The Ohio State Department of Education published its goals for White students at 86.3 versus 63.4 for Black students, as reported by the Performance Index Subgroup Data. The NAACP Leadership made this presentation to the Roberts Deliberating Club (RDC), which is comprised of Black professionals and business leaders, last month, where data was rolled out that they found to be incredulous.
“If this is true, why is the community not more aware,” said Atty Charles Mickens, an RDC member.
“We are trying to make the community aware of this disparity which is why we are presenting it, said George Freeman, NAACP President. “It took a while to ferret out the details.”
“In March 2018, the State Superintendent didn’t even know that he could require teachers to teach the State standards,” said Freeman.
“When we pointed out to him that he had the power to order the teachers to comply and as of August 2018, there was an official order to do so.”
It took time to dig into the details, but the Ohio Department of Education Superintendent DeMaria has ordered the teachers to adhere to standards for the first-time in history, said Freeman.
That might sound unbelievable, but in retrospect, it is hard to fathom, but thanks to the leadership of the local and state NAACP, there has been intense and focused attention on providing remedies long overlooked.
DeMaria responded to a series of questions posed by the NAACP Education Task Force, one of them being, “Are all Ohio Licensed classroom teachers required to teach the State Criterion Reference Standards?”
His answer in a written response in August 2018 “There is no legal requirement specifically directed to teachers relative to teaching the State’s standards”.
DeMaria followed with the statement “standards are what is tested, one might suggest a strong motivation to teach the standards.”
The response came following months of digging into the data to prove that the fault of the failures falls squarely in the lap of the administration of both the State and the school District.
“If they don’t require it, strong motivation obviously has not had an impact” said Dr. McNair, president of the RDC. The 20 years of published report card failures prove a strong motivation does not make a requirement.”
“We often battle the misperception that poverty is the cause for low performance, but data has proven conclusively that race is a factor not understood or factored in the equation,” said Jimma McWilson, who chairs the State NAACP Task Force on ESSA and Preventing School Takeovers and serves as the Secretary of the local chapter.
Indeed, Steubenville, which mirrors Youngstown with a 100% poverty student population, has targets much higher and performance much higher. The missing link is addressing the race factor specifically, said McWilson.
When the State audit of the District was released it validated this important flaw which is obviously a key to success for students.
“You’ve heard of students graduating with high GPA’s that struggle in college because of the lack of preparation. That preparation weakness is a signal that the grades were not standard, but subjective based on the classroom teacher,” said Freeman.
“We’ve been at this for several years and the consistent clear message is that many educators don’t know the legal ramifications of their positions,” said Freeman.
“The rhetoric around teaching to a test has been bandied about, but the standards are what is required on college entrance exams” said Jerry Sutton, CPA and RDC member.
“Things like this have been happening for years and more people need to be aware of them. We could have kept them (NAACP) here for hours,” said Sutton.
Dr. McNair commended the NAACP leadership for keeping a keen focus on these details.
“We find it unbelievable that the standards have not been required, but rather suggested. And the fact that the State targets are so low for Black students only reinforces the fact, as earlier reported, the failure is not on the parents or poverty or even the teachers. It’s the leadership. If teaching the standards is not required or inspected, it can’t realistically be expected,” said McNair.
“What makes it so unfortunate is the Black community and the children’s future is in peril as a result. It is unconscionable,” said McNair.
“The big challenge is the R word,” said Dr. McNair. “When race is discussed as a problem White people often have a difficult time wrapping their heads around the problem. The data clearly indicates addressing race, and not poverty only, is a leadership, and a strategic planning issue that must be addressed head on.”
The Roberts Deliberating Club meeting was held at Mill Creek Community Center on Glenwood Ave, Youngstown, in December 15, 2018. The following link is to the State report card with the targets for improvement.
By Elizabeth Primas, NNPA ESSA Awareness Campaign Program Manager
States are in the driver’s seat when it comes to improving their struggling schools. But how can we make sure they’re not taking the “path of least resistance” when it comes to this important work, risking the academic prospects for students of color.
