Bringing About A World That Ought To Be | Tamar Sarai Davis '12

What is a key lesson from Friends that you’ve taken into adulthood?

One lesson that was reiterated a lot throughout my time at Friends was that everyone has value and a unique set of gifts, talents, and traits that should be equally prized. I feel like that dovetails into the fact that we weren’t in competition with one another but rather were only expected to improve upon past versions of ourselves. Some people at Friends were great at math and science, others at English, Latin, sports, or music and I feel that, for the most part, all of those things were praised equally. In adulthood, I’ve found myself in very intense academic and professional environments and remembering to focus on self-improvement as opposed to being in competition with others has served me well.

Which one of Friends’ Spices—resonates most with you?

This is tough! All of the SPICES are very powerful, but I would say “peace” is the most resonant. In addition to dreaming of peace on a global, national, and local level, I also think a lot about the importance of finding peace within ourselves. There’s so much in our lives to be anxious about, and that anxiety can impact our mental health, physical well-being, and interpersonal relationships. Approaching life in a more meditative and contemplative way is such a challenge but it’s also a necessary salve. It’s a skill I’ve had to cultivate over time and one that I am very precious about.

What have you been up to since graduating from Friends?

After graduating from Friends, I attended Wellesley College, where I majored in Sociology and Africana Studies. Right after graduation, I began working in the non-profit sector, doing research and communications work for organizations that focused on the criminal legal system. There, I helped organize campaigns designed to educate the public about the carceral system and support individuals and families who have been impacted by prisons and policing. A large part of that work was also targeting corporations that profit from mass incarceration. In 2020, I earned my master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and have worked as a journalist covering stories about race and the carceral system. This past year, I started my PhD in History at Temple University, where I plan to focus on late nineteenth-early twentieth-century African American life.

Is there a particular teacher or teachers who inspired your career path?

So many teachers and staff inspired me but in terms of my career path, I would say Pam Boehm and Christel Johnson were the most impactful. In high school, Pam taught courses in urban history, particularly the history of ethnic enclaves in New York City, and those classes were both really informative and immersive. Those courses introduced me to new ways of approaching history beyond the textbook and thinking about how to make connections between contemporary life and the past. Christel was very influential both because she helped make Latin one of my favorite subjects while at Friends and also because she created opportunities for us to produce and present independent research in a way that is rare at the high school level. I remember the Latin Colloquium and how it was incredibly challenging but also provided a glimpse into what could be expected in academia.

How do you define success for yourself?

I went to a talk this summer and one of the panelists, Ruha Benjamin, described books as being tools for communities to do things with-- that the information within them is being offered so that it might inspire action. That was really helpful for me in understanding what the metrics of success can and should be for my own work. I hope that all of my projects-- my forthcoming book, my reporting, and the public history work I intend to do while earning my doctorate-- achieve more than just moving people on an emotional level. I hope that they also spark ideas, lead to dialogue, and provide templates for how to solve or redress some of the social issues that I’m shedding light on. That would make me really satisfied and feel successful.

Tell me about your doctoral program, what inspired this course of study?

I’m currently entering the second year of my doctoral program at Temple where I’m focusing on late nineteenth-early twentieth century Black American history. I’m particularly interested in memory studies and exploring the collective memory of slavery amongst Black American descendant communities in the first half of the twentieth century. In a lot of ways, this course of study was actually a return to what had always interested me even as a really young person. I have very vivid memories as a middle schooler visiting the Schomburg Center in Harlem and the African Burial Ground in Lower Manhattan and being incredibly moved by the stories that those places preserved. I remember being really curious about what it might be like to interpret the past even though I didn’t know many people in my personal life who did that kind of work, and that career was not something often discussed in school. Additionally, throughout my life, even through different phases of my academic journey and career pivots, I have always thought a lot about ancestry, belonging, and how to make sense of where I come from in the absence of readily available archives. Taken together, those curiosities have led me to my current course of study. Ultimately, after I’ve earned my doctorate, I hope to continue writing for the public while also working in museums and cultural heritage institutions, much like the ones that nurtured my early interests in Black history.

How do you understand the work you do now as bringing about a world that ought to be?

I’m not a person who believes that the problems that we’re presently grappling with as a society are direct mirrors of the past, and I think we ignore a lot of important nuances when we make that claim. However, I do think that a lot of questions about how we arrived at our current predicament can be answered by studying and better understanding history. I hope that studying American history -- particularly Black history in the immediate wake of the Civil War-- will better equip me to provide solutions for or at least offer frameworks for how to understand issues related to racial equity.

I also think that telling the truth about the past is reparative and helps communities in ways that may not be tangible but are nevertheless really significant. In my opinion, the world that “ought to be” is one where people are honest about both what is happening presently and what has happened in the past, and I understand the work that I’m doing now as an exercise in truth-telling and demanding that people be more honest.

Are there any upcoming projects or life events you’d like to share with us?

Yes! I’m currently finishing my first book. It focuses on how incarceration impacts women, girls, and femmes. I’m telling the story through the lens of two former Black boarding schools in Kansas and New Jersey that were forced to close immediately following the Brown v. Board decision and were later converted into a women’s prison and girls' detention center, respectively. Otherwise, I’m just continuing my studies and continuously trying to explore Philadelphia, where I currently reside.