ESL natives share their history, encourage students to pursue goals
Steve Nagy/BND
Reginald Thomas does a drumming exercise with some attendees to his forum at the Black History Remembered 2008 event Saturday. Thoms is a professor of musice at SIUE and a professional jazz musician from East St. Louis. The event was held at the Ainad Shriners Auditorium in East St. Louis.
BY BETH HUNDSDORFER
Belleville News-Democrat
EAST ST. LOUIS --
Dr. Julian Mosley knows something about being first. Mosley was among the first to graduate from an integrated East St. Louis Senior High School in 1961. He was one of three African-Americans in his 1964 class at the Air Force Academy. He was the first African-American person to graduate from Washington University Medical School in 1972.
"I knew when I saw other African-Americans who were successful that they were extraordinary," Mosley said Saturday. "It let me know that I needed to be extraordinary if I wanted to be successful."
Mosley, now a St. Louis surgeon, spoke Saturday at Black History Remembered 2008 -- a program designed to allow East St. Louis natives to share their history and inspire and encourage students to pursue their goals.
"I was at the cutting edge of integration," Mosley said. "I knew I was breaking ground, but I believed anyone could do anything if they applied themselves."
Mosley's father was a police officer and raised his family in a middle-class neighborhood near Missouri Avenue. His son dreamed of being a pilot and a doctor.
He studied to be a flight surgeon.
Mosley joined fellow speakers St. Clair County Circuit Judge Milton Wharton; Southern Illinois University Edwardsville professor and jazz musician Reginald Thomas; Black Entertainment Television director Reginald Hudlin; Donald McHenry, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; and artist Edna Patterson-Petty and her husband, Reginald Petty, a consultant and lobbyist who led the event.
Jacqueline Green, English teacher for District 189, brought five students to hear the speakers and plans to discuss it in her classes this week.
"I think it's really valuable for them to hear about all aspects of their town about what was and what it is now," Green said. "These stories are planting the seeds for what will come."
Kristen Hughes, Green's granddaughter and a Collinsville High School freshman, learned about her grandmother's hometown during the sessions.
"It made me see it differently when I heard the stories from other people," said Hughes, who plans to study engineering in college. "They did it. They didn't give up."
