The Blackwell School, located in Marfa, USA, about 60 miles from the Mexican border, closed its doors in 1965, and for decades its buildings languished under the Texas sun with no one paying much attention. What time couldn’t erase was what happened there one day in 1954, when the central courtyard became a strange cemetery for an even stranger funeral. There, on the same field where the children ran, a funeral march was held, culminating in the students forming a circle around a pit small but deep enough to hold a box of cigars.

Although the scene was disturbing in itself, the real surprise was inside that miniature coffin. Inside was not the school mascot, but a character banned from Blackwell classrooms from then on: Mr. Spanish.

A funeral for history. “We had attended other family funerals before, so we knew there was a funeral going on there. We didn’t know why,” Jessi Silva told Story Corps decades later. In 1954, Blackwell was six years old when he attended the strange funeral held by his teachers; But neither this nor the time that has passed since has erased three memories: the sight of children returning to classrooms after burying the cigar box; the silence and the feeling that something is happening in the “Mr. Spanish’s funeral” scene that doesn’t quite make sense. “I was only six years old, but I could see something was wrong,” she shares.

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But… What was Mr. Spanish? A symbol. Or rather a language. Maggie Márquez, then a 10-year-old girl, also remembers this. Mr. Spanish’s funeral was not the only extracurricular activity Blackwell students engaged in that morning in 1954. The teacher had previously ordered Maggie, Jessi, and the other classmates to take a piece of paper and write on it. “I will not speak Spanish at school” and then they will deliver it to you. These handwritten notes remained in a cigar box that was buried in the schoolyard a short time later. The message couldn’t be clearer: From that moment on, speaking Spanish was banned in Texas school classrooms.

Mr. Spanish was dead to them.

A funeral and three lashes. In case the message wasn’t clear enough, when they returned to the classroom, the teachers announced that from that moment on, expressing themselves in Spanish was forbidden. Maggie didn’t like the ban. And she informed her teammates. “I told them: ‘No one will ever make me stop speaking Spanish.’ What I didn’t know was that the teacher was right behind me. He took me to see the director,” she recalls. Already in his office, he received a good scolding… and three lashes. “It was the first time and it hurt, so I ran home.”

“My dad wasn’t happy that they shouldn’t have hit me, but he told me I had to go back to school and follow orders,” she recalled in a 2017 conversation with Story Corps. At the time, Maggie was 73 years old and graying. She was only ten years old when she attended Mr. Spanish’s funeral and was whipped. “Our parents were always supportive of the teachers. I remember my father telling me, ‘If you’re in school, be obedient. Don’t make a mess.'”

a symbol. Mr. Spaniard was just a symbol. But one who had read a lot: there was one who intended to give him the Blackwell priory, which was neither more nor less than Spanish in the schoolrooms; and the person who attributed the story to him; His funeral in 1954 was nothing more than an example of the segregation that prevailed in Texas educational centers at the time. To understand this, you must understand the context in which the children’s strange burial took place.

“The experiences of students and teachers at the ‘Marfa Hispanic School’ constitute an important record of life at a segregated institution in the history of Texas and the United States. From the beginning, students were taught in English, but in 1954 the school began implementing it,” according to statements from the SDCELAR center dedicated to Latin American studies. According to a strict no-Spanish policy anywhere on campus, administrators created a funeral simulation in which students wrote on scraps of paper and buried the language.

Classes and discrimination. Mr. Spanish’s funeral was not a normal ceremony. Blackwell wasn’t just any school, either. As the BBC recently recalled in a report to the Marfa institution, the discrimination faced by Mexican Americans at the turn of the 20th century was not exactly the same as the discrimination experienced by African Americans, but it was evident in some ways. from day to day. Some are very important. For example, it was not uncommon for school districts in Arizona, California, New Mexico, or Texas to decide to segregate Latino students even though there was no legal authority to do so.

The result was the Mexican Schools that spread throughout the state of Texas, where students were required to speak English to correct their “linguistic deficiencies” and a clear motto prevailed: to “make them as American as possible.” “. It is estimated that such schools were open in more than 120 cities by 1940, all designed for Latino students, and remained open in many cases until 1965. Integration was not easy. Incorporation by the Topeka (Kansas) Board of Education in 1954 In a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state laws supporting racial segregation in public classrooms were unconstitutional.

History of Blackwell School. Blackwell’s story cannot be understood without this background. In 1885, the first school opened in Marfa. Years later, in 1892, another primary school specifically for Anglo-Saxon children was built, and in 1909 the School Board approved the establishment of a school in this state. For Latinos. The result was The Mexican School, which was renamed Blackwell in 1940 in homage to a former director. As the population grew, more buildings were built next to the original block, making it an important part of Marfa’s Latino neighborhood.

“Unlike African Americans, Latinos in Texas were not subject to segregation under state law. Instead, school districts in Texas regularly established schools for Mexican Americans through de facto segregation. Blackwell is a tangible reminder of a time when the practice of ‘separate but equal’ was widespread.” “Mexican Americans, who dominated the educational and social systems, were unable to mingle with Anglos in barbershops, restaurants, funeral homes, theaters, churches, and school, even though they were legally considered ‘white,'” SDCELAR researchers recall.

The end of the century… and what it means. The history of the Blackwell Center took a turn when Marfa schools integrated in 1965. Over time, the old buildings became unusable. Some even turned into piles of rubble. The salvaged one sat unused, empty, and left to age under the sun of the Texas desert until the Blackwell School Alliance, formed in 2006, decided to save it. Of course, giving it a different value. His goal was to save the history of the school and the history of its Mexican-American population in the 20th century as part of the chronicle of Marfa, Texas. “We can’t understand the racial and ethnic dynamics of the US without knowing what happened before, how people were treated,” Gretel Enk told the BBC.

Dig the dictionary. This effort didn’t go too badly for them. In 2021, the U.S. House of Representatives recognized the value of the former Blackwell School, and it was designated a site of national historic value in the fall of 2022. It now houses a museum and community center filled with photographs and objects that show what the original school was like and tell of life in classrooms more than 60 years ago.

In 2007, Blackwell’s former students held a ceremony almost as symbolic as the other they were forced to participate in one morning in 1954: one of them, Maggie Márquez, dug up a wooden box from the schoolyard, which they soon buried. before. In: A Spanish dictionary. “I have Spanish!” to former colleagues who said goodbye to Mr. Spanish under very different circumstances 53 years ago. yell.

Image | Dan Keck (Flickr) (The cover image does not match the image of the Blackwell School in Texas, where the article was published)

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