Blacks Boycott USA Apartheid Schools

2007-06-30T09:51:00.000-07:00

Cross-Posted at the Francis L. Holland Blog.

USA TODAY TABLE

Whereas the US Supreme Court, in its decision in Parents Involved In Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 et al has overruled and eviscerated its previous decision in Brown v. Board of Education that nominally ended America’s “separate but equal” apartheid doctrine under which Black children were routinely educated separately and unequally, and

Whereas even before this most recent decision, Harvard University researchers and others determined that, “After greatly increasing desegregation of public schools a generation ago, the United States public education system is now steadily consolidating a trend toward racial resegregation . . .” New National Study Finds Increasing School Segregation

Whereas this decision will inevitably result in reinforcing the segregation of America’s schools,

Whereas the national graduation rate of Black children is only 56%, with 44% failing to complete a high school education and therefore receiving little of value that will prepare them for the job market and economic success, and

Whereas:

Students in a handful of big-city school districts have a less than 50/50 chance of graduating from high school with their peers, and a few cities graduate far fewer than half each spring, according to research released on Tuesday.

Fourteen urban school districts have on-time graduation rates lower than 50%; they include Detroit, Baltimore, New York, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas, Denver and Houston.

. . . Among the nation's 50 largest districts, the study finds, three graduate fewer than 40%: Detroit (21.7%), Baltimore (38.5%) and New York City (38.9%),

Whereas the US Government and the governments of cities and states where Blacks live refuse to provide an adequate education for Black children, and

Whereas it is the obligation and responsibility of Black parents and Black people generally to assure that our children are educated, and

Whereas the explosion of Internet access in Black communities makes it possible to provide Black-oriented educational materials for our own children in our communities that are far superior to those typically offered to them in the white-oriented and white-controlled public schools, and

Whereas we cannot be compelled to send our children to schools that are separate and demonstrably unequal and where, in any case, they are not being educated, and

Whereas many Black students are already effectively boycotting white America's inferior white supremacist apartheid schools,

Therefore, Blacks now announce our determination to:

(1) Engage in a national boycott of white America’s public schools, and

(2) Organize local Black parents, Black professionals and organizations to provide high-quality education for Black students that will permit our children to meet and exceed the requirements to obtain General Equivalence Diplomas, and

(3) We announce our determination to organize African-American Freedom Schools in our homes, churches, community organization and Black-controlled work-places, formally and informally, to provide for our educational needs as we see fit, and

(4) We announce our determination that we will not apply for or accept state-sanction to engage in the above activities because we have an inherent right to educate our children ourselves when the state refuses to do so.

Therefore, let it be understood that the effect of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Brown v. Board of Education is that Blacks will assume authority and responsibility for educating our children ourselves and white supremacist apartheid America can go . . . segregate itself.