At the heart of Pulitzer Prize-nominated and Obie Award-winning playwright Nikkole Salter’s Lines in the Dust is the issue of a quality education for Blacks – just as it was during much of the Civil Rights movement, which was partly inspired by the struggle to desegregate America’s separate and unequal schools, from the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling to Medgar Evers’ applying to go to the University of Mississippi to the Little Rock Nine to Gov. George Wallace blocking the schoolhouse door at the University of Alabama, etc. In fact, the title of Salter’s play is derived from Wallace’s 1963 inaugural speech at Montgomery where the pugnacious racist declared: “I draw the line in the dust… Segregation today… Segregation tomorrow… Segregation forever.”

When Channel 6 news recently called John Coneglio, president of the Columbus Education Association (CEA), he knew exactly how they were going to frame their story on the Columbus City School’s levy, or Issue 11. They asked Coneglio how to explain the Ohio Education Association’s annual grade given to Columbus City Schools. They gave the district a ‘2,’ which means the district is not up to state standards.

“Find me a failing district with rich people living in it,” Coneglio told the Channel 6 reporter, owned of course by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which everyone knows is anti-union, especially unionized teachers. “If I go to Dublin, Olentangy, or Bexley, are any of these school districts failing? Why not? This is what I asked Channel 6.”

He turned the table on Sinclair Broadcasting, which comes from a position that public school teachers aren’t worth their salary, benefits, and summer break.

Somethings Wrong

After school let out that day, Jean, Annie, and I walked home together. During the day, I kept my ears open in the lunchroom and bathroom, but I didn’t hear nothing about Smooth’s death, so I was hoping that one of them had, especially Jean our social butterfly. Annie had and started talking about it before I could figure out a way to get the ball rolling.

“Did you hear about Smooth? They found his body in the alleyway behind IGA a couple days ago.” Annie said.

“No, I ain’t heard nothing, who told you about it?’ I asked.

“No one in particular, I heard it in the lunchroom, you know how people talk.”

“Yeah, I know, but do they know what they’re talking about?” Jean cracked.

“Well, they said he was shot three times in the chest, and his body was laying there for two days before it was found.”

“Three shots! It wasn’t that many!” Jean slipped up. Big mouth!

“What Jean, what did you hear?” Annie stopped walking and asked her excitedly.

“Not much, they was talking about it in the lunch line. Didn’t hear it all, said it was more than one shot, that’s all.”

Monday, November 6 through Sunday, December 17, 2023, 8:00 AM
World Beyond War's online courses are self-paced, using videos and texts and graphics, available on your schedule, 24-7, and discussion forums in which you can use videos and texts and graphics to discuss and gain feedback, as well as to submit optional assignments for feedback. There are also a few optional zoom calls. Those are the only parts of the course that are scheduled. Everything else is simply available on your schedule. 

Course fee: $100 (Pay less if you have to, more if you can.) There will be a limit of 150 tickets sold for this course.  Everyone registered for the course will receive a PDF of David Swanson's book The Monroe Doctrine at 200 and What to Replace it With, which will provide additional reading to those who want to go beyond the written, video, and graphic materials provided in the course.