Educational resources for:
Education and Families: Building Opportunity and Community
Thematic Overview
De facto segregation persisted to varying degrees throughout the period covered by ABJ, even as landmark court decisions removed the legal props to the system. ABJ shows illustrate the black community's unwavering commitment to education as the pathway from poverty to prosperity and social justice. They examine the struggles over policy, access, curriculum, and resources at the heart of the black community's efforts to revitalize public education and infuse it with values drawn from neighborhood, church, and family.
Featured Show Segments
Comprehension Questions
Questions:
What are some of the problems the students at Northeastern High School identify about their school and the education they are receiving?
Why does host and narrator Tony Brown think it is important for viewers to pay attention to the concerns raised by the students?
Questions:
In the documentary report, what are some of the difficulties people describe that limit efforts to reduce gun violence?
Questions:
How does “Joe” explain the violence and the involvement of young teens in violent activity?
Questions:
What does professor Hartford Smith see as the key problems that are driving the rise in youth violence?
Questions:
According to Bobby Seale, what is the purpose of education?
Questions:
How does board member Alonzo Bates justify board spending on travel?
Questions:
What does board member Clara Rutherford offer as evidence of Detroit Public Schools success?
Questions:
What is Susan Watson’s view of the school board members’ spending priorities?
Questions:
What kinds of problems do the panelists describe encountering at Wayne State and at Olivet College?
Questions:
What explanations do the students interviewed by Dianna Craig offer for the racial tensions that exist on campus?
Questions:
According to Darryl Dawsey, why should African Americans study their own history and culture?
Questions:
What was the pledge that school officials asked parents to sign?
What does Teola Canty, President of the Detroit PTA, feel was one of the important outcomes of the meetings held that day in Detroit’s schools?
Questions:
What does George Vaughn say will be done to reach parents who did not sign the pledge?
Questions:
Why was there some disagreement over the use of hall and locker sweeps and metal detectors to find weapons smuggled into schools?
Questions:
How does board member Alonzo Bates justify board spending on travel?
Questions:
What is Susan Watson’s view of the school board members’ spending priorities?
Questions:
What is Susan Watson’s view of the school board members’ spending priorities?
Questions:
According to Cornel West, what impact has America’s market culture had on families?
Questions:
How does Cornel West describe the popular image of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.?
What does West say is the challenge facing black leadership in the struggle to have society address the concerns of African Americans?
Questions:
What does Cornel West say about the relationship between love and hope?
Questions:
According to Bobby Seale, what was the big turnaround that black people in America made during the 1960s?
Thematic questions
How would you compare the views of Cornel West and Bobby Seale on the importance and purpose of education?
Looking at programs, such as “School Crisis,” “Detroit School Board,” and the “Making of a Rioter” segment, how would you describe the range of problems facing inner city schools in Detroit?
Considering such things as Cornel West’s description of the impact of the economy on families and the emphasis in the “School Crisis” program on the participation of parents, how would you describe the connection between families and education?
Websites
NAACP Detroit Youth Council
http://www.detroitnaacp.org/youth/youthcouncil.asp
This is a section of the NAACP’s Detroit Branch site which provides information concerning that branch’s youth and education initiatives.
SNCC – Six Years of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee
http://www.ibiblio.org/sncc/
This site focuses on the first six years of SNCC’s existence, from its origin at Shaw University through the appointment of Stokely Carmichael as chairman. The site highlights SNCC’s key players as well as investigates issues defining the organization such as non-violence, white liberalism, feminism, Vietnam and black power.
Jesse Jackson’s “Keep Hope Alive” Speech Before the 1988 Democratic National Convention
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/sayitplain/jjackson.html
This site provides an audio file as well as transcript for Jackson’s 1988 “Keep Hope Alive” speech. Part of American Radio Works Say It Plain – A Century of Great African American Speeches archives, this site includes a Jackson biography as well as context for his two 1980s bids for the White House.
Brown v. Board of Education Digital Archive
http://www.lib.umich.edu/exhibits/brownarchive/index.html
This site illustrates the importance of the Brown Supreme Court case in shaping educational policy from the 1950s through the present. This digital archive is divided into four areas: Supreme Court cases; integration efforts in the urban north; integration of the Ann Arbor Public Schools; and contemporary re-segregation issues. Oral histories, bibliographies, statistics and links of interest are some of the types of materials found within this archive.
The Jackson Davis Collection of African American Educational Photographs
http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/collections/jdavis/
Housed at the Small Library at the University of Virginia, the Jackson Davis Collection contains the photographs and papers of Jackson Davis, an educational reformer. An amateur photographer, Davis’ work sought to bring to light inequality in Southern African-American schools with the hope of improving such conditions. This site contains a searchable database of photographic images as well as links to other sites focusing on education in the Jim Crow South.
February One: The Story of the Greensboro Fourhttp://www.pbs.org/independentlens/februaryone/
A PBS site focusing on the Independent Lens film February One. This film chronicles the initial Woolworth’s sit in by four North Carolina A&T State University students in 1960. The companion web site provides background context to the story as well as lesson plans for K-12 educators.
