Part
of our repair as an African people is the continued struggle
to organize in order to challenge the teaching of African and
Africans in America history in the public schools of America.
This should be high on the agenda of the Reparations Movement.
Throughout
the development of education in the western world, the idea
of transmitting knowledge has been done through what is called
a curriculum. It is through this curriculum that people are
taught the values, concepts, principles, and theories that
undergird the basic philosophy of any agreed upon knowledge.
This agreed upon knowledge is called a discipline.
In
the late 1960s, the Black Liberation Movement charged American
educational institutions as being racist and white supremacist.
One of the movements that developed as a result of these charges
was the call for a more accurate and thorough recognition of
the contributions of Africans in America and African people
worldwide, to be included in the curricula of elementary, secondary,
and higher education.
This movement became known as the Black Studies Movement.
Throughout America, particularly on college campuses and high
schools, battles unfolded for the revision of curricula that
were racist in their interpretations of history and its impact
on African people.
The demands of the Black Liberation Movement were
so forceful (in some instances buildings were seized by students
demanding Black Studies be taught at their schools) that many
universities began to develop Black Studies programs. On the
secondary and elementary level, in many school districts throughout
the United States, task forces were developed to study, evaluate,
and recommend changes in public school curricula, regarding
the contributions and history of African people in the world.
It has been well over thirty years
since the call was made for Black Studies and since the first
Black program
was established at San Francisco State University, after months
of intense battle with university officials by African in America
students.
During
this current climate of so-called educational reform, very
little discussion has taken place regarding the continued racism
and white supremacy of American public school curricula. The
great movement of the 1960s and 70s put the issue of Black
Studies on the American agenda, but like many issues of the
1960s, they have either fallen by the wayside or have been
put on the back burner.
The concern has shifted from what is being taught
to African in America children, to the problems with skill
development in reading and math. There must be a balance in
our concerns, not just regarding skill development, but for
what is taught. To have African in America children skilled
and proficient at reading and math, but having no idea of who
they are or from where they came, will repeat the historical
errors of education that Carter G. Woodson so insightfully
discusses in his 1933 publication, Miseducation of the Negro.
[editor's note: this book is available through Amazon.com.
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The Black Commentator.]
We must not abandon the struggle to demand that the
public school curricula in America be changed to reflect an
accurate interpretation of the history, culture, and contributions
of African people in math, science, language arts, art and
social studies. At the Ninth National Convention of the National
Black United Front (NBUF) in 1988, in Kansas City, Missouri,
the decision was made to place education as a major priority
in our National Plan of Action in the work that NBUF carries
out in all of its chapters.
NBUF drew on the success
of the Portland Chapter members of NBUF, who were able to organize
the African
in America
community in Portland to demand significant changes be made
in what is called the baseline
areas of the curriculum, as it relates to African people. Some
of the best African minds in the world, such as our distinguished
ancestor Dr. John Henrik Clarke, and Dr. Asa G. Hilliard, III
were brought in as consultants to help rewrite the curriculum
of the Portland Public Schools. This document has become known
as “The Portland Model” and has been implemented selectively
in other school districts around the country, particularly
in cities where there are NBUF Chapters. However, we are still
at the embryonic stages of its implementation.
NBUF maintains that, “The
issue of education, when properly approached, is a mass issue
that,
when won, will have
a mass impact on the minds of millions of Black youth and thousands
of Black youth locally. Portland NBUF has demonstrated that
a well organized Black community behind a core of dedicated
NBUF members can force local school boards to adopt an African
Centered Program of curriculum change along with other changes
that will be called for in each locality.”
For the sake of our children, we must take on this
challenge as we continue to build the Reparations Movement.
BlackCommentator.com columnist
Conrad W. Worrill, PhD, is the National Chairman of the National
Black United Front (NBUF). Click
here to contact Dr. Worrill.