Building on the work done by Bellwether Education Partners, which conducted independent peer reviews of all 50 states’ and the District of Columbia’s ESSA plans that were required to be submitted to the U.S. Department of Education for approval, the Collaborative for Student Success analyzed plans to see which states are taking advantage of new-found flexibility regarding equity in education. The new report, Check State Plans: Promise to Practice, found that just 17 states met its threshold for even having enough public information to review. The report notes that the results are “sobering” in that “more than 9 million students attend schools that do not meet anyone’s standard for what is acceptable.” This is particularly acute for students of color and who come from low-income families.
The fact is, achievement gaps between white and black students exist. We see this time and again in the National Assessment of Education Progress as well as on individual states’ annual assessments. Students who attend inner city public schools tend to fare worse than their peers in suburban public schools. The gaps are even more pronounced when we look at private schools that draw privileged students away from city institutions. These racial divides segregate communities.
A report from the Young Invincibles examines these divides and developed three main findings: (1) minorities disproportionately enroll in for-profit and community colleges, which can condemn them to a vicious cycle of debt; (2) college costs hit minority students harder than their white peers; and (3) the achievement gap is racially divided. While 36.2 percent of white students completed four years of college in 2015, just 22.5 percent of black students could say the same, according to the analysis. While that’s much better than the 1974 numbers in which just 5.5 percent of black students finished four years of college compared to 14 percent of white students, that progress leaves little cheer.
State education chiefs and their in-state partners at teaching and research institutions plus educators on the front lines have a real chance to make a difference for black students and other minorities. But do they have the courage to make the necessary changes?
The Collaborative’s report is a good starting point, and it provides a roadmap written by education and policy leaders who are displaying the courage necessary to create bold plans that prioritize equity. Low-performing schools must be identified as such and be given real plans with real accountability measures to improve. There have to be consequences for students who don’t make the grade, but for too long, our education system as a whole has punished students by not giving them the tools they need to succeed. We have to look at the institutions and root out systemic problems.
As such, the Promise to Practice reviewers evaluated state plans based on a rubric that included whether the state has a coherent vision for improving student outcomes, whether there is a strategic use of funding and alignment of resources, the use of evidence-based interventions, and how well state leaders engaged stakeholders. That last component is perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of ESSA – federal lawmakers required states to gather input from a wide range of groups outside of traditional education. Civic groups, business leaders, parents and community activists were given a seat at the table.
We watched excitedly as several NAACP groups got involved from the very beginning, helping policy and lawmakers understand community and even neighborhood needs for the betterment of students. Still, it disheartening to learn that just 17 states are ready to identify and provide the kinds of supports that low-performing schools require. Other states can look at Colorado, which has developed a clear menu of school improvement items for districts to choose from, or Nevada where districts have to describe how their strategies for addressing equity gaps in funding applications. Nevada is also using equity-oriented data like behavior and attendance to understand schools’ challenges.
There’s so much anger and divisiveness in our society today, but the importance of education equity should be among the things on which we can all agree. Every single student in every single school, no matter where that school is located or what kind of home life the child has, must be given the tools and knowledge to succeed. We shouldn’t have to fight for this right – the right to an education. And yet we find ourselves year in, year out looking aghast at assessment scores that prove achievement gaps are still there. Thought-provoking analyses like that done by the Collaborative for Student Success will help close those gaps until they are well and truly gone.
Elizabeth Primas is an educator who spent more than 40 years working to improve education for children. She is the program manager for the NNPA’s Every Student Succeeds Act Public Awareness Campaign. Follow her on Twitter @elizabethprimas.
More than half a century ago, my parents and a wonderful teacher named Mr. Hollis Posey followed their hearts and championed my right to learn. As a result, I received the empowering education in our City’s public schools that would transform my life.
Although I am grateful that I received the “thorough and efficient public education” that is guaranteed to every child by Article VIII of Maryland’s constitution, I am deeply troubled that all of Maryland’s children are not receiving this most basic foundation for successful, productive lives.
A widely acknowledged study in 2016 found that Maryland’s public schools are under-funded by $2.9 billion each year.
In response, the Maryland Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education [typically referred to as the Kirwan Commission] has determined that significantly more funding will be required to give every Maryland child a reasonable chance in life, especially children living in those communities with the deepest concentrations of poor families.
Both our values and our long-term self-interest demand that we speak truth to power about correcting this failure.
Far too many of Maryland’s children are being relegated to a future devoid of competence or hope. This is an unacceptable failing – and it’s up to us, as voters, to assure that those we elect in November are committed to providing our children’s public schools with the funding that they need and deserve.
