Wallace Middle School eighth-grader Jordan Mendoza poses with guest speaker – and story-teller extraordinairre – De Cee Cornish during the guest’s visit to the Ranger campus. Cornish split time on his district visit to speak at Dahlstrom Middle School, as well. (photo by Holly Cass)
by JIM CULLEN
A self-proclaimed “urban Aesop,” Fort Worth-based storyteller De Cee Cornish proclaims his ability to design stories that invite children “to read more about past events.” He extended that invitation last month with visits to Wallace Middle School and Dahlstrom Middle School.
A native of Houston’s Fifth Ward, Cornish visited the district on Jan. 19, Martin Luther King’s actual birthday, he informed his sixth-grade Dahlstrom audience in an afternoon session. His message – delivered with fluid body movements, expressive eye contact, and a velvet voice full of wonder – had his young audience fully engaged as he told them about young Martin’s earliest experiences with Jim Crow laws.
“You can’t be friends with a snake” came to be a familiar refrain for the Mustangs as Cornish spun a story colorfully illustrating how one group of people can warn “one of their own” away from another group. Cornish said he learned the story from MLK’s grandson, who told him it had been passed down within the family to explain just how things were in the segregated South where a young Martin Luther King grew up.
From Wallace, librarian Dianne Mueller said her Ranger students described their guest as having “a very comical way of expressing the actions of the people in his stories” and that they uniformly enjoyed his talent.
Cornish spoke to sixth and eighth grade students at both campuses, focusing on bullying and peer pressure to the Wallace sixth graders and on meeting challenges and “not giving up on yourself” to the eighth graders.
The accomplished and recognized storyteller has held residence positions at Texas A&M and Tarrant College and his website lists a number of colleges and universities at which he’s spoken, in addition to his regular appearances in Texas public schools.
