Civil rights and genuine equity | |
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The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.
~ Ida B. Wells
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Jeanes Teachers
by Harry Boyte Senior Scholar in Public Work Philosophy and Co-founder Institute for Public Life and Work
This issue of the WIN Digest features lesser-known stories of Black leadership, resistance, and resilience. One such story featured in this Digest is about how Black women leaders built civic capacity in the context of segregation by leading in an enormous process of building democracy schools.
Booker T Washington, who is well known, stood in an ancient, tradition of African American preachers and teachers who used guile and subterfuge in intentional ways to create space for building institutions of black power, what we call free spaces. The Jeanes Teachers, the network of Black women teachers who supervised teachers in the Black communities across the south, organized communities to build over 5,300 Rosenwald schools and 10,000 libraries, with extensive support from HBCUs. The schools, almost all of which had libraries, were intentionally designed as free spaces in the era of segregation. For instance, schoolroom partitions could be rolled back after the school day so the community could meet and discuss projects and plans “without the preying eyes of whites,” as historian Joanne Able has put it.
The schools and libraries were centers of community life. They were also centers for citizenship education, with an educational philosophy that saw talent in every child and used multiple resources to bring such talent out – all crucial elements in addressing the “achievement gap” today. They challenged the white supremacy of segregation but also, largely through the political savvy of the Jeanes Teachers, were able to enlist the support of many southern whites who believed in African American educational advance. Many of their methods for bridging today’s racial divides are still relevant.
The Jeanes teachers can serve as examples for civic-minded teachers pressing for more recognition, voice, and dignity today. Meanwhile, the Rosenwald schools and libraries are a model for community-grounded democracy education, in a time of eroding student attendance after COVID and increasing citizen skepticism. The movement created foundations for the civil rights movement, schooling leaders such as John Lewis and poet Maya Angelou. It can help inspire the new movement of “democracy schools” needed again.
A link to the webinar is here.
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Ida B. Wells: A Chicago Stories Special Documentary |  | |
WTTW Chicago (YouTube channel)
There are few Chicago historical figures whose life and work speak to the current moment more than Ida B. Wells, the 19th century investigative journalist, civil rights leader, and passionate suffragist. WTTW brings you a new CHICAGO STORIES special that tells her story as never before.
Freed from slavery just six months after she was born, Ida B. Wells once described her childhood with her parents and siblings in Holly Springs, Mississippi as “happy.” But a tragedy would alter the course of Wells’ youth. As a young woman and teacher, she refused to give up her seat on a train car that she was told was reserved for white women. That incident launched the young Wells into her first public fight for justice.
Through writing, Ida B. Wells found her “real” self. As she put pen to paper, her words became an important tool to analyze, debate, and persuade readers on the issues of the day, particularly when it came to race and gender. But after the lynching of her close friend in Memphis, Wells found a new kind of power in her pen.
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The forgotten history of Black education in America
In honor of Black History Month, Porter Braswell explores W.E.B. Du Bois’ legacy and the concept of the “talented tenth.
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factcompany.com
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was a leading Black intellectual of the Progressive Era (and beyond). He was the first Black man to receive a PhD from Harvard, helped cofound the NAACP, and, over his 60-year career, published some of the most important literature on race relations in America...
“The Talented Tenth” reflects one side of a stormy debate about the role of education in Black Americans’ lives. From Du Bois’s perspective, Black people had been denied the fundamental humanity and civilization that education affords. And the late-19th-century focus on what we call “vocational training” was (perhaps inadvertently) preventing us from accessing education that helped us become better human beings, as opposed to money-making cogs:
“Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of the schools—intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it—this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life.” (“The Talented Tenth,” 1903)
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Two Americas
by Louisa Mancey, WE In The World
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In 1967, during the height of the fight for Civil Rights and equity for all, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr gave a talk called the Other America. In this, he highlights some of the challenges to bring about genuine equity when the realities of Americans were so vastly different that it was hard for those living on the other side to appreciate the conditions of others, even those within their communities and neighborhoods. In many talks like this, he paints a stark and brutal image of the lives of many people from many backgrounds and ethnicities that may not seem so different from those struggling for survival today, particularly those from the black community.
Since then, there have been many hard-won victories in and out of the courts for civil rights and equity. America is celebrated all over the world as leading the fight for equal rights and opportunities for all. Despite this, however, the evidence still shows two Americas living side by side with a wealth gap that is persistent and has not closed since it was first recorded in the 1960s. The fight for civil rights and ‘genuine’ equity is not over. The standard set by MLK is truly a lofty one that continues to inspire this fight for everyone to have the opportunity to experience a life of genuine equity.
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The history of Black people is also the history of Black parents refusing to allow the world to erase our stories...
Now, I am the father of two beautiful Black children. And like my mama, I have found a sanctuary and barracks in museums that tell Black stories. I believe there is no greater way to love our children than to connect them to their past and prepare them for the dangers they face in a country boiling with anti-Black hostility — a hostility that never died, but that crawls in the ground and the laws, and screams in the voices of our neighbors who say our equality would be their oppression.
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Color of Change: A Podcast on the importance of preserving accurate Black History
This first episode will be a conversation between Color Of Change President, Rashad Robinson, and Professor Kimberle Crenshaw founder of African American Policy Forum on the importance of preserving accurate Black History in the U.S. education system.
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Rules of the Game Podcast: Advocacy Wins!
In this episode, we highlight some of the victories nonprofit advocates have achieved at the state and federal levels (California).
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Bolder Advocacy: A Program for Alliance for Justice
Your organization has a right to contribute to, and push for, policy change, and Bolder Advocacy can help you better understand those rights. Check out their podcast Rules of the Game: Bolder Advocacy Podcast, invigorating stories of determination and success, and other great resources on their website.
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The Ida B. Wells Fund: Disrupting the Master Narrative |
The Ida B. Wells Fund provides a total of $250,000 in grants to aspiring Black Artists.
The Ida B. Wells Fund: Disrupting the Master Narrative honors the legacy of a trailblazing American investigative journalist who not only chronicled the horrific violence of lynching against African-Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries but debunked the narratives that fueled the violence.
The award recipients will be chosen by an interdisciplinary panel composed of expert curators, filmmakers, producers, other arts professionals, scholars, and winners from last year in a thorough, multi-step review process.
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Have you heard of industrial policy? | |
During the January Well-being Economy Cooperative Quarterly Meeting, we heard from Wendy Ake from the Othering & Belonging Institute and Demond Drummer of PolicyLink about the ways that policy development for a restorative well-being economy differs from traditional policy development. During the conversation, Demond Drummer shared the history of industrial policy and how it has affected our nation. Want to learn about new policy approaches to advance a well-being economy? Visit the Equitable Economies Policy Database: Equitable Economies Policy Database — WIN NETWORK
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