October 28, 2015
Page 7
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O PINION
#BlackLivesMatter: A Rallying Cry for our Times
The fight for
equal access and
opportunity
m Arc h. m oriAl
While it is obvious to
many of us that all lives
matter, it is not so ob-
vious that in our great
nation founded on the
principles of equality and
justice that black lives matter.
Young black men are at 21
times greater risk than young
white men of being shot dead by
police officers, according to a
ProPublica analysis of available
federal data. New laws guided by
the old strategies of voter suppres-
sion are aimed at reducing black
turnout at the polls. Sixty years
after the groundbreaking Brown
vs. Board of Education ruling that
put an end to legal segregation
in American public schools, the
practice is greater now than it was
then.
And along with the resurgence
of segregation comes an ever-wid-
by
ening achievement gap between
white students and students of
color. In our separate schools and
classrooms, we find separate and
unequal levels of achieve-
ment, and the separate
and unequal distribution
of resources necessary to
narrow or eliminate the
achievement gap.
Despite our nation’s
most sustained period
of job creation since the
devastation of the Great Reces-
sion, the black unemployment rate
is consistently twice that of their
white peers.
When we say “Black lives mat-
ter,” we acknowledge that while
our nation has made significant
and important strides its journey
to create a more perfect union—
the scales of equality and justice
are still not balanced for all.
The “Black Lives Matter”
movement was created after the
acquittal of George Zimmerman
for the tragic and avoidable death
of Trayvon Martin. Since its cre-
ation, many more unarmed black
and brown men and women have
been killed at the hands of vigilan-
tes and police officers. And, more
often than not, their murderers are
not held accountable.
But if police tactics were the
sparks that set off firestorms of
outcry, protest and demands for
change from New York to Mis-
souri, and beyond, we know that
seemingly intractable poverty,
long-term joblessness and the pol-
lution of hopelessness were the
tinder.
In our fight to save our cities,
The National Urban League has—
and will—continue to respond and
shed light on the problems and
inequities around education, jobs
and justice, as well as offer what
is needed most: solutions.
On the justice front, we pre-
sented our 10-Point Plan for Jus-
tice and Police Accountability
to President Obama’s taskforce
on 21st century policing. We are
committed to being an active part
of the solutions that move our na-
tion to deliver on its promise of
fair treatment by law enforcement
for every American.
We have also added our voice
and proverbial muscle to the call
that Congress hold hearings on
the Voting Rights Advancement
Act and commit itself to protect-
ing all of our nation’s citizens
against voter suppression. When
it comes to jobs, we single-hand-
edly put 16,000 people to work
through our job-training pro-
grams. We also successfully ad-
vocated for key provisions that
were ultimately included in the
federal government’s Workforce
Innovation and Opportunity Act.
Those provisions do the real work
of training our workforce for 21st
century jobs and connecting those
employees with jobs that pay liv-
ing wages.
On the education front, we con-
tinued to battle for equity in edu-
cational outcomes and resources.
Our multimedia campaign, “Put
Our Children First,” strengthened
our continued support for Com-
mon Core state standards. We are
also advocating along with a va-
riety of civil rights, social justice
groups and business leaders to get
Congress to re-authorize the Ele-
mentary and Secondary Education
Act. Fifty years ago, President
Lyndon Johnson recognized that
eliminating racial and econom-
ic disparities in education would
play a critical role in building a
more just society. Fifty years later,
we are still fighting towards that
goal.
If we, as a nation, are serious
about our claim that all lives mat-
ter, it is paramount that we not
only acknowledge the mounting
disparities, but we begin to im-
plement the solutions that open up
opportunity and justice to margin-
alized communities—only then
will all lives truly matter.
The cry that “Black lives mat-
ter,” doesn’t mean that those are
the only lives that matter in our
country; it means black lives
matter, too. Our nation’s citizens
must be offered equal access and
opportunity to quality education,
jobs with living wages and fair
treatment under our nation’s sys-
tem of justice for all lives to truly
matter.
Marc H. Morial is president
and chief executive officer of the
National Urban League.
Teaching the Truth about America’s History
When a school
textbook distorts
slavery
m AriAn W right e delmAn
Were my African ancestors,
who were stolen at gunpoint from
their homes and families, dragged
in chains into the dark and crowd-
ed into the cargo hulls of ships for
the often-fatal Middle Passage,
and then brutalized, beaten, and
forced into chattel slavery for
generations, just like many of the
other “immigrants” who came to
America in order to “work?”
