“4. Black Education Matters” in “Faith Made Flesh”

4 BLACK EDUCATION MATTERS A Legacy of Educating Black Children beyond the Walls of Public Schools

Lawrence “Torry” Winn

The struggle for quality education for Black children in the United States has been well documented. In Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka (1954), the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case for public education, the Supreme Court overturned the practice of separate but equal in public schools permitted by Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). In its 1954 ruling, the Court stated that the separate but equal doctrine was to end with “deliberate speed.” After the Brown decision, the courageous acts of the “Little Rock Nine,” Ruby Bridges in New Orleans, and Medgar Evers in Mississippi made it possible for all students to attend K–12 public schools and colleges regardless of race or ethnicity. Although these legal decisions and heroic actions led to educational opportunities for some students, public schools have failed the vast majority of Black students. They have experienced harm, harassment, and mediocre teaching in school districts controlled by predominantly white school boards and educators (Fisher 2008; Rickford 2016; Sleeter 2001; Souto-Manning and Winn 2019).

In response, Black communities have demanded that public schools change their curricula, hire more Black teachers, and teach culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson Billings, 1995). Since the 1960s, hundreds of Black education initiatives have been created to combat inequities in education. The sense of urgency to radically transform education is best expressed by Cheryl Ann Fisher, the cofounder of Shule Jumamose, an African-centered Saturday school for children in Sacramento: “We started Shule Jumamose because as parents and as Black people we are concerned about the education Black children are getting in public schools. Because it in no way re-enforces their well-being nor does it create a sense of pride” (“New Schools” 1971). In Sacramento, the Black Child Legacy Campaign (BCLC) and other educational programs/schools are heeding the call to “create a sense of pride,” highlight Black excellence, exemplify unity, and advocate for Black children in and beyond the walls of schools.

In this chapter, I explore some of the current inequities affecting Black students and the many ways in which the Black community in Sacramento has responded to public schools’ educational malpractice. Nearly all the research about Black families’ educational experiences and histories centers on major metropolitan areas such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. This chapter highlights Sacramento community efforts to provide Black excellence in education: a community college program (Oak Park School of Afro American Thought); a local Independent Black Institution (Shule Jumamose); two charter school organizations founded by Black leaders (St. HOPE Public Schools and Fortune Schools); a Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) Freedom School (Roberts Family Development Center), and a community education board (the Black Parallel School Board). These initiatives created a foundation for the BCLC on which to promote Black pride and love beyond the walls of Sacramento County’s public schools.

Say It Ain’t So: Sacramento Schools Leads California in Suspensions

For decades, policy makers, scholars, and data analysts published reports and studies illustrating the gaps between Blacks and whites in wealth, health, education, and housing (Badger et al. 2018; Coates 2014; Cohen 2015; Desmond 2017). African Americans leaders, parents, and community members knew for years that Black and Brown students were being suspended at alarming rates. In 2014, President Barack Obama’s administration released Civil Rights Data Collection: Data Snapshot School Discipline, a report detailing the racial disparities in suspension rates in public schools (U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights 2014). The next year, Wisconsin’s Race to Equity Report revealed that there were 3,198 school suspensions of Black students in Madison compared to 1,130 suspensions of white students; in addition, African American children were fifteen times more likely to be suspended than white children (Wisconsin Council on Children and Families 2013). These harms to Black students were highlighted in the 2016 Civil Rights Data Collection: Data Snapshot School Discipline prepared by the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights:

Black children represent 18% of preschool enrollment, but 48% of preschool children receiving more than one out-of-school suspension; in comparison, white students represent 43% of preschool enrollment but 26% of preschool children receiving more than one out-of-school suspension.
Black students are suspended and expelled at a rate three times greater than white students. On average, 5% of white students are suspended compared to 16% of Black students.
Although boys receive more than two out of three suspensions Black girls were suspended at a higher rate than girls of every other ethnicity or race.

