Evanston Township High School senior Mika Parisien enrolled in an honors history class instead of Advanced Placement United States History to learn about Black history and other cultural narratives absent from the AP curriculum.
Her teacher, Corey Winchester, taught Black, Asian American and Chicano history units. She was pleasantly surprised when he also spent multiple months covering Haitian history. For Parisien, who is Haitian, this was her first experience learning about her own culture in school.
“He really challenged us to learn about equity and race, and how it tied into history, and how it tied to today,” Parisien said.
Evanston Township High School students are continuing to educate the Evanston community and press on racial equity in the city, even as they say the momentum behind last summer’s wave of antiracism action has fizzled.
Since the police killing of George Floyd last spring, ETHS senior Mika Parisien has been working as a board member of both Students Organized Against Racism and Evanston Fight for Black Lives.
Through these organizations, Parisien is leading equity workshops to discuss antiracism, at her school and at other Evanston schools. EFBL has also met with City Council, organized protests and redistributed donations through a mutual aid fund.