Remembering Miss Margaret Parks
Last week, our editor wrote about a teacher who changed his outlook on the world. A poet who contributes regularly to us this week recalls how a simple correction from her teacher sparked a lifetime of reconsidering the story of the South.
Miss Margaret Parks taught 11th grade American history. Some might say she was a stereotype of a 1950s teacher: unmarried, soft-spoken, a Southern lady.
Other adjectives also describe her: intelligent, realistic, maybe even for the times, progressive. During a lesson on the Civil War, I blurted out a comment now revealing how influenced I was by the time and place of my birth and childhood, just how clueless I was: "I wish the South had won."
Miss Parks waited a beat and in her usual quiet voice said: "No, that would not have been a good outcome." In retrospect, that remark, which I'm recounting over sixty years later, may have been the beginning of my awakening to issues of regionalism, equality, and justice.
About the author
- Anne Waters Greenhttps://www.salvationsouth.com/author/anne-waters-green/
- Anne Waters Greenhttps://www.salvationsouth.com/author/anne-waters-green/
