Education
Education
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In 2020, We Must Demand a Black Education Agenda
As a black woman, mother and grandmother, the words I want to hear from presidential candidates on “public education” are this: How do we innovate for, build true academic progress around and save trapped black students from dysfunctional education systems? Full stop. Instead, what I’ve heard as candidates discuss education on the campaign trail—like what…
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White Privilege Gone Good: Uber Driver Graduates College After Passenger Pays Debt
Latonya Young is a grateful graduate. The Atlanta-based mother of three got a gift of a lifetime after a chance encounter chatting up a customer during her work shift. Young’s day job is hairstylist; she drives an Uber at night to make ends meet. She shared her life story with a passenger about how she…
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'Set Your Price for a Slave': St. Louis Teacher Placed on Administrative Leave for 'Culturally Insensitive' Homework Assignment
On the laundry list of things I wanted to be when I grew up, being a teacher was probably dead last. In part because I knew I’d never have the patience, but primarily because I knew I’d never get away with involving slave auctions in my assignments. That was sarcasm. Sadly, KMOV 4 reports that…
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Viola Davis Speaks Out Against Diabetes With New Documentary
With a career spanning over thirty years, Viola Davis is tackling a new venture to bring awareness to diabetes within the black community. Davis is no stranger to us; whether she’s getting away with murder on our screens or getting away with a slay in a photograph on our timelines, the actress has become a…
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The Crown Morehouse College Is Trying to Reach
As both Morehouse College and Spelman College celebrated their annual homecoming in late October—usually more than reason enough for me to make the trip to Atlanta—I had a little extra pep in my homecoming step. The weekend also coincided with Morehouse College’s “Experience The House” open house for prospective students and parents, and one of…
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Georgetown Sets Goal to Raise $400,000 to Fund Reparations for Descendants of Those It Enslaved, but Effort’s Getting the Side Eye From Student Activists
When Georgetown University students voted this spring to use student fees to pay reparations to descendants of the enslaved people Georgetown sold to keep its doors open in the 1800s, they made headlines in what’s become a national conversation on how to repay a very real debt owed to African Americans. But student activists at…
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Spelman College Creates First-Ever Queer Studies Chair at An HBCU With $2 Million Donation From Billionaire Jon Stryker
As the global leader of the liberal arts education of black women, Spelman College is keen on its tremendous responsibility to educate and empower the next generation of leaders and innovators. To that end, in a press release provided to The Root, the historically black college announced a matching gift of up to $2 million…
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Detroit Students Are Making a Federal Case Out of What They Say Was an Education So Poor, It Violated Their Constitutional Rights
An eighth-grader teaching his fellow students math for a month when the teacher quit. Third- and fourth-grade materials in high school classes. Playgrounds covered with broken glass and burst pipes in schoolrooms. These are some of the wretched conditions plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit charge they faced while being educated in Detroit’s public schools. They’re…
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Not With The F@#$ery: Kamala Harris Backs Out of Presidential Forum After Trump Receives Criminal Justice Award From HBCU
Kamala Harris may be alright after all. She’s not down with the f#$% shit and she sure ain’t drinking Kanye Kardashian Kool-Aid. The Democratic presidential hopeful announced she will skip a planned appearance at South Carolina’s Benedict College—the same HBCU that honored Poor POTUS for his criminal justice efforts. Ummmmm. Yes. That is correct. On…
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‘What the Hell …’?: Trump Touts Himself as the Best to Ever Do It for Black America Before an Audience of Allies at Benedict College Criminal Justice Forum
Donald Trump kicked off a three-day criminal-justice forum at South Carolina’s Benedict College on Friday, giving a racially fraught speech before an audience predominated by Trump friendlies and including few students from the HBCU. Trump was the headliner Friday at the “Second Step Presidential Justice Forum.” Billed as a bipartisan discussion of criminal-justice issues, the forum’s…