Although public education is primarily a state and local (rather than a federal) responsibility, the President and Congress have an important role in funding the public education of economically disadvantaged students (Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act) and students with disabilities (the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act).
Currently, annual federal education funding for Title I and IDEA is significant (just under $16 billion and $12 billion, respectively). However, these appropriations have not kept up with the rising cost of educating our students, nor with the legitimate needs of states like Maryland for a more robust and realistic federal partnership.
The President and his Republican congressional allies have failed to adequately address this challenge. Democrats in Congress have had to fight just to avoid significant cuts in federal education funding.
As a result, our nation’s schools are no longer the envy of the world, a reality that threatens our long-term national security.
Maryland’s Democratic delegation to Washington understands that we must significantly expand federal education funding – but only by electing a Democratic majority to the next Congress can we make this commitment a reality.
Despite Governor Hogan’s assertions that Maryland is devoting more support to public education than ever before, the Kirwan Commission has acknowledged that far too many of our school children are being short-changed, especially in jurisdictions like Baltimore City.
On Election Day this year, we will decide whether Republican Larry Hogan or his Democratic challenger, Ben Jealous, will make the education of our children his top priority and fulfill our constitutional duty.
As a Maryland voter, I am a strong supporter of Ben Jealous’ candidacy to become our next Governor. Maryland’s teachers, through their Education Association’s endorsement, are supporting him as well.
As a Past President of our national NAACP, Ben Jealous is painfully aware (as am I) that the percentage of Maryland public school students living in poverty has more than doubled since 1990 (from 22 percent to 45 percent). We understand that properly educating all of our students, as well as meeting the rising cost of special education, will require a substantial and sustained infusion of additional state funding.
Drawing upon the Kirwan Commission’s upcoming final report and recommendations, our next Governor and State Legislature will have the duty to revise Maryland’s school funding formula for the first time in nearly two decades. The Commission is expected to recommend increasing the base, per-pupil state funding from $6,860 to $10,880 for each school child.
These challenges, I believe, are why Mr. Jealous has publicly committed (1) to fully implement the Kirwan Commission’s recommendations during the upcoming 2019 legislative session; (2) to raise our teachers’ salaries by 29 percent; (3) to implement full-day, universal Pre-K; (4) and to more effectively target state education funding to those school districts with the largest concentrations of poverty.
On Election Day, our voters can also approve an amendment to Maryland’s constitution that will guarantee that public education’s share of the state’s casino revenues is fully committed to funding public education (Question 1). This guarantee will provide an additional $500 million in annual state funding for our schools, an important first step toward closing the current $2.9 billion funding gap.
Both Ben Jealous and Larry Hogan have declared that they support Question 1. However, Governor Hogan has yet to adequately explain why he diverted $1.4 billion of our State’s casino money from public education (as voters were originally promised it would be invested) to other purposes.
When I visit our children’s classrooms, I look into our students’ eager faces and know that we must act with a sense of urgency to adequately invest in their future. On Election Day, God willing, Maryland’s voters will commit our State to a better future for us all, one filled with confidence, competence and hope.
Congressman Elijah Cummings represents Maryland’s 7th Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives.
This post originally appeared in the AFRO. The opinions on this page are those of the writers and not necessarily those of the AFRO.
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With race relations and civil rights issues boiling in America, the Gary chapter of the NAACP is calling on residents to take action and become more active in their community engagements more than ever before.
The call comes as the branch prepares to hold its Annual Life Membership Banquet at 5 p.m. on Saturday, June 2 at the Genesis Convention Center.
Former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the first Black woman to ever hold the position, will be among several distinguished guests to speak.
Lynch will share the guest speaker role with the Honorable Gonzalo P. Curiel, District Judge for the U.S. District Court of Southern California. Branch President Stephen Mays, and Indiana State Senator Eddie Melton, who serves as Honorary Chairman will also be in attendance. Dorothy R. Leavell, also an Honorary Chairperson and publisher of the Crusader Newspaper Group (Gary and Chicago) and Chairman of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), also will attend.
Making this banquet a Who’s Who event will be the President and CEO of NNPA, Benjamin F. Chavis. Earlier this year the NAACP and the NNPA made an unprecedented move to work together and pool their resources to step up the fight to advance and defend the interests of Black America.
