We are approximately 11 miles away from Fort Monroe,
where the first African-Americans arrived approximately 400 years ago.
I am Robin Hunt-Crenshaw, the principal here at George P. Phenix Pre-K through 8 school.
The school is predominantly African-American.
Today I will be meeting with 3rd and 4th grade students to discuss the issues of slavery, what they know about slavery.
We need to learn about slavery because in the upcoming generations we can't all just believe that this country was always, different races combined together.
We have to know what our history was.
There was land taken from different races because they were that race.
And I don't feel like any of that is right because we're all human beings.
Now we're allowed to do stuff that we couldn't do before.
We have to know, this is why we're free and this is why we can do this.
Some people say it was nice back then, but it wasn't always nice.
Almost two years ago, in Charlottesville, Virginia,
there was people in their cars who was running over people.
Me and my family took a trip and while we were on our way, we were driving in Charlottesville and we had to be very careful.
I've seen on the news where a black man was trying to ask for directions
and he knocked on a white persons house.
The husband, he went and got the gun and chased the black man off.
So, I thought that might have been, well, was it because he was black?
Or did they think he was trying to like steal something?
And I thought it was really mean.
Black males and females that are getting shot.
People are losing their lives and they haven't done anything.
So I think we can improve that.
Like he said, people are, innocent people are getting shot for no reason.
We could change that.
There's a whole lot more to be improved.
We, we as Americans have to be united.
We live in the United States.
United means that were all in this together
but people aren't getting treated fairly because people are not doing the right thing
and we should all do the right thing because were in this together.
