The New York City Board of Education spends $22,500 each year on each of the more than one million students in the system. The New York City Public Schools have a 40% dropout rate. Only 60% of the students entering the ninth grade graduate four years later. Of that 60% only 1/4 are college ready.
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I listened to as much of President Obama's Chicago speech today as MSNBC and CNN would allow, with interruptions for advertisements and comments from "experts" unknowledgeable about Chicago or education. The president was appropriately passionate about the tragedies of Hydia Pendleton, acknowledged the presence of Haydia's parents and spoke passionately also of the murdered children and teachers of Sandy Hook.
When England seized Jamaica from Spain in 1655, the Africans held in bondage by the Spanish escaped into the interior of the island and began an 80 year struggle against the British. They came to be called Maroons. They set up independent African societies, complete with towns, crops and armies in the mountains and valleys
Ivan Van Sertima’s 1986 book, They Came Before Columbus, claims that Africans made a series of settlements in the Americas hundreds of years before Columbus set sail. The author cites a wealth of linguistic, historical and anthropological evidence, not to mention the written accounts and diaries of Columbus and other explorers who mention finding Black
"Chickens come home to roost." said Malcolm X in 1963 when President Kennedy was killed. Chickens wander all over during the day, but they always come back to their pens at night. Malcolm implied that the bloodshed that America practices all around the world had returned to haunt her. The same can be said about the
Have you ever wondered why February is Black History Month, the coldest and the shortest month of the year? Here is why. It was begun by historian Carter G. Woodson in 1926. At first it was called Negro History Week, and was observed during the second week in February in honor of Abraham Lincoln, whose birthday is
Everything has its opposite. Black has white. Night has day. Hard, soft. Hot, cold. If there was a Martin Luther King Jr., there had to be a Malcolm X. Martin Luther King, history remembers. Malcolm X, history tries to forget. But each man in his own way dominated the times in which he lived. .
We measure time by years, but why not call them Christmases? (Doesn’t each year end with one?) Christmas is the joy at the passage of time, New Years the sadness at time’s demise. But whether we call it the feast of the Midwinter Solistice, Christmas, New Years or Kwanzaa, it’s about time... As autumn wanes
Think about it. You are about to embark, once again, on the impossible dream. You will try to buy a gift for everyone, in the belief that everyone will buy a gift, of at least comparable value, for you. Of course no such thing will happen. Many will not even get you a trinket, and
Most of us living in the Diaspora do not know which African ethnic group or groups we hail from. And so, when we honor and revere the Motherland, we tend to see it as a whole. As we evoke this naturally Pan African vision, we tend to focus on ancient Egypt. As the Hyksos and