Jackson Free Press

As the Jackson Public Schools Board of Trustees has poured over its budget for the upcoming school year in a series of hearings, John and Margrit Garner have been there to watch and comment. With three grandsons in JPS, the Garners have a personal interest in the district's success. But their involvement speaks to a long history of activism for children and students.

John, 75, grew up in Chicago and attended Carleton College in Minnesota before going on to get his master's degree in physics from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. In 1960, midway through his master's program, he took a summer trip to Byblos, Lebanon, to join an ecumenical work camp sponsored by the World Council of Churches. The camp brought together Muslims and Christians of different backgrounds. By day, they renovated an orphanage; at night, they spent time trying to bridge the cultural gaps between them.

It was there that John met Margrit. Born in Winterthur, near Zurich, Switzerland, Margrit had trained as a handicrafts teacher. They parted for the summer, but John knew he would see her again.

"We had expressed a romantic interest in each other," John explains.

John visited Margrit in Switzerland over Christmas, and the two became engaged. They married in August 1961. John finished his master's degree in June 1962, and the couple decided to move to Mississippi, where John had discovered a vacancy for teaching physics at Tougaloo College.

"I felt it was very important that all people have an opportunity, in science particularly," John says. "That was an area that African Americans had really been limited--they didn't have much of an opportunity to get training."

John helped establish the physics department at Tougaloo. Among his former students are Constance Slaughter-Harvey, the first African American woman to graduate from the University of Mississippi's School of Law, and attorney Dennis Sweet. Two of his former students are now his physicians.

While John was teaching, Margrit dedicated herself to child-care issues. She helped establish one of the first federally funded daycare centers in the state, the Tougaloo Community Daycare Center, cobbling together private contributions because the Mississippi Legislature would not provide the required state matching funds.

"I had to find money," Margrit says. "The state Legislature, at that time, every year turned $27 million back to the federal government because they did not want to provide one-fourth (more). We had to raise one-fourth, then the feds would have given three-fourths."

Margrit's activism led her to take on adoption and foster-care issues. From 1979 to 1989, she worked for the Children's Defense Fund.

John taught at Tougaloo until 1992, when he switched to teaching computer networking at Hinds County and Holmes County community colleges. He kept teaching until the spring of 2009, when he fell ill. Diagnosed with polyarteritis nodosa, a rare autoimmune disease, he has lost nerve sensation in his feet. But his voice is still loud. When the time came for public comments at yesterday's JPS board meeting, he did not need a microphone.

Previous Comments

ID

158437

Comment

Bravo!

Author

Meredith

Date

2010-06-30T07:55:01-06:00

ID

158481

Comment

I have a wonderful story on John Garner who taught me physics and pre-calculus or freshman math (whatever it was called) at Tougaloo. I was so glad to be able to go to college since my parents were too poor to pay for me to go. Consequently, I was taking too many classes although I was excelling in all of them. Anyway, right before Christmas almost all of the students left school a day early, including almost all freshman. Somehow I didn't get the memo and showed up to pre-calculus as the only student for class. I just knew professor Garner would send me home, but he didn't. He taught me the whole 55 minutes by myself. I was so mad that I could scream. Lots of student made an A in his class but guess who made the highest A - the boy who came to class when no one else did. I have told this story countless times to others, but it never gets old. It reveals the man Mr. Garner was and is. Mr. Garner you were an inspiration to me as a student although you certainly angered me on that day. I was desperate to learn and escape poverty but I certainly didn't want to learn alone. Thank you and good luck. I'm now a successful lawyer slowly building a national reputation. I won't tell my name here but feel free to ask Donna or Todd off the internet and they will tell you who I am. You also taught and trained my friend Kevin Hawkins who went on to MIT and is now an electrical engineer at Goddard Space Center. God bless you!

Author

Walt

Date

2010-07-01T16:44:51-06:00

ID

158484

Comment

Also, Mrs. Garner employed one of my relatives for over 2 decades or so at the daycare center in Tougaloo. I think he was the lone male teacher.

Author

Walt

Date

2010-07-01T16:57:40-06:00