Black students and their families in public schools in Sacramento, the city that was named “America’s most diverse city” by Time Magazine in 2002, were not spared from these inequities and injustices. Sacramento’s progressive politics, diverse City Council and School Boards, and racially integrated schools proved unable to protect Black students from these racial inequities and racist policies. School districts in Sacramento County such as the Sacramento City Unified School District, Elk Grove School District, Twin Rivers Unified, and San Juan Unified had the highest number of suspensions for Black males in California (Wood, Harris, and Howard 2018). Get Out! Black Male Suspensions in California Public Schools (2018) revealed that Black males were 5.4 times more likely to be suspended in Sacramento County than the statewide average rate of suspensions. In 2016 and 2017, Sacramento City Unified School District had suspended 20.7 percent of its Black male students, leading all districts in the proportion of Black males who were suspended. Other key findings of Get Out! include the following:

Eighteen Black males were suspended per day in Sacramento County public schools.
Of the twenty school districts with the highest rates of suspension for Black males in California, four are in Sacramento County.
Black males in early childhood education (kindergarten through third grade) are 9.9 times more likely to be suspended than their peers (statewide).

Black students are often over-policed, targeted, and profiled on and off school campuses. For example, in South Carolina an African American high school girl was dragged from her desk by a school resource officer (Winn 2020). In 2018, in Madison, a teacher grabbed the braids of an African American girl in middle school. The suspension data from these two reports, Civil Rights Data Collection: Data Snapshot School Discipline and Get Out! Black Male Suspensions in California Public Schools, reflect the ongoing criminalization of Black students in PK–12 schools. However, although some describe schools as part of the prison pipeline, scholar-activists Erica Meiners and Damion Sojourner argue against this characterization because it fails to capture the complexities and the histories of the ways schools, communities, and other systems push students out of schools. (Meiners 2011; Sojoyrner 2016, Winn 2019).

Countering Public School Failure: Community Models of Black Education

Despite the failure of schools to educate Black students, Black communities have found ways to ensure that their children receive the skills and knowledge necessary for success. In We Are an African People, Rickford (2016, 39) provides a historical overview of the various Independent Black Institutions established to instill Black pride, Black love, Black culture, Black value, and Black excellence: “Black parents, children, and activists, sought educational dignity and the right to define themselves within and beyond the classroom.” Similarly, Siddle Walker (1996, 141) highlights the success of Black teachers in the Casewell County Training School in North Carolina. Their goal was to develop relationships with students and their families, provide opportunities, and to ensure that every child reached “their highest potential.”

Data show that Sacramento County public schools prevent Black children from reaching their highest potential. Most schools center and normalize whiteness in their teaching and curricula. The values and beliefs of Black folk are neither prioritized nor acknowledged (Sleeter 2001). Carl Pinkston, the secretary of the Black Parallel School Board, recalled that at one community meeting, a parent reported, “I go to school boards and I am given only two minutes to talk and I can’t tell my story in two minutes of what is wrong with my kid … the people sit up there and don’t respond to me and don’t ask any question, I don’t know if they are interested … and there is no one who follows up after I mention of why is my kid is being suspended and not getting a quality education” (https://blackparallelschoolboard.com/).

Thus, school districts in Sacramento County have failed both the Black child and the parent. In 1973 Chicago native Hakki Madhubuti (1973, 47) called for Black parents and community leaders to be institution builders: “If you know what we want people to become, then you can specify what they should experience from birth to adolescence and they will become it. But to do this one must control institutions and Black people don’t control institutions.”

In the next section, I provide brief descriptions of past and current Black-led initiatives and organizations that advocate for Black students to have access to quality education that is inclusive, not harmful, and culturally responsive. All these educational initiatives align with BCLC’s goal of building supportive spaces for Black families and children to learn, grow, share, and experience joy. They all put community participation at the center of their work. Each organization and initiative collaborate with parents and local stakeholders to come up with educational goals that meet the needs of students and reflect best practices.

Oak Park School of Afro American Thought

During the 1960s, the Sacramento City College Black Student Union (BSU) became a powerful organization advocating for decolonizing education. BSU students were concerned about the lack of Black stories and experiences in traditional history classes. After negotiating with college president Sam Kipp, the BSU’s proposal for a center focusing on Black life and education came to fruition (Barth 2015). In the summer of 1969, the Oak Park School of Afro American Thought was established to connect college students to the Black community of Oak Park. James Fisher and several Sacramento City College professors offered courses such as “Ghetto Economics (Consumer Problems),” “Black Drama,” and “History 15” in the evenings to accommodate residents who were working during the day, parents, and those who were unable to pursue their degrees full-time. The Oak Park School of Afro American Thought lasted only a few years, but Black students’ determination to create an educational experience that reflected their values, history, and realities had a lasting impact.

