Sixth-grade students at Monterey Park Elementary cap the month with a series of thought-provoking presentations.

Godfather of soul James Brown was friends with Martin Luther King Jr. Serena Williams struggled before matching her sister Venus in tennis stardom. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass was into women’s rights, and rapper Queen Latifah could probably whoop your ass in both karate and basketball. No matter what you don’t know yet about African-American men and women who built America, Black History Month is the time to find out.

At Monterey Park Elementary School in Salinas, thanks to Glenda Bell who teaches sixth grade, Black History Month is a big deal. The preparation starts in December, before the winter break, which is a good time for students to go to the library and pick a book, pick another one if they have to, or change their mind altogether and switch between centuries. Their hero can be a man or a woman, dead or alive, but everybody gets to present. Bell will make sure that the chosen reading is on a student’s level, but no one gets left out.

This Feb. 24, Juan Pablo Salcedo told the story of Bass Reeves, the first Black Deputy U.S. Marshal. “Bass Reeves had 10 children,” Pablo says, dressed in a hat and a jacket so big that on him, it looks like a coat. He operates the microphone like a pro and adds: “He never showed the slightest fear.” To multiply the effect, he presents his audience with “some handcuffs,” he says, “and that’s it,” he finishes. He follows up with a professional: “Are there any questions?”

There are. Many hands shoot in the air and some questions can be challenging (“Did Reeves’ owner have other slaves or did he have only him?”), but the audience is not shy in their search for knowledge and wants to know everything, sometimes in great detail. When the natural exchange between the presenter and the rest of the students exhausts itself, Bell chimes in and fills the gaps.

“Are you going to be a tennis player?” she asks Jayden Lopez, who decided to present “the story of two sisters,” Venus and Serena Williams and came to school in full tennis attire. (Lopez isn’t sure yet, but the story of tennis prodigies appeals to him.)

Bell believes she was chosen to be a teacher. A former government contractor employee, she found herself back at school as a mother of three children, building her career from scratch with the help of her supporting husband.

“Before I started, I thought that I could barely reach my own kids,” she says. “But it turned out I really enjoyed it.” As a result, Bell, who moved her family to Monterey County in 1986, has been teaching for 22 years, celebrating Black History Month each and every year.

“Many years have passed since Ruby Bridges went to school, but my students still struggle,” she says. “I want them to know that there’s no shame in being Black.

“We discuss it all,” Bell says about the process behind these presentations. “What a primary source is, bibliography, plagiarism. I teach them sequencing: how to present in order, use maps, geography and culture.”

Jaylen Rhyans spoke about James Brown dressed in black pants and white vest (the class listened to the lyrics of “This Is A Man’s World”) and Dominic Sanchez chose Frederick Douglass, bringing a walking stick (Douglass received one from Abraham Lincoln). The audience was particularly fond of a story of Sarah Forbes Bonetta delivered beautifully by Matthew Galaviz. This “African Princess in Victorian England” was Queen Victoria’s goddaughter. Her love for England and the queen cost her her health and, ultimately, her life.

“It’s important to know that Meghan Markle is not the first person of color who was part of the British court,” Bell says.

There has been a special display on the walls outside and inside the classroom, where a Black History Month wall shares space with artifacts that don’t disappear from Bell’s classroom no matter what month it is. “Kindness is the highest form of intelligence,” says the biggest poster of all.