UC Berkeley Library Social Activism Sound Recording Project: The Black Panther Party
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/pacificapanthers.html
This site provides a contextual chronology of the Black Panther Party from its roots in student activism of 1960 through H.Rap Brown’s 2002 sentence to life in prison without parole. Found here are numerous references to documentary films, books and other materials related to the Black Panther Party. It also contains audio files and transcripts of several Black Panther speeches, including those given by Bobby Seale.
Related Films
The Intolerable Burden
VHS/DVD. 56 minutes.
Directed by Chea Prince. New York: First Run Icarus Films, 2003.
This film examines the struggle of African Americans to obtain a quality education through the experiences of the Mae Bertha and Matthew Carter family of Drew, Mississippi. It documents the African American educational experience from pre-Brown days through the family’s difficulties during desegregation, including white resistance and efforts at resegregating public schools.
February One: The Story of The Greensboro Four
VHS/DVD. 61 minutes.
San Francisco: California Newsreel, 2004.
This film documents the events of February 1, 1960 when four African-American college students staged a sit-in at a Greensboro, North Carolina lunch counter. Their action is said to have revitalized the civil rights movement and sparked a wave of militant student activism influential during the 1960s.
What’s Race Got To Do With It? Social Disparities and Student Success
DVD. 49 minutes.
San Francisco: California Newsreel, 2006.
A resource specifically of interest to educators and youth counselors, this film follows a group of students over a sixteen week “intergroup dialogue program” where they discuss race related issues in education. These issues include such topics as social equality, affirmative action, and individual responsibility for facilitating change. Also see the film’s companion site: www.whatsrace.org This film is viewed as a “sequel” to the 1995 film Skin Deep, which engages issues from affirmative action to diversity through the eyes of college students.
Books
Chafe, William. Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina and the Black Struggle for Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.
An examination of the Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in at Greensboro, North Carolina. An exploration of America’s confrontation with its national dilemma – racism.
Gallien Jr., Louis B and Marshalita Sims Peterson. Instructing and Mentoring the AfricanAmerican College Student: Strategies for Success in Higher Education. Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, 2005.
A tool for guiding African-American students through the college/university experience, this book incorporates research with the personal experiences of the authors. The African-American collegiate experience is placed in historical/cultural context and provides strategies for ensuring student success.
Glasker, Wayne. Black Students in the Ivory Tower: African-American Student Activism at the University of Pennsylvania, 1967-1990. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002.
A case study of the University of Pennsylvania’s movement to increase its African-American enrollment and its results. It also chronicles the rise of black student activism at the university.
Tarpley, Natasha, ed. Testimony: Young African-Americans on Self-Discovery and Black Identity. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995.
A collection of essays and poetry by young African-American men and women. Written largely by recent college graduates, these works present various considerations on cultural, personal and political topics from racism in schools to the influence of black leaders such as Malcolm X.
Davis, Ossie and Ruby Dee. With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together. New York: William Morrow, 1998.
A memoir celebrating fifty years of marriage. Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee speak of their relationship and raising a family, their careers in entertainment, and their work as political and social activists.
Madhubuti, Haki R. and Maulana Karenga, eds. Million Man March/Day of Absence. Los Angeles: University of Sankore Press, 1996.
A commemorative anthology of the October 16, 1995 event. It includes commentary, illustrations, photography, poetry, speeches and other related documents.
Seale, Bobby. A Lonely Rage: The Autobiography of Bobby Seale. New York: Times Books, 1979.
The autobiography of civil rights activist and Black Panther.
Wilkinson, Brenda Scott. Jesse Jackson: Still Fighting for the Dream. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Silver Burdett Press, 1990.
This biography follows the life and career of Jesse Jackson, a civil rights leader who has twice sought nomination for the presidency of the United States of America. This work is part of a series – The History of the Civil Rights Movement – containing biographies of civil rights leaders.
Additional show segments and comprehension questions
Questions:
What is the main idea conveyed by the “commercial” in the segment?
Why do you think the program’s writers chose to present this idea in the form of a mock commercial?
Questions:
What is the point of the “Free Your Mind” hair straightening segment?
How would you compare this “Free Your Mind” segment to the “Free Your Mind” “commercial” for skin lightening cream – the one with the woman in front of her mirror? (see above video)
Questions:
What criticisms are raised by the national black newspaper cited in the report on the New York City teachers strike?
How do these criticisms compare with the concerns raised by Northeastern High School students in the “Making of a Rioter” segment?
Questions:
Why does Jackson believe the problems of crime and other immoral behavior are increasing?
Questions:
Why does Jackson think America should invest whatever it takes to make school secure?
Questions:
To what does Lena Horne attribute the strength of black women?
Questions:
What was the purpose of the students’ trip to Atlanta?
Identify as many of the six principles of nonviolence as you can.
Identify as many of the six steps for nonviolent social change as you can.
Questions:
How does Coretta Scott King describe Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of the Beloved Community?
What does Coretta Scott King say is needed to create that community?
Questions:
What does Coretta Scott King say is the purpose of the King Center?
Why does Coretta Scott King say that it is important to focus on values?
