Event: Stop School Closings in Chocolate City
An Attack on Education is an Attack on the Black Community
Africans in the United States have a long history of resistance to encroachment and meddling within the indispensable aspect of education.
Those who have sought to control the minds, labor and overall communities of American born Africans, have known quite well how vital it is that they manipulate as many aspects of their educational systems as possible.
Enslaved Africans were forbidden from reading or writing—often punishable by death or inhumane physical abuse. Slave masters and white society, in general, very well knew that by limiting Africans access to education (writing and reading), they, in turn, limited the overall prospects of empowerment and liberation of Africans.
However, Africans found inventive ways to gain an education even in these most oppressive situations. They employed secret systems of socialized education whereby if one gained an education, the information learned could be taught to others.
As a result, underground schools were established by Africans which led to higher literacy amongst the enslaved populations and prior to Brown v. Board of Education there were approximately 146 black/African boarding schools.
Today there are four. Despite the mainly superficial gains of the historic 1954 ruling that desegregated this country’s public school system; institutionally racist attacks on African youth subsist.
Africans lost complete control over the educating of their most valuable resource—their youth.
One of the most prominent weapons used against black and brown youth is that of the Charter School scheme—the corporatizing of public education.
Despite evidence showing that Traditional Public Schools frequently outperform Charter Schools (Stanford University’s CREDO Report) the corporate media and untruthful politicians continue their false propaganda crusade, in an effort to further privatize public schools in communities of color.
African communities within The District of Columbia continue to face an onslaught of attacks on their public schools which is essentially a continuation of the attack on African education.
School closures, privatization of public schools, and tracking for the nefarious school to prison pipeline are some of the significant reasons the DC chapter of the Black is Back Coalition (BIBC) is actively organizing to put a halt to these vicious attacks, starting with the 2013 slated school closings. BIBC is unequivocally committed to this issue.
BIBC has never bought into the false propaganda often promoted by disingenuous white liberals, and conservatives, alike. We understand the catastrophic impact that institutional racism has, and continues to have on African communities.
In 2013 the United States’ public educational system is just as racially segregated as it was when Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated. However this re-segregation has left public schools within African communities in the hands of non-African entities.
This despicable plan has set African communities up for targeted attacks and manipulation. BIBC aims to work with DC’s African communities in an effort to gain greater African control of our schools, our communities and, thus, our collective destinies.
On February 28, 2013 at 7 PM The Black is Back Coalition DC will be hosting a vastly important community town hall forum addressing the slated 2013 school closures.
This forum will be on the campus of Howard University in the Blackburn Center Digital Auditorium.
We are inviting all concerned community members to attend this forum in an effort to strategize and organize around this vital issue.
We must prevent the closing of these schools, as they would have myriad negative effects on students, as well as their families.
DC’s government officials, including DC Public School Chancellor Kaya Henderson, continue to show no respect or regard for the youth in these communities and the negative impact the school closings would have on their families.
BIBC cares about DC’s African community, which is why we are actively organizing to help stop these closures, as well as to prevent the charter school from metastasizing further within DC.
We invite you to join us February 28, 2013 at 7 PM to learn more about the Black is Back Coalition DC, the work we are doing, and how you can get involved to help stop the attacks on public education in African communities.
For more information please contact us by email info@blackisbackcoalition.org or by phone (202) 681-7040.
