Birmingham high school students create sweet treats for healing 60 years after church bombing
By Ayron Lewallen
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BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (WVTM) — Nineteen Wenonah High School students made it their mission to create a sense of community. They handed out 100 fresh-baked sweet potato pies in remembrance of the 60th anniversary of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.
The pies were served to attendees during this week’s “There is a Balm in Gilead” conference keynote speech from Tony Evans focusing on the impact the day had on civil rights.
“I feel like it would just help them come together and just better relationships among the people,” Wenonah High junior Calvin Mitchell said.
The students shared comfort food with the attendees to spark hard conversations about race and race relations. They used Rose McGee’s recipe. She’s a chef based in Minnesota who started the Sweet Potato Pie Coalition after the death of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and even used the pies to create change after police brutality hit her community with the death of George Floyd. They were proud to show off what they learned in the classroom.
“I feel like I put my little splash in,” Wenonah High senior McKenzii Mason said. “I just made it like the recipe and if I felt like something was off, you know, I put a little extra in it.”
Mason said whipping up sweet treats was a fun experience, but she and other students said these pies are so much bigger than just a class project.
“It’s definitely a tragedy to lose four kids because they also have parents,” Mitchell said. “It’s also very tragic to see them go through that and to see everybody around the city just be involved in it.”
Taking a slice out of history inspired the students to make change in their own communities — building on the progress made after six lives were unjustly taken.
“We got people that were marching on the sidewalks we walk on right now,” Mason said. “It’s kind of like a lot happened here. We have 16 Street Baptist that’s just down the street, so that’s a lot. Just getting in your car driving by what was and what was rebuilt.”
Wenonah High culinary arts teacher Diane Pilgram hopes the students learned more than just skills to use in the kitchen.
“You hope that they see the kindness that people have and they use that kindness because we know we need kindness around the school,” she said. “We need more kindness in the community, and to know that to get out and do something and what you can do may seem small, but it can make a big difference.”
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