Speakers share stories of racism, resilience and more at Modesto High’s Day of Respect
Decades ago in south Los Angeles, a police officer accused then-12-year-old Darius Crosby of having a real gun and dug his nail into the boy’s thumb trying to grab the toy.
The incident began when Crosby’s friends dared him to go say hello to the police officers leaving a store. Moments later, he was dragged into a police car while one officer pointed a gun at his mother, who had rushed over to defend her son. Inside the car, an officer punched him and hurled racial slurs at him during the ride to the station.
Crosby, bruised and bleeding, eventually managed to escape the station and make it home, where his parents called for an ambulance. Three ambulances arrived — but each one was turned away by police.
In the end, his family called a private ambulance to take Darius to the hospital.
“They wanted me to die, so I couldn’t tell my side of what they had done,” said Crosby, who’s now a pastor and founder of the Modesto Police Clergy Council.
The police never faced any legal consequences, he said.
More than 50 years later, Crosby showed his scarred thumb to students in a classroom at Modesto High School on Wednesday, sharing his story as part of the school’s annual Day of Respect.
He closed his story by saying he chooses to stand on the side of solutions and wants to award others for the good they do.
Now in its 27th year at Modesto High, Day of Respect welcomed 30 speakers into classrooms across campus. Andrea Pegarella, an English teacher who coordinates the event, said the visitors share personal stories — many about facing discrimination — and talk about the importance of activism.
“It’s very cathartic for our speakers, because they get to tell their story, they get to answer questions about their story,” Pegarella said.
Speakers visited English classrooms in pairs or trios. For some students, the presentations tie into classroom assignments. Other students helped organize the event — escorting speakers to their rooms and learning valuable event-planning skills.
One of those organizers, senior Oranos Mizrahi said her favorite part was having conversations with the speakers and hearing their advice.
“It was really nice to learn about their experience and what they went through,” she said.
Sharon Froba, a retired teacher who founded Day of Respect in 1998 and led it until her retirement, was among this year’s speakers. She shared a story about her best friend growing up across the street from baseball legend Willie Mays in San Francisco — and how learning about the discrimination Mays faced inspired her and her husband to research race-based housing covenants.
In its earlier years, the event drew as many as 120 guest speakers. Froba said she often would recruit speakers by reaching out to people she met at church or community events.
Pegarella said students’ responses have been overwhelmingly positive, with many deeply moved by the stories they hear. For some, it’s the first time they realize others have experienced struggles similar to their own.
She’s now working on a personal passion project: to create a Day of Respect archive, hoping to film the speakers and preserve their stories.
Planning for the event is a year-round effort, Pegarella added. Recruitment for the next Day of Respect begins the day after the event wraps up.
Speaker stories
Past speakers have included Vietnam War veterans, school board members and survivors of Japanese internment camps.
This year, guest speaker Julie TenBrink shared her experiences as a Modesto Junior College student in the 1960s, when she joined a group called Stanislaus County for the Preservation of Equality. The group sent two members to the South to help Black residents register to vote.
At just 19, TenBrink made the drive from Modesto to Charleston, South Carolina, where she and others went door-to-door in Black neighborhoods, teaching people how to navigate the voter registration process at a time when literacy tests and poll taxes were used to suppress Black voters.
She also recounted a moment later that summer when she and a multiracial group of friends attempted to visit Edisto Beach — only to find it closed to them, even though white visitors were allowed.
The group was arrested for trespassing, but the NAACP stepped in to post bail and provide legal support. The charges eventually were dropped, and the group is remembered today as the “Edisto 13.”
“If you ever feel like something’s wrong, it’s just not right, something’s going on and that you can take a stand and help make it better, do that,” TenBrink said, closing out her story.
Another of this year’s speakers was Jasmine Martinez, a former Modesto High student who shared her experience of coming out as LGBTQ during her senior year. Martinez, who once served as a student assistant for Day of Respect, is preparing to graduate from Modesto Junior College and transfer to Stanislaus State this fall.
In another class, students heard from a guest about his experience as a Native American soldier during the Vietnam War.
The students in that class are reading Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” — a novel about American soldiers fighting in the war — which made the speaker’s story even more enlightening and left some students in tears.
Whenever possible, Pegarella said, she tries to match speakers with topics that connect to what students are learning in class.
Reflecting on the many years of Day of Respect, she said a few stories have stayed with her the most. One was from Jane Tate, who shared about her son with special needs. The boy believed everyone at school was his friend, until one day another student hit him.
Another came from Lupe Perez, who spoke about the racism faced when trying to swim in a segregated pool in Riverbank.
“Some of [the students] have experienced things like that … microaggressions and things, but they don’t realize how extreme it was at one point in time of history or another, and so these people are like walking pieces of history,” Pegarella said.
She said some speakers have told her the next day that they couldn’t participate again due to how emotionally draining the experience was.
“I understand it because it’s deeply personal stuff,” she said.