The rights of Blacks and minorities in Gary and across the country are imperiled under President Donald Trump, whose populist message “Make America Great Again” has reignited racial tensions and threatened to roll back the civil rights gains that Black America has achieved in the past decades. With the heated mid-term elections in November, the new rules governing the U.S. Census count, the plight of Gary Schools and the state joining a lawsuit against Gary as a welcoming city, NAACP leaders are urging Blacks everywhere to turn up their involvement in politics, education and social issues that have torn apart the Black community in recent years.
With all 435 seats in the U.S. House up for reelection in November, Black voter suppression remains a serious concern in the wake of numerous reports of Russia spreading fake news in the Black community and meddling in the 2016 elections to help elect President Trump. The arrest of two Black men at Starbucks in Philadelphia has sparked a wave of 911 calls on people of color who are unsuspecting victims of racial profiling in restaurants, parks and schools.
“Now is the time to fight. We have come too far to allow decades of hard work, sweat and bloodshed to be vain,” said Leavell. “The Black Press stands by the nation’s oldest civil rights organization in calling on Black America to take their community activism and engagement to the next level. The future of Black America is at stake.”
“The NAACP must remain steadfast, unmovable and never silent about the things that matter,” said Stephen Mays, president of the Gary branch of the NAACP.
At the annual Life Membership Banquet, Lynch and Curiel are expected to address civil rights, immigration and other legal challenges the country is facing under President Donald Trump. Lynch became the nation’s most powerful attorney after her predecessor Eric Holder, the first Black U.S. Attorney General, stepped down in 2015. She was nominated to the position by former President Barack Obama.
Like Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson, Lynch has a bachelors and J.D. degree from Harvard University.
As head of the U.S. Justice Department, Lynch investigated the practices at several police departments across the country that were accused of racial profiling and police brutality. Days before she left the department in January 2017, Lynch’s department released a scathing report on the Chicago Police Department for its treatment of minorities in the wake of the Laquan McDonald case. Lynch also made headlines after she opposed then FBI Director James Comey, who called for an investigation into the personal emails of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton 11 days before the presidential election in November 2016.
Curiel gained national attention while presiding over two class action lawsuits against Trump University. The president’s university was accused of making “tens of millions” of dollars off its students who were promised a legitimate education and services. Both cases were eventually settled out of court for $25 million.
During his campaign for the White House, Trump repeatedly called Curiel a “hater” and described him as “Spanish” or “Mexican,” suggesting that Curiel was biased because of Mr. Trump’s calls to build a wall along the border to prevent illegal immigration.
Curiel was born in East Chicago, Indiana, the youngest of four children. His parents emigrated from Mascota, a small Mexican town near Puerto Vallarta in the state of Jalisco. Curiel received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Indiana University in 1976 and his Juris Doctor from the Indiana University School of Law in 1979.
The NAACP is the largest and oldest civil rights organization in the country. The Gary chapter is one of the largest branches in Indiana.
The annual Life Membership Banquet is a premier event in the community and is expected to attract over 450 business, political, educational, civic and religious leaders in the region.
BALTIMORE, Md., May 18, 2018 /NNPANewswirePR/ The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the nation’s premier civil rights organization, issued the following statement regarding the tragic shooting at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas:
The NAACP mourns the tragic and senseless loss of 10 lives on Friday, May 18 at Santa Fe High School in Texas. In addition to those killed, 10 individuals were also wounded. Nine of the 10 fatalities were students, studying subjects they loved and planning for their future. This is the 22nd school shooting of 2018, according to CNN. We cannot sit back and allow gun violence to continue to take the lives of our students. The NAACP sends our sincerest condolences to the family and friends of the victims and everyone whose lives they touched. Talk alone is not enough to address the issue of gun violence in our communities and schools; sensible gun reform must become a priority among our politicians and policymakers.
ABOUT THE NAACP
Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation’s oldest and largest nonpartisan civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities. You can read more about the NAACP’s work and our six “Game Changer” issue areas here.
On Thursday, May 17th, marked an historic milestone in American history. Regrettably, most Americans were totally unaware of the 64th anniversary of the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, in which the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional.
Leon D. Young
Brown v. Board of Education was one of the cornerstones of the civil rights movement and helped establish the precedent that “separate but-equal” education and other services were not, in fact, equal at all.