Shule Jumamose

Cheryl A. Fisher along with several Black nurses, Martha Reid and Bertha Gorman, cofounded Shule Jumamose—an African-centered Saturday school located in Oak Park (Fisher 2008). The school was operated by a group of African American parents led by Dr. James Fisher, to teach Black children their history and culture that were not taught in public schools. The teaching philosophy was based on Nguzu Saba or the seven principles of Kwanzaa: Umoja (unity); Kujichaguilia (self-determination); Ujima (collective work and responsibility); Ujimaa (cooperative economics), Nia (purpose); Kuumba (creativity); and Imani (faith). The school, part of a national network for Independent Black Institutions, hosted Sacramento’s first Black film festival in 1970 and the first Kwanzaa ceremony in 1971 (Fisher 2008). Shule Jumamose became a beacon of community-engaged scholarship: local college students from California State University, Sacramento, and the University of California, Davis, taught courses, mentored youth, and volunteered at the school.

St. HOPE

After more than a decade of Sacramento schools failing to graduate Black students from high school, Kevin Johnson, who would later be the mayor of Sacramento from 2008 to 2016, founded St. HOPE Academy in 1989 to provide robust educational options for Black children and their families. It opened in a portable classroom at his alma mater, Sacramento High School, as an afterschool program serving schoolchildren and high school students in the local community. However, realizing that education alone would not change the futures of Black children and their families, St. HOPE soon adopted a holistic community development approach. With the 2003 opening of the 40 Acres Art and Cultural Center, a 25,000-square-foot mixed-use facility that included Underground Books, the Guild Theater, a café, and a barbershop, Oak Park became a destination for Black families. That same year, St. HOPE Public Schools was launched to provide a rigorous and quality urban pre-K–12 public education (sthope.org). St. HOPE Public Schools now include PS7 Elementary, PS7 Middle, Oak Park Prep, and Sacramento Charter High School. Most of the students at these schools are Black, and Sacramento Charter High School has the highest college-going rate for Black students in the state of California.

Fortune Schools

Dr. Rex Fortune, a school superintendent for twenty years, recognized the need for a more diverse teaching pipeline in science and mathematics (STEM) instruction. In 1989 he established the Fortune School of Education to prepare educators and train administrators to serve the most diverse school populations. Beginning in 2008, under the leadership of Margaret Fortune, Fortune Schools opened five public charter schools in Sacramento that are designed to close the opportunity gaps between white and African American children. Each of the five charter schools is named for a Black leader and offers a college-prep curriculum.

Roberts Family Development Center and Freedom Schools

The Roberts Family Development Center (RFDC) provides academic opportunities for more than 500 African American students and their families. Cofounded by Derrell and Tina Roberts in 2001, it is located in the Del Paso Heights community. It offers services at seven sites in under-resourced neighborhoods. Operating as an afterschool program and beyond the walls of the schools, RFDC aims to increase the life chances and educational options for African American students. It offers a “cradle to career pipeline” to support families by offering courses and trainings for both children and parents. In 2014, RFDC was selected to open a Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) Freedom School. This six-week program, serving more than 700 students, helps participants avoid summer learning loss by focusing on literacy and culturally relevant interactive activities. Students read books written by African American authors and interact with Servant Leader Interns throughout the day.

Black Parallel School Board

In 2007, the Sacramento Area Black Caucus Education Committee held a community meeting to discuss a report highlighting low test scores for local African American students. Parents were frustrated not only by their children’s scores but also by the lack of time (two minutes) to express their concerns at the Sacramento City Unified School District School Board meetings. In 2008, the Sacramento Black Parallel School Board (BPSB) was launched to work parallel to the Sacramento City Unified District Board of Education to monitor its activities and hold it accountable. The BPSB aims to ensure that Black students receive academic support to cultivate their educational growth. BPSB goals include the following:

Create a twenty-first-century learning community with high graduation rates, high rates of transfers from community college to four-year colleges, and near-zero suspension and expulsions
Train district staff in culturally responsive learning, restorative practices, and classroom management that focus on best-practice teaching strategies and Black learning styles
Formulate a district intervention plan for improving Black academic achievement and fostering positive social and emotional development
Decriminalize schools by supporting positive school environments
Achieve a significant increase in the California State test scores for African-descended students in the district
Make a realistic effort to have African-descended teachers make up 21 percent of the teaching force and an equitable increase in African-descended administration staff in the district with a 75 percent retention rate
Create a positive learning environment for all Black students with special needs and temporary settings (such as housing).

