She’d read an article about Marshall, probably in Ebony, likely about his role as an attorney in Brown v. Board of Education.

In this landmark case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state laws creating segregation in public schools were unconstitutional.

Growing up, Brooks-Lyons, who is Black, knew she wanted to be a teacher. So when she was reading about the case, the phrase “separate but equal” stood out to her, as did Marshall’s arguments.

“That really caught my attention,” she said. “That was somebody that I really respected and admired.”

Instead of learning about Black figures like Marshall at school, Brooks-Lyons said she learned about them and other aspects of Black history from her family, her community and through the church. They celebrated Juneteenth, and knew Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln’s birthdays were in February.

Black historian Carter G. Woodson – along with the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, which Woodson founded – had the idea for and announced Negro History Week in 1925, according to BlackHistoryMonth.gov.

Woodson’s hope was to raise awareness of Black Americans’ contributions and achievements.

Negro History Week was first celebrated in February 1926, during a week that included the birthdays of both Douglass and Lincoln.

In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford recognized what had by then expanded to become Black History Month. Ford urged Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”

Now, after two decades as a teacher and another two decades as a principal in the district, Brooks-Lyons has a clear philosophy about how Black history should be taught.

“It is American history,” she said. “As a teacher, I did not teach Black history in the month of February. I taught American history, which is Black history, Hispanic, Native American, Asian American (history). I taught it all year long.

“As a woman of color, I think it’s important for my students to realize that their history may not be in the history books that we use in our district, but the history is there. And so they need to know that, and they need to be proud of that,” Brooks-Lyons continued.

Critical race theory is an academic theory based around the idea that race is a social construct, and “that racism is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies,” according to Education Week.

In Brooks-Lyons’ opinion, critical race theory, now a hot-button topic in education, as well as the Wyoming Legislature, has its place in college-level courses – not in K-12 education. But the discourse around the topic should not be used as an excuse “to not teach history,” she said.

“You can’t erase the fact that my ancestors came over on a slave ship. Now, does that make the ancestors of those people that brought them here – does that make you feel bad? It should. But I’m not holding you responsible for that,” Brooks-Lyons said. “But I want you to acknowledge the fact that that happened. And, as a nation, when we acknowledge this, we can come together and say, ‘OK, there was a mistake that was made. But let’s not wallow in it.’

“We can’t sugarcoat everything and act like it didn’t happen. It happened,” she continued. “But where do we go from here?”

Zanyaille Lyons, a counselor for eighth graders at Carey Junior High School, has created a Black History Month display on her door every year that she’s been at the school. At the top, in bold letters, are the words “Black history is American history!”

Lyons said her goal with the door display is to start a conversation among students, who might see a figure displayed on her door and want to learn more.

“We don’t talk about Black history, and when we do, we focus on the same things,” she said.

This year, Lyons featured a couple of local role models: her mother, Karen Brooks-Lyons, and Ronn Jeffrey, who has served as the Cheyenne’s municipal juvenile court judge for more than 15 years. Jeffrey, a Cheyenne native, was a key figure in creating Youth Alternatives, a youth and family counseling center still operating in the city. He became its first director and retired from the position in 2014, after serving in the role for 42 years.

While Lyons, 36, and her classmates learned about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks in January, she doesn’t remember LCSD1 recognizing Black History Month when she was in school. Like her mother, she learned about Black history from people in her community and from church activities.

In her current role, Lyons aims to be a positive influence on all of the students she comes into contact with – just as she saw her mother do as a teacher while she was growing up.

“But I also want kids that look like me to realize that they can go get their master’s, they can get their bachelor’s – (that) they can come back and that they can teach and that they can be powerful in the schools, as well,” Lyons said.

Tyrone Gadlin, 70, has lived in Cheyenne since he was a child. Gadlin, who is Black, said Black History Month, to him, is an opportunity to celebrate Black achievement, and to go beyond the Black American history that is typically focused on, like slavery and racism.

It’s an opportunity to recognize individuals like Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, Gadlin said, the Black NASA mathematicians who inspired the movie “Hidden Figures” and a book of the same name. Or to recognize the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, a Black regiment in the Union Army that fought extensively during the Civil War.

Even more influential in Gadlin’s life were the men and women he interacted with on a regular basis while growing up. These people included Mary Ann Tyler, as well as Mattye Brooks, the late mother of Karen Brooks-Lyons.

C.J. Brown served on the Cheyenne City Council for a total of 12 years in the 1990s and early 2000s. Rather than celebrating Black History Month, Brown was more interested in past decades with getting Martin Luther King Jr. Day recognized in Wyoming. He participated in the first MLK Jr. Day march from the Cheyenne Depot to the Wyoming State Capitol in 1982, he said.

State Sen. Liz Byrd, the first Black woman to serve in the Wyoming House of Representatives and the first Black person to serve in the Wyoming Senate, was the primary sponsor of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday bill. She brought it before the Wyoming Legislature nine times, according to the Wyoming State Historical Society.

Byrd’s bill was finally passed by Wyoming lawmakers in 1990 – with the stipulation that it be called “Martin Luther King Jr./Wyoming Equality Day.”

Growing up in segregated schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, Mary Ann Tyler remembers celebrating Black History Week.

Tyler, 89, said she’s glad it eventually became Black History Month, but it’s still not enough.

“What I think, though, ultimately, should be the goal is to have Black history be part of American history, so that it’s not just set aside for one month of the year, but that it is integrated in the whole history of our country,” Tyler said. “And if we’re going to really teach history, the good and the bad, you include it all together. … You don’t have to try to blame somebody else, either, for what happened, but acknowledge that it did happen.”

Mary Ann Tyler’s 55-year-old son, Tim, doesn’t recall learning much about Black history or Black figures in Cheyenne schools. Like Brooks-Lyons and her daughter, it was a focus in church, and in the home he shared with Mary Ann, his late father, Charles, and 10 older siblings.

Genesis Tyler, Tim’s 15-year-old daughter, currently attends Central High School. She remembers elementary school classes touching on Black history for a day or two, though she never felt there was much tie-in with the regular curriculum. But the churches her family is involved with host a Black History Month event every February, she said.

“That’s where I got most of my information from, most of my knowledge,” Genesis said. “But certainly not in schools.”

Now that she’s taking a world history class, Genesis said she’s being exposed to things she’d never known about many different cultures, including African and African American history.

“I just think that there’s a lot more to focus on than just like the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks,” she said. “There’s so much outside of that that I never even was aware of.”

The Tylers agreed that something like the recently introduced harassment ordinance, which would make it a misdemeanor in Cheyenne to intimidate or maliciously harass someone as a result of a personal bias, is needed. The proposed ordinance will be recommended for passage on second reading Monday evening.

Mary Ann and Tim said they believe things have gotten worse over the past five years or so when it comes to how Black people and people of color are treated. They pointed to former President Donald Trump as a divisive figure, saying he empowered people who already felt a certain way to outwardly express their feelings about people different than them.

What could help, Tim said, is integrating the history of Black Americans and other Americans of color more seamlessly into courses taught in schools and elsewhere.

“The point is, if you haven’t learned from the mistakes of your past, then you’re bound to repeat them,” Tim said, “and so these generations need to bear those things in mind so they can have a vow to, you know, let’s make our country a better place, let’s make our community a better place and our city a better place and our state and so forth and so on.

“But when things are just hidden and swept under the rug … There’s just so much that if people just knew, I just see what a significant difference that could make.”