By Yvette M. Alex-Assensoh
Black History Month is celebrated every February, and this year it overlaps with Tu B'Shvat, the Lunar New Year, Mardi Gras, Lent, and the beginning of Ramadan. In many ways, Black History Month marks the celebration of the ways in which Black people have utilized quality education as either a route to personal freedom as well as overall societal impact and advancement. Take the example of Virginia-born Gladys West (1930-2026) who was educated in racially segregated schools and a historically black college (an HBCU). Named Gladys Mae Brown at birth on October 27, 1930, she developed mathematical algorithms as well as satellite geodesy models, which laid the foundation for today’s GPS.
Inducted in 2018 into the U.S. Air Force Hall of Fame and also awarded the Webby Lifetime Achievement Award for her invention, West and her fellow Black innovators, provide a reminder of the power that quality education has to uplift individual lives and society as a whole. Her example is one of several reasons why much of the struggle for Black freedom is inextricably linked with the general fight for quality education.
Also, consider the example of Louisiana-based Lelia and Abraham Alex, who bought a bicycle in 1943 for their teenage son Livingston to travel 12 miles, roundtrip, in rural Louisiana in search of quality education. On his daily route to high school, young Livingston passed by a public school to which his parents’ tax dollars contributed and made successful, but he was not allowed to matriculate because he was Black. Their personal fight against the unjust racial caste system in rural Louisiana paid off. At that Catholic high school, limited in resources but rich in the loving care of teachers, his passion for science grew.
Eventually, through ongoing local civil rights struggles, Livingston graduated from high school, served in the American military with distinction, and with veteran benefits, he earned advanced degrees in biology and education. Almost three decades later, he taught biology and chemistry in the very school system that once denied him and other Black people access. At his death, one of his attending physicians was his former biology student, whose own passion for science took root in Livingston’s classroom. Lelia and Abraham Alex were the parents of my late father, Livingston Alex.
The takeaways from my late father’s fight for quality education are numerous. On the one hand, his story fits into the lore of “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and make it through with grit and determination." Conversely, it’s also a story of our country’s racialized history and the ongoing impact of racial caste systems that undermine personal freedom and our country’s overall success. While individual responsibility and agency are important, it is equally as important to acknowledge that caste systems and their consequences have no place in American society. Unfortunately, barriers to quality education remain for too many children, ranging from low expectations, underperforming and underfunded schools, languishing family support structures, and a measure of hopelessness about the current efficacy of education to enhance opportunity.
Indeed, the security and shining prominence of our country depend on our ability to broaden access to educational opportunities for all and sundry. It’s, therefore, ironic that the month of February, which is widely associated with the celebration of Black contributions since 1926, also served as the context for Executive Order 9066, with which Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the forced removal and incarceration of over 120,000 Japanese Americans and residents of Japanese descent in 1942. That was a reminder that systems that deny humanity and undermine personal and societal flourishing are unfortunately interconnected.
In this 2026 Year of the Horse, let us move boldly forward in an effort to ensure that access to quality education continues to be made available to Black people, while also being attentive to the needs of all, including neurodiverse, veteran, rural, inner-city, first-generation, gender fluid and religiously- devout students. As Gladys and Livingston showed us, unpaved rural roads can lead to world-changing contributions when quality education is available. May their example be a guide for all of us.