Rev. Dr. Charles Becknell Sr.

Welcome to “How to Act.” Produced by the New Mexico Black Education Act Advisory Council in partnership with New Mexico Black Education Act Bureau at NM PED, this limited-run mini-podcast series is part of a year-long celebration of the 100th year anniversary of Black History Month. Here at H2A we treasure and showcase stories of those who have and continue to enrich the Black educational landscape in New Mexico and beyond. Because Black History isn’t my history or your history…Black History is New Mexico History … and no matter who or where you are, if you are under the sound of this Pod, this history is for you. I’m your host, Hakim Bellamy and this is “How to Act.”

Our guest for this maiden podcast voyage is Rev. Dr. Charles Becknell Sr.. Dr. Becknell is perhaps most famously known for becoming the first director of the Africana   Studies Program at the University of New Mexico in 1969. The founding pastor of Emmanuel Missionary Baptist Church in Rio Rancho, Dr. Becknell currently serves as the State President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and is the author of No Challenge-No Change: Growing Up Black in New Mexico.

Here, Dr. Becknell charts his love for teaching from Sandoval Elementary School in Corrales, New Mexico all the way across the country to Columbia University in NYC, back to Albuquerque High School and ultimately to his pioneering tenure at the University of New Mexico. Along the way…he shares a few anecdotes of students he’ll never forget and some practice pointers for educators, families and community partners desperate to find culturally appropriate ways to support and engage African American students in modern day scholastic environments.

This podcast is a partnership between the New Mexico Black Education Act Advisory Council and the New Mexico Black Education Act Bureau. Find out more about the New Mexico Black Education Act here https://web.ped.nm.gov/bureaus/student-support-services/black-education-act/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to How to Act, produced by the New Mexico Black Education Act Advisory Council in partnership with the New Mexico Black Education Act Bureau at NMPD. This limited-run mini podcast series is part of a year-long celebration of the hundredth year anniversary of Black History Month. Here at H2A, we treasure and showcase stories of those who have and continue to enrich the Black Educational Landscape in New Mexico and beyond. Because Black History isn't my history or your history. Black history is New Mexico history. And no matter who or where you are, if you are under the sound of this card, this history's for you. I'm your host, Hakeem Bellamy, and this is how to act. Our guest for this maiden podcast voyage is Reverend Dr. Charles Becknell Sr. Dr. Becknell is perhaps most famously known for becoming the first director of the African Studies program at the University of New Mexico in 1969. The county pastor of Emanuel Missionary Baptist Church in Reaction of New Mexico, Dr. McNell, currently serves as the state president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and is the author of No Challenge, No Change, Growing Up Black in New Mexico. Here, Dr. McNeil charts his love for teaching from Xandoval Elementary Schools in Corrales, New Mexico, all the way across the country to Columbia University and NYC back to Albuquerque High School and ultimately to his pioneering tenure at the University of New Mexico. Along the way, he shares a few anecdotes of students he'll never forget, and some practice pointers for educators, families, and community partners desperate to find culturally appropriate ways to support and engage African American students in modern-day scholastic environments.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Well, my first experience was a teacher in the Albuquerque Public Schools. Back then, the only job I could get was in physical education. So I started out in uh Sandoval Elementary School in Corrales. While I was there, I got a an opportunity for a Ford Foundation Fellowship, which they extended to several people in the state of New Mexico, mostly Hispanic and blacks, to increase their knowledge and leadership skills in the field of education. So they asked for a proposal. And I gave them a proposal. And uh my first assignment was I began to start it here in New Mexico recruiting minority students to go to the university the different colleges in New Mexico. And uh I focused my attention on the average students, mm-hmm the C students, low B students who felt that they couldn't go to college because of their grades. So I encouraged them because a lot of these students who were on that middle level had other duties. They were mostly lower class, lower middle class kids who had after school jobs, uh, they had duties at home, they had to take care of and they couldn't put the time into studying like some of the other kids who didn't have anything to do. So I told them to make that case, and we were able to recruit a large number of students from northern New Mexico, the Albuquerque area, to attend college. My next stop was at Duke University in the Education Improvement Program. Here I observed and witnessed kids third and fourth grade level being taught three different languages using phonetics. They were taught English, Spanish, and French. They were minds were like sponges. They picked up on all the three languages at one time. This was to enhance their their uh interest in further education. So I spent six, eight weeks at Duke University. Then I was went to Columbia University, enrolled in their graduate school, but also I did an internship in Harlem with this program. I can't remember the name of it now, uh, but it was for dropout kids who were right adjacent to Ben Franklin High School in Harlem. Ben Franklin High School was one of the poorest schools in the New York s system. These kids were on the verge of being dropped out dropping out of school and they were sent to this always called the Street Academy, that's what it was. They were pushed out of school. I call them push-outs, not dropouts. And our goal was to reclaim these kids and reintegrate them back into the school. So I taught them reading because I felt reading was the pathway to get our young people educated. And my approach was I want you guys to bring anything into this classroom, the Street Academy, which was a separate building. Bring anything you want to read. I don't care what your interest is. And man, I tell you, some of the stuff they brought here there I wouldn't be able to take you to the regular school curriculum because you know, all I was interested in was teaching them reading and portrait. And one kid really, his name was Willie Olona. I never will forget Willie. Brilliant kid. He wrote he wrote portrait. I still got some of his portrait that he wrote. And he was a little druggy, you know, he was on the front end of drugs. They had a program in Boston Un at Boston University, and I wrote them. It was a summer program to try to get Willie into that program. And they look at some some of his poetry, and he got he got rejected.

