Tracey Meares was filled with angst and trepidation about returning to her home and her greatest indignity in Springfield, Illinois. She accepted the school’s valedictorian award after having been wrongly denied the honor for 38 years.
Meares testified that she worked very hard to become the first-ever Black student at Springfield High School to receive her class’ highest academic award in 1984. She earned the highest grade point average in her class, but school administrators suddenly canceled the awards ceremony that year without any explanation, a snub that still stings Meares to this day. Instead, the school forced Meares to share a generic “top-performing students” honor with the second-place finisher, a White woman.
Despite the fact that Meares went on to scholastic and professional stardom, becoming a professor and legal expert at Yale College of Law, Meares never forgot the flagrant slight of that day at age 17 which she believes was racially motivated. To add insult to injury, Springfield High reinstituted the valedictorian ceremony eight years after she graduated.
“It was incredibly upsetting when I was 17. I remain angry about it today, and sad,” Meares told The Guardian.
Nearly 40 years later, Meares, 55, was formally and finally bestowed the valedictorian medal she should have received in the mid-1984. The formal recognition took place following the screening of No Title for Tracey, the documentary that detailed that inglorious episode.
Tracey Meares gets valedictorian title at Springfield High School, an honor denied her in 1984. @schooldist186 Supt. Jennifer Gill makes presentation following premiere of documentary No Title for Tracey.#SJRBreaking pic.twitter.com/wxvpL12C6j
— Steven Spearie (@StevenSpearie) April 16, 2022
Illinois filmmaker Maria Ansley, who was a freshman when Meares was a senior at Springfield High, decided to make the documentary on Meares during the apex of the racial reckoning that popped off after the passing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020.
The film was viewed in Springfield whereby School District 186 Superintendent Jennifer Gill draped the valedictorian medal around Meares’ neck.
Title for Tracey!#SJRBreaking pic.twitter.com/4jvuKEvoGK
— Steven Spearie (@StevenSpearie) April 16, 2022
“My first reaction is that it’s incredibly gratifying, but it’s also a lot to process,” Meares said after she received thunderous applause, according to the State Journal-Register. “There are a lot of different things that happened. It’s the metaphor of a dry sponge. When you pour a bunch of water on a dry sponge, it takes a while [to soak it up].
“It was overwhelming [to see this many people here],” she continued. “I had a lot of trepidation about coming back here and meeting my 17-year-old self, and a lot of the emotions I have about this whole incident are emotions I had when I was 17.
Watch the brief trailer for “No Title for Tracey” below:
