On Early Life in America with a Cherokee Indian, African-American, and German-American Background
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/05/18
Dr. Margena A. Christian was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. She has a background of African American, Cherokee Indian, and German. I was lucky enough to interview her about some of the work done by her. Christian founded and owns DocM.A.C. write Consulting. Full interview here. Here we look at some of her story and views and early life.
When I asked about her growing up and the geographic, cultural, and linguistic context for family, she talked about the relatively traditional African-American environment. A working-class family.
Her mother worked as a librarian and media specialist. He father worked as an inspector for General Motors. Christian stated, “Growing up in St. Louis was an interesting experience. There is much division there between African Americans and Whites. I lived on the city’s north side, which is predominantly Black.”
Christian talked about attending Most Holy Rosary as a Catholic grade school and Cardinal Ritter College Preparatory for a Catholic high school. The students who attended, she notes, looked like her.
She went to St. Louis University (SLU), which is a Jesuit institution. However, it felt like a major adjustment for her. Few people looked like her. She recalls being the only African-American in many classes.
“Going from being around my own 24/7 and then moving into a world where I was suddenly the only “one,” took some getting used to. I can say that I had a pleasant time as a Billiken at SLU.,” Christian said, “I worked hard and made stellar grades so I stood out for more reasons than one. And, needless to say, I hardly ever missed class because the professor always seemed to notice.”
Now, as noted earlier, Christian’s mother was a teacher. While at kindergarten, she went to the same school that her mother taught. With her mother there, she did not feel the same need to work as hard.
It was a feeling of privilege over other students. Christian’s mother found that it was not a great idea for your kid to work at the same school as you. She explained, “I was headed to the third grade when my parents decided to take me out of the St. Louis Public School System and have me attend an Archdiocesan school. She didn’t feel that my siblings and I were getting the best education, so she convinced our dad to allow us to transfer to Catholic schools.”
She ended up going to a co-ed high school, which was among the best private and Catholic schools for an urban area. With Saint Barbara and in a leadership class, her life was changed ever-after.
“She knew how much I loved to write and told me about the Minority Journalism Workshop, sponsored by the Greater St. Louis Association of Black Journalists,” Christian remembered.
The program was meant for juniors and seniors in the high school system with some early college students as well. As a sophomore, she was accepted after an application.
“Renowned journalists George E. Curry and Gerald Boyd were founders of this pioneering workshop, which would become the blueprint for other minority journalism workshops throughout the country,” Christian said, “Training with professional journalists at such a young age helped to hone my craft and solidify my desire to do this for a living.”
With this, she honed her craft, as they say, and won two scholarships and earned a publication of her first article. She finds that nothing compares to hands-on, practical experience with a craft. As the only person to look like her at SLU, she felt uncomfortable and so did not write for the SLU student newspaper.
Rather, she did an internship at the top African-American publication in the country, which was the St. Louis American Newspaper. Later on, she wrote for Take Five. At the end of the experience, she had “an attractive portfolio.”
“However, coming from a family of educators, I did what most people who aspire to become a journalist do. I played it safe and got a job as an English teacher at a Catholic grade school, Bishop Healy,” Christian explained, “So, essentially, I taught by day and wrote by night. Healy was in the city and practiced the Nguzo Saba value system.”
She reflects on her life. Christian feels as though she was being prepared and “concepts in my dissertation were the Nguzo Saba,” which represented the publisher John H. Johnson and Johnson’s commitment to race in the presentation of documenting “our history in magazines.”
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