The Path Forward to Educating Black Children beyond the Classroom

It is imperative to address educational challenges through the community engagement of diverse institutional and organizational stakeholders. Schools are not isolated from society but are intricately embedded inside communities and cities (Noguera 2003). To address what happens within the schoolhouse, it is important that researchers consider the larger ecosystem of a child’s development (Bronfenbrenner 1979; Dance 2002; Watson 2012). This connects directly to the Black Child Legacy Campaign.

As do the educational efforts mentioned in the last section, BCLC centers Black culture, excellence, and success. Crystal Harding, a BCLC site leader, described BCLC as a space for Black folk to uplift one another and to discuss ways to reeducate and decolonize both the Black child and parent. It embodies the principles of Kwanza, which guide the offerings at Shule Jumamose. She added that the words “Black Child Legacy” in the organization’s name and its promotion of Black life and success positively affect Black students, who do not see these images or examples in their schools. Harding’s assessment of BCLC’s role in education aligns with the words of Madhubuti in From Plan to Planet: Life Studies: The Need for Afrikan Minds and Institutions (1973, 33): “Nobody can instill black values except Black people. Our abilities to conceptualize and to act for our future depends on who has been feeding us our concepts.”

As history has proven, public schools fail to educate the Black student because of a system that centers whiteness and devalues Blackness. Black-led educational programs and schools in the Sacramento Valley have sought various paths to instill Black values in Black children. The groundwork has been laid for the BCLC and its affiliates to “define themselves within and beyond the classroom” and become whom they believe their children to be.

REFERENCES

Badger, Emily, Claire Cain Miller, Adam Pearce, and Kevin Quealy. 2018. “Extensive Data Shows Punishing Reach of Racism for Black Boys.” New York Times, March 19.
Barth, T. 2015. “Catalyst for Change.” Sac City Express, February 6.
Bronfenbrenner, Urie, 1979. The Ecology of Human Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Coates, Tehisi-Na. 2014. “The Case for Reparations.” The Atlantic, May 21.
Cohen, Patricia. 2015. “Racial Wealth Gap Persists despite Degree, Study Says.” New York Times, August 16.
Dance, Lory J. 2002. Tough Fronts: The Impact of Street Culture on Schooling. New York: Routledge.
Desmond, Matthew. 2017. “How Homeownership Became the Engine of American Inequality.” New York Times, May 9.
Fisher, Maisha T. 2008. Black Literate Lives: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. New York: Routledge.
Ladson-Billings, Gloria. 1995. “But That’s Just Good Teaching! The Case for Culturally Relevant Pedagogy.” Theory into Practice 34, no. 3, 159–165.
Madhubuti, Haki R. 1973. From Plan to Planet: Life Studies: The Need for Afrikan Minds and Institutions. Chicago: Third World Press.
Meiners, Erica R. 2011. “Ending the School-to-Prison Pipeline/Building Abolition Futures.” Urban Review 43, no. 4: 547–565.
“New School Aims to Aid Black Youth.” 1971. Sacramento Bee, June 23.
Noguera, Pedro. 2003. City Schools and the American Dream. New York: Teachers College Press.
Rickford, Russell. 2016. We Are an African People: Independent Education, Black Power, and the Radical Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.
Siddle Walker, Vanessa. 1996. Their Highest Potential: An African American School Community in the Segregated South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Sleeter, Christine. 2001. “Preparing Teachers for Culturally Diverse Schools: Research and the Overwhelming Presence of Whiteness.” Journal of Teacher Education 52, no. 2: 94–106.
Sojoyner, Damien M. 2016. First Strike: Educational Enclosures in Black Los Angeles. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Souto-Manning, Mariana, and Lawrence T. Winn. 2019. “Toward Shared Commitments for Teacher Education: Transformative Justice as an Ethical Imperative.” Theory into Practice 58, no. 4: 308–317.
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Watson, Vajra. 2012. Learning to Liberate: Community-Based Solutions to the Crisis in Urban Education. New York: Routledge.
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5. Poetry as Pedagogy