equity

Reading Time 1 min 26 sec By Nehemiah D. Frank, founder & editor-in-chief of The Black…

In Tulsa, schools with a large African-American student-population are failing some 51-years after the U.S. Justice Department filed suit against Tulsa Public Schools (TPS) to force a plan for desegregation.

Segregated and unequal schools replaced the anti-literacy laws that thrived during ‘legal’ institutionalized chattel slavery. When Brown v. Board of Education ruled ‘segregation’ unconstitutional, academic-intellectual segregation replaced Jim Crow.

A high-quality, well-rounded education—one that includes mathematics and reading as well as the sciences, social studies and civics, world languages, physical education, and the arts—prepares our children to thrive in college and careers, and as engaged members of our democratic society. And yet, students of color and students from low-income families continuously are denied their right to learn because we choose, as a society, to provide them with less.

I pray that my students will be so lucky enough to arrive in a classroom with a culturally competent teacher who looks like them and is passionately and unapologetically black. And should they not land in a class with a teacher who does not share the same racial ancestry, my next prayer is that they will encounter a benevolent teacher who will love and celebrate them as I have done. I pray they will gain a wonderful pedagogue or role model who will tell them that the sky is the limit for them and that they can be whatever their heart so desires.

“Aggressive.”

“Strong-willed.”

“Passionate.”

— have been words falsely labeled as simple descriptors when in actuality, they are evidence of the continued sexism and racism that plagues our society. Women in leadership have always faced adversity and are still seen as second-rate citizens in our country. We see this play out on a national level, but we also see this through daily interactions with those of privilege.

A public school meeting elevates the harsh existence of a divided Tulsa and the unfortunate, long-lasting tale — how two cities persist sixty-four years after Brown v. Board of Education (whereby, TPS integrated in the 1970s) and nearly ninety-seven years after the 1921 Tulsa Massacre.