“To bring about change, you must not be afraid to take the first step. We fail when we fail to try.” – Rosa Parks
As we embrace Black History Month and all the Black Excellence that it celebrates, I cannot help but view the month through the lens of an educator. As such, I see a dichotomy; a long list of accomplishments, inventions, milestones, and grand efforts achieved as much as because of the education of black people as despite it.
Reflecting on all that Black History Month propels to the forefront of America’s consciousness, the call to action for changes to an education system built to support an agrarian school calendar, designed to sort and select, segregated by the color line from its onset, rings loud and clear.
That bell has been rung by many heroes of past and present. Black History Month is a time to salute education heroes like Justice Thurgood Marshall, who successfully argued against the constitutional sanctions for segregation by race and made equal opportunity in education the law of the land in 1954. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education on May 17, 1954, marked a turning point in the history of race relations in the United States and sparked the Civil Rights movement.
Now in her 80s, Marian Wright Edelman connected her work as founder of the Children’s Defense Fund in 1973 and its fight for social justice to the urgency of that call today when she joined the Black Lives Matter protests this past summer. Wright, who made popular the phrase “every child is sacred,” is a living history of the work still necessary to make sure that equity for all students becomes the cornerstone of education and the bridge for historical and next generation Black Excellence. Mrs. Edelman now serves as president emerita and has handed the reins to Dr. Starsky Wilson, an activist and St. Louis minister.
Last month, I listened with an educator’s ear as Amanda Gorman, the nation’s first ever youth poet laureate, recited poetry during the 2021 Presidential Inauguration. I heard her describe our work as a hill to be climbed … “The hill we climb, if only we dare. It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit, it’s the past we step into and how we repair it.” Gorman has mentioned Maya Angelou, Audre Lorde, Yusef Komunyakaa, Tracy Smith, Phillis Wheatley and others as having shaped her work.
It also made me think of modern-day education idols like Geoffrey Canada, renowned around the world for his pioneering work helping children and families through the Harlem Children’s Zone, and Gholdy Muhammad, Georgia State University professor and author of Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy. Their repair work to raise the voices and exploit the potential of black students who have been marginalized and underserved by the education system is a steep hill to climb. They, along with educators and activists across the land, must continue that climb because it is the platform that ensures Black Excellence will flourish and cannot ever be stamped out.