Karina and I have secured an interview with Charles Knitter, the man who led the protest outside of the courthouse when the challenge against To Kill a Mockingbird happened in late 2016. We found him through an article and then from a Facebook event he had created for the protest last December. We think his perspective will be really interesting because of his role in the protest. As part of their event he explained, “Local historian Dr. Kentoya Downing-Garcia will be our guest of honor and be giving a brief lesson on the importance of these literary works, the message against racism that they convey, and why the uncomfortable feelings they create are so important.” Not only did they peacefully protest, but they also set up a local historian to speak, and a group reading. I think his input will be very interesting and add a lot to our project.
Some of the open-ended questions we are going to ask him are:
- Did you grow up in Accomack County and if not how long have you lived there?
- How did you first hear about the To Kill A Mockingbird case?
- What sparked you interest in the challenge or brought it to your attention? Do you have any children in the school system or work in the schools?
- Why did you decide to hold a protest?
- What was the goal of the protest?
- How did you choose who was going to speak at the protest?
- How do you think the protest went?
- What can you tell me about the petition? From our understanding, a student, Sayde Saunders created one, but was asked by the principal to stop collecting signatures?
- We noticed that you learned about the mess up in policy after the protest and that it was upsetting. Can you explain your understanding of the policy and what the mistake was?
- What is your personal experience with To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?
We are either going to set up a phone interview or send him the questions via email. I am trying to figure out how to record a phone interview so we could have that record first, but if we are unable to figure it out then we might just email the questions. That is our biggest stopping block right now.
I have also called and emailed the School Board, so we are hoping to hear back from them in the next couple days. If not I will call again.
I found this video attached to the news article we first found out about the protest in. It sheds some light about what happened there and I think with the personal interview we will have a great page about the protest.