Bryan Eason, who often plays drums at the corner of High and North State streets, uses his instrument to draw people’s attention to education, poverty and race. Photo by Imani Khayyam.
At the corner of High Street and North State, Bryan Eason, 31, has set up an ersatz outside classroom for Jackson residents. His students, stuck at the red light, receive earfuls of snare drum and the visuals of three human-size mannequins wearing bright orange prison jumpsuits. Over their faces, a sign reads "third grade."
Eason thinks of himself as a drum major for education. He spends many of his days, rain or shine, on the corner beating a drum to bring people's attention to a statistic published in a Children's Defense Fund report.
"The most dangerous place for a child to try to grow up in America is at the intersection of poverty and race. That a Black boy born in 2001 has a 1-in-3 chance and a Latino boy a 1-in-6 chance of going to prison in their lifetime is a national disaster and says to millions of children and to the world that America's dream is not for all," the report states.
Eason grew up in St. Louis, Mo., where he picked up the drums in school. "Playing music was the outlet that got me interested in school," Eason says.
Playing the drums also got him a fine-arts scholarship to enroll in the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff's media studies program.
In college, he got an internship to work with Clear Channel Radio. He was then hired after a few short months to work on promotions and recruiting musicians. When Clear Channel fired him as part of a series of layoffs, Eason was already working as a substitute teacher in the St. Louis public-school system.
The first time he stepped into a fifth-grade classroom with 29 students, Eason was shocked. "I can say that at least eight had serious behavior issues," he says.
New to education, Eason was trying to create a learning environment, but some of the kids kept distracting from his efforts. He ended up writing many of them up.
"When you are in an oversized classroom and the principal (and) the assistant principal aren't helping you—when other teachers aren't dispensing information, first-year teachers are almost set up to fail. That was the moment when I realized the system had to change," he says.
For eight years, Eason worked throughout St. Louis Public Schools before coming to Mississippi to work for the Children's Defense Fund. At CDF, he worked to help get the Better Schools Better Jobs initiative on this November's ballot. If it passes, the initiative would force lawmakers to follow the law and fully fund the Mississippi Adequate Education Program. MAEP is a formula the State of Mississippi uses to calculate budgets for Mississippi public schools. Since it passed the Legislature in 1997, the state has only funded it in full twice.
Eason toured around the state gathering signatures of support from Mississippians. "Traveling Mississippi, (I've) seen buildings crumbling apart," Eason says. "Students needing air conditioning. At Wingfield (High School), I worked in a classroom that leaked even on days it didn't rain. This isn't something these kids are making up; this isn't something teachers are making up. We have to fix these problems, or we can't fix anything!"
Drum major Eason now takes to the streets with a vengeance on behalf of public education. With the Mississippi Legislature in session, MAEP funding is central to his lesson plan. The MAEP is a formula the State of Mississippi uses to calculate budgets for Mississippi public schools. Since it passed the Legislature in 1997, the state has only funded it in full twice.
Eason looks at Nissan tax breaks as evidence of the Legislature having priorities other than educating the state's children. "We are talking about giving money to companies like Nissan that are bringing in billions. And then we are talking about schools with leaking roofs," he says. He worries that if money is not invested into the schools then the impact on our educated workforce might cause companies like Nissan to outsource jobs.
He is not alone in his struggle to bring awareness to public education in this legislative session. Julia Weaver, a mother of two high schoolers in Ocean Springs, was at the Capitol last week raising awareness about the Legislature failing to fund the MAEP since 2008. The campaign, "Fed Up with 50th," is a grassroots movement made composed of parents dissatisfied with the state's national last-place ranking in education.
"Many people in our group had been dutifully—diligently—politely calling our legislators year after year, speaking up for education" Weaver says. "We felt like they weren't hearing us. It wasn't that (our schools) were moving forward, but we were slipping back. This year, we felt that the legislators were saying, 'We could fund education, but we just don't care to.' (Fed Up with 50th) wanted to say as loudly as we could that 'we notice that this wrong. Let's stop funding so we can be last. Let's start funding so we can move up the ladder."
As the state moves closer to statewide elections, the Mississippi Legislature is spending more time on re-election bait like phasing out the income tax.
"We have a majority that is almost hell-bent on demoralizing education," Eason says. "The people have to speak up now. We have no other choice but to take to the streets and take action to inform everyone on what's going on."
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