“Not from an instructional standpoint, but from a social standpoint, students have won the pandemic, right? Never — not since the civil rights movement — have we been able to sustain the mainstream media's attention," McCarthy said, citing the widespread protests calling for racial justice after the murder of George Floyd last year. “I believe that our students, especially students of color who have embraced this moment, will escape the pandemic better than they were before — asking for more, understanding the language and the sort of mindset that schools have to have to approach educating them.”
The daughter of Haitian immigrants, Pierre will graduate from Everett High this spring and is on track to become the first in her family to go to college and, eventually, medical school. That steady gaze on the future is something she hopes EYBE will help instill in future generations.
