Political Quotes

“earlier this month, Zaila Avant-garde became the first Black American to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee. It is kind of discouraging in the year 2021 that barrier still needed breaking. Her achievement is an inspiration for so many students around the country. She drew strength and courage from another trailblazer who had gotten significant less attention, whose story has not been told and honored the way that Zaila was. In 1936, 13-year-old MacNolia Cox from Akron, OH, became one of the first two Black students to compete in the National Spelling Bee. She qualified after winning the regional competition that went 60--6-0-- rounds, sponsored by the Akron Beacon Journal. Black communities across the country cheered her victory. They looked forward to her joining the national competition. She was celebrated at churches and clubs, talked about by celebrities, and even politicians. At the RKO Palace in Cleveland, band leader Fats Waller, tap dancer Bill Robinson, whom we know, whom history knows as Mr. Bojangles, brought her on stage. Three thousand Ohioans came to Akron's Union Station to send MacNolia off on her journey to Washington. She had little idea the treatment she would endure at the tip of the Jim Crow South. She was forced to ride-- she is, essentially, Ohio's representative at the National Spelling Bee, a 13-year-old Black--I was going to say Black young woman--Black girl from Ohio. She was forced to ride in segregated train cars.…”