SPEAKER_04 8:19

Oh man.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

He came into the street academy that morning, went into the bathroom, came out, eyes red, snippet, walked out of that academy, and we never saw him again.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Oh man.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

So, you know, look, this was 40 years ago. And it still penetrates my heart. So I came back to Albuquerque after, well, I did a youth development program in Los Angeles, all at the expense of the Ford Foundation. And I worked with the uh a lot of young people in terms of further education. Came back to Albuquerque and uh got a job teaching. Well, I went back into my teaching profession here in Albuquerque. I took a course in black history at Columbia University. When I came back, they wanted me to put put me back into PE. And I said, Oh no, no, no. I want to teach black history. And they said, Well, all the assignments have been made, and uh we don't have an opening for that. We don't even have that in our curricula. I say, okay, well, if y'all don't want me to teach black history, I'm not gonna teach PE. So figure out what you're gonna do with me. Okay, I was a little militant at that time.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

I like it, I like it.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

So I said, no, no, no, no, no. And one of the school board members named Ted Martinez, he and I talked and I said, I'm not gonna go back into BD. I didn't get all this knowledge and wisdom about education to go back to where I was. He called up the principal at Albuquerque High School and said, Can we work something out? So I did I think three or four six-week blocks of black history in the Albuquerque at Albuquerque High School. This was the only time that I can recall that black history was taught in the Albuquerque School District.

unknown 11:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

And it was because of my persistence and the teachers in the in in um in the history department loved it because they got six weeks off. Right in one class in one of the classes, you know. But uh I still remember there was a lady that taught world history. Some of the students were in her class and they told me, they asked me if I would come into her class and teach, you know, uh uh uh uh world history overview of blacks in world history. And I said, Well, I can't come into her class unless I'm invited. So they asked her, would you invite him into the class to teach an overview of blacks in world history? Now this lady been teaching 32 years, Hakeem.

SPEAKER_04 12:17

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

She said, Blacks have contributed nothing to world history.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

You're kidding, no way.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

Yep, yep, so that was an opportunity that was missed. Because you see what is happening in our schools, mm-hmm. Attitudes still haven't changed.

SPEAKER_04 12:39

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

I majored in history and in no class in my four years of history did I learn anything of black history. I had to go to New York City and I took a course in black history from one of the foremost authorities on black history of the United States. His name was Dr. Eric Fonar F O N E R Jr. The first day of the class, I walked in. There must have been about a hundred black students in his African American history class. He walked out on stage to teach the class, and he was, he still is, Jewish, light-skinned. All the black students got up and walked out. Ain't no white man gonna teach us a black black history. And I'm sitting there from New Mexico and I'm looking around, I say, what the heck do I do? Do I walk out? This time I had a master's degree. So I went to Dr. Fona and I said, Look, I got a master's degree. I've done some study on black history, and I got a fairly good overview of what black history is about. The main concern with these black students, because I talked to them, is that they didn't want a white man graded in their papers. And I say for those students that feel that way, I would volunteer my time grading their papers.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Wow. You got a graduate TA position. You angled your way into that one. Look at here, man.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

They put me on the payroll. That's right. And it worked out all the black students came back. And it was a little selfish thing on my part because I wanted the knowledge, but I also wanted to help. So it was a win-win situation for everybody. But anyway, getting back to Albuquerque High School, I did that for one year. And then a position opened up at the University of New Mexico. They started an African American Studies program.

