The new school year had yet to begin, but the campus was abuzz with new and returning students getting settled in.
Anita was among them. She and four other students, Fred, Janine, Thomas, and Jasmine, had integrated the formerly all-white school for gifted students the previous year.
Along the way, and against the odds, she found love with a white student named Nathan. Both excelled in their respective subjects. Anita as a voracious reader, with a photographic memory, and Nathan, who could solve just about any equation.
Now, there were a new crop of colored students entering the school...
***
In her hands, Anita carried a clipboard with a list of places she had been assigned to go with a brand new colored student named Bianca, to whom she was giving a tour.
Bianca had just turned fourteen and was just beginning to blossom with puberty. Her interest lay in criminal justice. She wanted to be lawyer, so she could help to make more changes in the fight for racial equality. And possibly go into politics. At fourteen, she was at prodigy level in many subjects, surpassing more than eighty percent of the other students in Ashwood, regardless of age.
"...and this is the new art studio. It was just remodeled this past summer." Anita said, smiling.
"It's much bigger than the one we used to have. This school encourages elective courses, especially in the arts. They like for us to diversify our expertise. We tend to stick to the subjects we love most-"
Bianca sighed impatiently and rolled her eyes.
"-Are we done? I'd really like to unpack and get a head-start on my reading."
"No, not just yet. We have a few more buildings to get to-"
"-Well can you hurry up?"
Anita narrowed her eyes at the Freshman. This girl had been sucking her teeth and huffing since she'd met her.
"Okay, -just what is your problem?" Anita said, stopping short.
"You're sleeping with the enemy..." Bianca replied, meeting her eyes levelly and stepping closer.
Anita blinked at her.
"We should be fighting against these crackers, not going steady with them." Bianca said, looking her up and down.
"And yet before I even got here, all I hear is about one of us with one of them. Meanwhile, I'm trying to change things for us. White men have been using negro girls since slavery. -Taking what they want, when they want. You know my mom got raped by some of the good ole' boys from my town? -Hasn't been right in the head, since. Of course the law did nothing about it. And here you go, voluntarily going steady with one. It's not right." she said, shaking her head dismissively.
"Colored folk ought to stick to colored folk. It's not like there's many of us here and they always stick together!" Bianca said, as she crossed her arms over her chest.
"You hypocrite." Anita replied.
"I'm sorry about your mother, truly I am , but how dare you accuse me of not standing up for my race. You have some nerve berating me about something you don't know anything about. You just got here!" she said, with a disbelieving chuckle.
"And you're already trying to push away one of your own?"
Her voice was level but anyone listening could tell she was close to her threshold.
YOU ARE READING
ASHWOOD ACADEMY
Historical Fiction[EDITORS' CHOICE, June 2020][#1 History June 2020] -- Five black students make history as the first to integrate a prestigious school for gifted students in 1950's Vermont. One student, Anita Prescott, is a young girl whose strength and leadership...