Pearland, Texas student Coby
Burren, 15, didn’t think so when he
saw this caption in his World Geog-
raphy textbook under “Patterns of
Immigration”: “The Atlantic Slave
Trade between the 1500s and 1800s
brought millions of workers from
Africa to the southern United States
to work on agricultural plantations.”
About 150,000 other Texas high
school students received the same
textbook in their history classes
this year, and many of them may
have mistaken that caption for
truth. Coby knew it was wrong and
texted his mother a picture to show
her what he was being “taught.”
After his mother Roni Dean-Bur-
ren, a University of Houston doc-
by
toral student, took a closer look,
she shared a video on social media
documenting her outrage over the
geography book’s mischaracteriza-
tion of slavery.
Both Coby and his mother were
willing to stand up and speak out
about this distortion of
our national past which
haunts our present and
continues to threaten
our future. Within hours
McGraw-Hill, the book’s
publisher,
apologized
stating they “conducted a close re-
view of the content and agree that
our language in that caption did not
adequately convey that Africans
were both forced into migration
and to labor against their will as
slaves.” They announced plans to
make online changes immediately
and reissue a corrected version of
the book.
After Ms. Dean-Burren and
others raised concerns about the
initial promise to fix the next print
edition, given that many districts
who already have purchased one
edition will not buy another for
several years, McGraw-Hill an-
nounced it will distribute revised
textbooks and/or stickers to cor-
rect the caption to all schools that
own the current edition.
I’m very proud of Coby who
has attended the Children’s De-
fense Fund Freedom Schools pro-
gram where he was exposed to
excellent and carefully selected
books that teach the truth about
American and African American
history and culture. He learned
what I hope all children of all rac-
es learn—that he was
not too young to make a
difference in his family,
school, community, na-
tion, and world.
And I’m very grateful
Coby’s mother joined
her son to demand an accurate
recounting of forced slavery in
our nation whose legacy haunts
us still. Their actions may make a
difference for thousands of other
Texas students who would have
continued using geography text-
books with inaccurate and mis-
leading language for years.
Parents everywhere must be vig-
ilant about the books their districts
are choosing for their children,
read them and, like Ms. Dean-Bur-
ren, not be afraid to speak up when
changes are necessary. Perhaps we
need to have parent book clubs to
read and discuss the accuracy of
history and geography textbooks
their children read.
While it is unclear who was fi-
nally responsible for this caption,
there have been other concerns
about the way Texas education
officials influence the content
of textbooks and the teaching of
history. Because Texas is such a
large textbook purchasing market
with more than 5.2 million K-12
public school students, publishers
may often capitulate to requests
for changes that meet some state
curriculum demands. Once books
have been created that meet Texas
standards the same texts may be
distributed in other states.
Another controversy erupted
recently when groups in Tex-
as were joined by those in other
states including Oklahoma, Geor-
gia, Nebraska, North Carolina,
and Tennessee and the Republican
National Committee in challeng-
ing the College Board’s updated
framework for Advanced Place-
ment U.S. History courses. The
College Board develops the tests
taken by all students in Advanced
Placement courses nationwide,
and critics said the framework
emphasized “negative” aspects
of American history too much
without enough emphasis on oth-
er areas like the Founding Fa-
thers, military achievements, and
“American exceptionalism.” In
July the College Board announced
a revised framework that included
some of these suggested changes.
Who is writing and influenc-
ing the history our children are
taught? Should a few education
officials in Texas or any state
drive decisions about what all of
our children learn or sugarcoat the
truth? Coby and his mother did the
right thing and students should not
have to be the last line of defense
against untruthful and even offen-
sive materials getting into their
school backpacks. Only the truth
can make us free. George Orwell
reminded us that “he who controls
the past controls the future.”
We must go forward in our
multiracial multicultural nation
and world and not slide back-
wards toward the dark legacies of
slavery, Native American geno-
cide, and exclusion of women
and non-propertied men of all
races from our electoral process
by our founding fathers. And we
must work tirelessly to eradi-
cate their continuing effects on
our national life and the growing
voices of those who want to turn
back the clock of racial and eco-
nomic progress reflected in mass
incarceration, voter suppression,
an unjust criminal justice system,
separate and unequal schools, and
massive poverty and economic in-
equality that plague us still. Only
the truth can make us free.
Marian Wright Edelman is
President of the Children’s De-
fense Fund.