SPEAKER_04 15:17

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

I interviewed for the program, and they hired me.

unknown 15:24

Man.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

So started the first black history course. I mean, black history program in the state of New Mexico.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Man. Standing over standing ovation, sir. And the rest, as they say, is history. And it is. The rest is history. Yes, sir. And not just black, and not just black history. And not just New Mexican history. History history. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

Because black history is a part of American history. And one of the reasons I was so affected with students at the Abercope High School was I integrated black history into American history. And it made more sense to them because what they were studying was just standard white history. Blacks were doing this at this particular time in our history. And uh and I used some techniques in at Albuquerque High School. Some techniques that enhance their learning. In Albuquerque High, some of the students would just kind of drift into class after the bell had rung. So what I did was I had one of these little portable record players.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

I do, I do, uh matter of fact.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

But I was playing some of the latest songs in uh in in my classroom. And my students would say, Man, this brother's crazy. He's playing all this music. Let's get in there and see what's going on. So before the bell rang, my students were in class in their seats. And I said, Look, here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna give you kids ten minutes to talk about anything you want to talk about. But at the end of ten minutes, 45 minutes belong to me.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Get it out your system, right? Get it out your system.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

And I held them to that. I also said to myself, if any student failed my class, they didn't fail, I failed them. So I I would tell my students, I said, Look, I never gave a student a zero, because a zero means you're nothing. So what I did was I always gave my students a bonus question. And the question was like, who is your favorite teacher? Who I am I did that?

SPEAKER_04 18:30

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

And they would get some 15 points.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Get some points, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Yeah, so at least they didn't watch out.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

But those are some of the things that I did in the classroom.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Well, what I what I hear you saying, Reverend Beck now, is that, you know, a lot you and I know, and and and I would argue that most of the non-uh uh uh uh I don't like the word dominant, but the the the non-anglo, let's say, community in America, the we we have cultural norms. And so when we go to school, we are often leaving our cultural norms at the door to go participate in this, you know, uh general uh or generic uh culture and environment. And what you allowed in your spaces was to say, hey, hey, you, young black child, you can bring your culture in here. We're gonna have culture in here. We're gonna learn too, but your culture is welcome here. You can bring your whole entire self here. And I'm gonna treat your whole entire, I'm gonna try to teach your whole self here. And um, that's just transformative in how I can say me as a 47-year-old man, but I grew up outside of Philly, so I saw black teachers, I saw black classrooms growing up. Like that's the benefit of living in outside of Philadelphia. Um that's the only way I was able to succeed as a student. Uh it is. I could see myself in what I was being taught, and I could see myself in uh the figures around me who were doing the teaching.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Well, you know, at Albuquerque High, there were only two black teachers there. Me and the lady that taught home economics. Well, three. There was one in the uh auto shop to teach auto mechanics, they taught auto mechanics. But I would wear a Daiseki school. I mean the white teachers just freaked out, man. But I wanted my teacher, I wanted my students to have an identity.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

And uh I remember in one class we had uh disruptive students. Every time, you know, I'd be talking, he would get me disruptive. And I told him, I said, look here, come out in the hallway. Took him out in the hallway, looked down the hallway one way, the other way, and I looked him there now. I say, now there can't be two authorities in this classroom, and it's either gonna be you or me. Now we can decide right now which one it's gonna be. And I said, one of us gonna walk in that back in that classroom and we're gonna say, hey, I'm in charge. He looked at me like, man, I ain't never had a teacher like this before.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

But you know, that was one way to establish authority.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

And I'm sure he appreciated your candor. I argue I would I would venture to guess that no one in his life talked to him like that. Not not like, oh, you know, big and bad, but just to be like, hey man, like I care about you, but I'm gonna tell you exactly how it is.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

I had another student, and I really enjoyed teaching. And another student. You know, we'd be given a test. I would be giving the t the students a test. And I could hear this kind of groaning, moaning, kind of sound in the back. And I look around, couldn't figure out who it was. You know, and he and he, you know, he had a big smile on his face, you know, because he thought he had me confused. But the guy next to him pointed at him. And I didn't go back and say anything to it. The next time I gave a test, I would say something like, Who discovered America? Christopher Columbus, Joe Blow, Mike Thomas, or what was this guy's name? But I pushed that student's name as one of the multiple choices. And when he got to that, he looked at it, looked up at me. All he wanted was attention. And that's the way he got it.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

He got it. Yep, sure did. Sure did.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

And I always felt you gotta find a way to reach students. And you reach them a lot of times by figuring out what their needs are. So anyway.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Well that and that's a great, and that's a great segue to the to my last question for you, uh Reverend Becknell, is that so yes, we're talking about needs, right? And I think in in in at large, you know, the work of the say the Black Education Act is like, how do we meet the needs of all of our black students in New Mexico? And your experience is like, you know, we gotta take each kid as they come. We gotta meet the needs of these individual students. And I'm wondering, like today, in the current environment where uh funding is, you know, uh based on large populations, how do we address the individual needs of black students and families in a more structural, in a more structural way? I mean And I don't I don't know, and I'm not I'm here to tell you, as a member of the Black Education Act Advisory, like it it's cool, it's not enough, it ain't solving the problem. So, like, what's the bigger problem um that's preventing us from meeting the needs of black students and families?

