Rodney D. Pierce, a seventh-year middle school Social Studies teacher in Nash County Public Schools, will take part in the sixth Annual Network for Public Education’s Action National Conference later this month in Philadelphia.
The Roanoke Rapids resident will join author and activist Dr. Yohuru Williams, the university chair and professor of history at the University of St. Thomas, and Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Stacy Davis Gates in day one’s keynote lunchtime panel discussion Dismantling Systemic Racism in Our Schools.
The NPE is a national nonprofit whose mission is to preserve, promote, improve and strengthen public schools for both current and future generations of students.
“The Network for Public Education asked Rodney to join our keynote conference panel because he is an outstanding, award-winning classroom teacher with deep knowledge of history, especially the legacy of Jim Crow laws in the South,” NPE Executive Director Carol Burris said in a statement. “He lives, every day, with the struggle of providing a true accounting of history to his students in a state that not always embraces the truth.”
Pierce will also be working with the North Carolina African American Heritage Commission in the near future.
Back in December, the commission’s Civil Rights Trail Advisory Committee approved his applications for two historic markers in the town of Enfield — one for the federal court case Johnson v. Branch, and the other for the Halifax County Voters Movement, a grassroots civil rights organization.
Pierce will present on the topic of The Significance of Place-Based Content in Teaching Black History as part of the commission’s “Growing Our Griots” webinar series in May.
Pierce will also support the development of additional statewide educational resources and educational training this summer and fall.
“I am grateful for all that Mr. Pierce has done to amplify the experiences of African Americans in North Carolina,” said Angela Thorpe, director of the commission. “We look forward to collaborating with Mr. Pierce, and incorporating his expertise and experience into valuable work this year.”
Pierce will also be a guest speaker at the North Carolina Association of Educators Spring Learning Conference in May. The conference’s theme is Our Schools Can’t Wait.
Later this month, he will present at the Center for Racial Equity in Education’s Teaching In Color Summit. His topic is Hidden Figures: The Herstories of 3 Halifax County Heroines, which will cover the legal efforts of Drs. Pattie B. Cotton and Willa Cofield, and the late Verta S. Pridgen.
Pridgen’s lawsuit, Pridgen and the North Carolina Teachers Association v. Weldon City Board of Education, who helped desegregate the district’s teacher and school personnel workforce. Cotton, who was given a Presidential Heroes Award by Halifax Community College in 2014 while serving as chair of the Weldon City Schools board, was the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit United States v. Scotland Neck City Board of Education, where the United States Supreme Court’s decision stopped the creation of a predominantly White school system by the town of Scotland Neck during desegregation efforts in the larger Halifax County Schools District. Cofield, a co-founder of the HCVM and the plaintiff in the lawsuit Johnson v. Branch sued the HCS school board when they decided to not renew her contract because of her civil rights activities throughout the county.
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found in her favor in a decision that protected the jobs of thousands of Black teachers in the South who participated in similar activities.
“I’m elated by the opportunities I’ve been blessed to receive,” Pierce said. “I’ve shown History Channel videos of Dr. Williams discussing pieces of American history to students in my class. I can’t wait to share the stage with him and a fierce advocate like Mrs. Davis Gates.”
Pierce said, “It is a dream come true to work with Director Thorpe and the state’s African American Heritage Commission. And I’m beyond excited that I get to teach others about the stories of Dr. Cotton, Dr. Cofield and the late Ms. Pridgen. Drs. Cotton and Cofield are still with us, so I look at my presentation as part of giving them their flowers. We’re the most historic county in the state, and I love getting to share our rich history with others, particularly our African American history.”
Pierce was the 2019 NC Council for the Social Studies Teacher of the Year. He is a Fellow of Carolina Public Humanities, the Center for Racial Equity in Education, and the Public School Forum of NC. He currently sits on the Nash County Public Schools Equity Council and is a member of both the Governor’s Teacher Advisory Committee and the National Advisory Council for the NC Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission Initiative.
