How Do You Spell Unfair?

This is “How Do You Spell Unfair?” Written by Carole Boston Weatherford and illustrated by Frank Morrison A First Partners’ Book Club pick and a Santa Clara City Library adaptation and recording, read by Mimi Nguyen – we hope you enjoy MacNolia Cox was no ordinary kid. Her idea of fun was reading the dictionary. From A to Z, she learned words’ meanings and spellings. She loved to read, study, and spell. In 1936, the eighth grader won her school spelling bee. After MacNolia passed a fifty-word written test and an oral competition, she advanced to the Beacon Journal newspaper’s citywide bee. That April evening, MacNolia faced fifty of the city’s best spellers. Three thousand people jammed the armory in Akron, Ohio. Can you spell nervous? N-E-R-V-O-U-S With butterflies in her stomach and a lump in her throat, MacNolia listened to pronunciations and definitions before spelling each word. MacNolia got ruled out. Teary-eyed, she got her coat and hat and prepared to go home. But someone urged her to stay. Due to an error, the judges brought her back. MacNolia correctly spelled daft, writ, pretentious, brusque, abstemious, gradate, felicitate, apoplexy. Can you even pronounce those words? In the final rounds of the bee, MacNolia battled back and forth with John Huddleston until he tripped up on the word sciatic. After spelling the word that John had missed, MacNolia had just one more word to the title: voluble V-O-L-U-B-L-E With those seven letters, MacNolia became the first African American to win the Akron spelling bee. Her prize was twenty-five dollars and a trip to the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. Can you spell surprised? S-U-R-P-R-I-S-E-D At events all over Akron, MacNolia was the guest of honor. Backstage at the Palace Theatre, the spelling dynamo met dancer and actor Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and jazz musician and composer Fats Waller. At the Akron City Club, she dined with local bigwigs. African American clubs held fundraisers, and Black churches took up offerings to help with her travel costs. People also prayed for her. Akronites now mentioned MacNolia Cox in the same breath as the boxing champion Joe Louis and the track star Jesse Owens. Can you spell famous? F-A-M-O-U-S Letters and telegrams poured in from far and wide. MacNolia’s school community was rooting for her, too. Her teacher, Miss Greve, bought her a new dress, and a man gave her a beautiful necklace. MacNolia also received two dictionaries to study. She spent three periods a day prepping for the national bee. She memorized one hundred thousand words! Can you spell dedication? D-E-D-I-C-A-T-I-O-N At Akron’s Union Station, a military band and a crowd of thousands saw the spelling champ off to Washington. For her first train ride, MacNolia got on board with her mother, Miss Greve, and Mabel Norris, a reporter from the Beacon Journal, the newspaper that sponsored the Akron bee. “This is the most fun I’ve ever had,” said MacNolia. Can you spell excited? E-X-C-I-T-E-D But she was about to face some hard truths. Can you spell discrimination? D-I-S-C-R-I-M-I-N-A-T-I-O-N Do you even know what it means? MacNolia would soon find out. Firsthand. On the train, MacNolia sat in a coach open to Black and white passengers. But when the train reached the Maryland state line, she and her mother were forced to move to the Blacks-only car. Back then, segregation was the law in the South. When MacNolia arrived in Washington, she and her mother had to stay with a Black doctor because the hotel where the other spellers stayed was for white customers only. MacNolia and her mother couldn’t even ride the main elevator at the spelling bee banquet. They had to climb the stairs. Inside the banquet, they were seated away from the other spellers and their families. She and Elizabeth Kenney, from Plainfield, New Jersey were the first African American students to compete at the National Spelling Bee since 9 newspapers founded the competition in 1925. The 2 Black girls had to enter the ballroom through a back door and were seated at a card table apart from the other spellers. Can you spell racism? R-A-C-I-S-M Though second-class treatment met her at every turn, MacNolia couldn’t afford to get rattled. She had to concentrate and to believe in herself. She remained calm and nailed word after word. Can you spell focus? F-O-C-U-S The judges threw harder and harder words at the spellers. In the audience, Miss Greve, MacNolia’s teacher, bit her lip. One by one, the competition fell. Elizabeth Kenney