Trying to function in an environment that has embraced racism in its many forms, including micro and macro aggressions, takes a mental toll on the mind’s ability to process and to focus.

In an article, Addressing Race and Trauma in the Classroom: A Resource for Educators, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, cites the following: “…according to a recent report from the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, racial disparities persist in our education system: youth of color have disproportionately lower access to preschool, higher rates of suspension from preschool onward, and limited access to advanced classes and college counselors as compared to their white counterparts (US Department of Education, 2014). The racial achievement gap, which refers to disparities in test scores, graduation rates, and other success metrics, reflects the systemic impact of historical trauma and ongoing impact of racial trauma on communities of color (Lebron et al,. 2015).”

My experience with racial trauma began before I was born. Unbeknownst to my parents–who were transplants from southwestern Pennsylvania, there were no hospital facilities available to African American maternity patients in our county. After arriving at the local hospital, with my mother in advanced stages of labor, my parents were turned away and told to go the nearest hospital that would accept black maternity patients–D.C. General hospital. It was more than twenty miles away, in Washington, D.C. I was born in the car on an icy, snowy New Year’s Eve. It didn’t stop there.

At age five, I entered first grade in a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C. In this completely segregated era, there was no Kindergarten available to African American children; but, there was Kindergarten for white children. There were separate superintendents–a black superintendent for the black schools and a white superintendent for the white schools. As the white schools received new textbooks, their old textbooks were given to the black schools as our “new” books.

Also, there were no middle schools (called Junior High Schools back then) for African Americans. While white schools had the full spectrum of separate secondary schools–jr. high and high schools, there were exactly two secondary schools for black children in our entire county. Black secondary schools were combined and included grades seven through twelve. The African American secondary schools were called “Jr.-Sr. High” schools.

Racial trauma starts at birth for African American children.