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Well, let me just tell you this. What's a teacher, always a teacher, whether you're in the classroom or not. I pastored a church for twenty-five years in my congregation of all the young kids that went through my church. We never had one dropout. We only had one kid expelled. Not expelled, what was it? Well, I guess it was expelled for three days or something like that. Anyway, got in trouble. Because we told uh we don't love, you know, you if you're confronted with an issue, don't let your ego allow you to do something crazy. We don't fight. We fight with love. And this kid, he punched another kid. And I said, and his brother told me he got expelled. I said, look here, man, why why did you punch that kid? He said, you know, brother, back down I was walking to the bus, and this kid kept harassing me. And I remember what you said, don't fight. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. And I always told them, it doesn't matter what they call you, it's what you answer to, it's what's important. And if they call you the N-word, you know you're not. It's to belittle you, you know you're much more than that, so you just keep on walking. He said, I did that, I did that, but as I was getting on the bus, he said something bad about my mama, and I punched him. I wanted to tell him I would have done the same thing for the space.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

Don't talk about my mama now. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

I just gave up a little reprimand and said, okay, no more fighting.

SPEAKER_03 26:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

But you know, and then we had another kid who came to our church. He was five, six years old and wouldn't talk. They had him in special education, you know, through encouragement, encouragement, encouragement. We moved that kid for special education to the honorable.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

Come on now.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

And I've got witnesses to that. I have a program that I'm trying to initiate right now, and I just need the time to do it. It's called Education Messages from the Pulpit.

SPEAKER_04 27:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

I want to encourage every black pastor in this city, Rio Rancho and Albuquerque, to encourage their kids to stay in school, get good grades, because I would ask my kids, the kids in my church, how are you doing in school? They say, I'm doing okay. I said, wait a minute, what does okay mean? You gotta explain to me. I had every child in my church bring me their report cards, and I personally reviewed every report card of every child in my church. And I didn't focus, you know, if they had two A's, two B's, and a D. I didn't focus on the D. I said, man, that A B, those are great men. You're doing a great job. Now, how can we help you get this D up to the B and A? And I'll find a mature. I had more kids on the olive road than you can imagine. Just through encouragement, telling them they can be somebody and that we're dependent on them to pave the way for our future. Oh, I love teaching and teaching never stopped. I got I got former students who are now grandparents. I see them I ran into a guy the other day at the bank and he was I said, Hey Gene, how you doing, man? He said, Dr. McNell. And he was telling the teller, he said, This is the best teacher I ever had.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Right on, right on.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

He said, He would not let us get away with anything. I had another student, I took him to the side. I said, Look here, man, you continue this way, you're not gonna amount to anything. You got more going for you than you realize. And he tells that story. He said, I remember what he said to me.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

He's preaching from the pulpit right now.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

So I love it.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

I love it.

SPEAKER_02 30:34

I got some stories to tell.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

I love I love what you're doing. I love what you're doing, Reverend Dr. Becknell. I I agree. You know, I w I grew up in the church. Uh Pastor Hargrove, who's still a pastor at the church I grew up in, um, you know, he buried my father, you know, uh, and my mom's an associate minister there. And yeah, we had like, and just like you said, like it wasn't just our parents saying, How are your grades? Having other people in the community, like, you know, my uncles and aunts and my grandparents too, but having other people in the community that you're accountable to, whether we ever gave them our report card or not, just knowing that, hey, somebody's gonna ask you about it. So, what do you want to be able to say when someone asks you about it? Um, you know, I want to be able to give good news because pastors gonna ask me. So I might so when I'm home thinking I want to watch TV instead of studying, I might go, you know what? Let me just go ahead and knock this studying out because I know about a month from now I'm gonna be in church and pastor's gonna be like hottum grades, and I want to have a good report, right? So just that little bit just helps, you know, helps us, as the kids say today, lock in, helps you lock in a little bit, you know.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

We have one last thing. Every summer, I required my kids to read ten books. Two of them had to be on black history. I had one child, she wasn't black, she was Hispanic. She read forty four books over the summer.

SPEAKER_01 32:09

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

She's now teaching at the University, what is it, UNLV, University of Las Vegas, a graduate program, and she keeps in contact with me all the time. It works. If we can get these pastors to encourage their kids, it'll make a difference in their lives. Education is the key to their future.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

We want to thank Reverend Dr. Becknell Sr. not only for his time, but for his life of service to our students, families, and community. You can learn more about the history of this history maker by finding his autobiography. No challenge, no change, growing up black in New Mexico at your favorite bookseller. Please join us again on the next episode of How to Act. Thank you for listening.