misspelled appellation and placed tenth. When Doris Rubin misspelled acceptability, MacNolia advanced to the final five. The judges, mostly from the segregated South, couldn’t seem to stump her. Then they threw a curveball, a word that MacNolia hadn’t studied – nemesis. N-E-M-A-S-I-S, she answered. MacNolia’s teacher and the newspaper reporter protested. They argued that the word nemesis was not on the official list. Furthermore, in MacNolia’s dictionary, the word was a proper noun – referring to a Greek goddess – and thus not acceptable. The judges stood by their decision. Can you spell unfair? U-N-F-A-I-R MacNolia. Was. Out. But what an achievement! She had made history by becoming a finalist in the National Spelling Bee. The spellers spent the rest of the week sightseeing. They visited the White House and the Washington Monument. MacNolia saw stamps being printed at the Bureau of Engraving. Can you spell amazed? A-M-A-Z-E-D At the end of the whirlwind trip, MacNolia took home a seventy-five-dollar prize and was honored with a big homecoming parade. Can you spell proud? P-R-O-U-D Even though she didn’t win the championship, MacNolia had proven that African American students are as smart as anyone and can compete and excel when given a level playing field. That was MacNolia’s triumph. -------- That was “How Do You Spell Unfair?” Written by Carole Boston Weatherford and illustrated by Frank Morrison. We have also included a recording of the epilogue for this picture book. EPILOGUE MacNolia Cox was smart enough to excel at any career. However, she could not afford to attend college and wound up working as a maid for a doctor. She died in 1976 at age 53. The fight to integrate spelling bees did not start with Cox. Nor did it end with her. Since the early twentieth century, Black students competed in separate spelling bees. In Alabama, there was even a statewide Black spelling bee funded by African American businessman A.G. Gaston. But the winners of those all-Black contests were not allowed to compete in the regional bees, a required step to qualify for the national championship. Nevertheless, African American students shone in the all-Black bees. In December 1961, a notice about the upcoming bee sponsored by Virginia’s Lynchburg News went out to local schools, including, mistakenly, the all-Black ones. A later letter corrected the error and withdrew the invitation, stating that Black schools were not expected to participate. The Lynchburg branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) got involve in the matter. The civil rights organization had waged the legal battle against school segregation that led to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case. In 1954, the US Supreme Court had ruled that “separate but equal” schools were unconstitutional – against the law. The Lynchburg NAACP contacted the Scripps-Howard newspaper publishing group, the sponsor of the national spelling bee. The NAACP’s letter pushed the newspaper publisher to open local spelling bees to all students, regardless of skin color. The NAACP also threatened the publisher with bad press and legal action for letting spellers from segregated bees rise to the finals. Scripps-Howard replied that local newspapers and schools set their own rules. In 1962. George F. Jackson, a student from Lynchburg, wrote to the President John F. Kennedy: “I am a 13-year-old colored boy and I like to spell. Do you think you can help me and get the Lynchburg bee open to all children?” The letter ran in newspapers across the country. Like segregated schools, local spelling bees were slow to integrate. But as other racial barriers fell, local spelling bees opened to all African Americans/ In 1962. 12-year-old Jocelyn Lee became the first Black winner of the Oklahoma City bee. And in 1965, 15-year-old Clorinne Jones won the first integrated bee to be held in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1998, Jody-Anne Maxwell, from Jamaica, became the first person of African descent to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee. In 2021, 14-year-old Zaila Avant-garde became the first African American to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee. The winning words was Murraya, the name for a genus of tropical trees. That same year, the US Senate passed a resolution honoring MacNolia Cox’s life, legacy and achievements. You’ve reached the end of “How Do You Spell Unfair?” A First Partners’ Book Club pick and a Santa Clara City Library adaptation and recording, read by Mimi Nguyen – thank you for listening!