In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that racially segregated public facilities were legal, so long as the facilities for blacks and whites were equal. The ruling constitutionally sanctioned laws barring African Americans from sharing the same buses, schools and other public facilities as whites — known as “Jim Crow” laws — and established the “separate but equal” doctrine that would stand for the next six decades.
But by the early 1950s, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was working hard to challenge segregation laws in public schools and had filed lawsuits on behalf of plaintiffs in states such as South Carolina, Virginia and Delaware. In the case that would become most famous, a plaintiff named Oliver Brown filed a class action suit against the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, in 1951, after his daughter, Linda Brown, was denied entrance to Topeka’s all-white elementary schools.
In his lawsuit, Brown claimed that schools for black children were not equal to the white schools, and that segregation violated the so-called “equal protection clause” of the 14th Amendment, which holds that no state can “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The case went before the U.S. District Court in Kansas, which agreed that public school segregation had a “detrimental effect upon the colored children” and contributed to “a sense of inferiority,” but still upheld the “separate but equal” doctrine.
When Brown’s case and four other cases related to school segregation first came before the Supreme Court in 1952, the Court combined them into a single case under the name Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. Thurgood Marshall, the head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, served as chief attorney for the plaintiffs. (Thirteen years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson would appoint Marshall as the first Black Supreme Court justice.)
At first, the justices were divided on how to rule on school segregation, with Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson holding the opinion that the Plessy verdict should stand. But in September 1953, before Brown v. Board of Education was to be heard, Vinson died, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower replaced him with Earl Warren, then governor of California.
Displaying considerable political skill and determination, the new chief justice succeeded in engineering a unanimous verdict against school segregation the following year.
In the decision, issued on May 17, 1954, Warren wrote that “in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place,” as segregated schools are “inherently unequal.” As a result, the Court ruled that the plaintiffs were being “deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.”
Although racial minorities have made several educational advancements since Brown v. Board of Education, the decision failed in a wholesale dismantling of school segregation. In New York City, for instance, more than half of public schools are reportedly at least 90 percent Black and Hispanic, and in Alabama nearly a quarter of black students attend a school with white enrollment of one percent or less.
Many civil rights advocates even point to what they believe is a “resegregation” trend. According to a report issued by the Economic Policy Institute, low-income black children are currently more racially and socioeconomically isolated than at any time since the 1980s.
Public school systems throughout the nation will now be required to be a lot more transparent when it comes to school funding.
According to the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2015, all public schools nationwide, will be required to give fully-detailed reports on how and where they spend institutional funding.
The ESSA reporting requirement for school funding begins in December 2019, and supporters of the rule, including the NAACP, believe it will help to encourage greater educational equity, particularly among schools serving large numbers of Black and Hispanic students in low-income neighborhoods.
“We need more equitable and adequate funding for all schools serving students of color,” said Victor Goode, the education director for the NAACP. “Why? Because education funding has been inadequate and unequal for students of color for hundreds of years. Second, privatization forces are working to eliminate our public schools and, with it, transparency, public accountability and access to all.”
Goode said that ESSA requires a breakdown of how student need is met with a focus on equity over equal distribution for funding.
Goode continued: “That explains the reason behind the school-by-school, per pupil spending report. This kind of public transparency is a good thing and can help provide more meaningful parental and community engagement, which is also essential to accountability and achieving educational equity.”
According to the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization, based in Washington, D.C., that conducts research on solving societal problems locally, nationwide and globally, to date minority students are still far more less likely than White students to have adequate school resources.
In addition, the Brookings Institution reported that schools with predominantly Black and Hispanic children, on average, are nearly twice as large as White schools—reaching an estimated 3,000 students or more in most cities, with lower-quality curriculum offerings and less qualified teachers (in terms of levels of education, certification, and training in the fields they teach), all of which George H. Lambert, Jr., president and CEO of the Greater Washington Urban League, believes can be rectified through adequate funding.
“Through the availability of [ESSA] data, Black and [Hispanic] educators can begin to prove that Black and [Hispanic] students suffer from funding disparities and the lack of teachers in the classroom who look like them or represent their perspective,” Lambert said. “We need better, more transparent data on school funding. The availability of such data and our ability to access it forces greater urgency on what is, arguably the most important issue of our time.”
Lambert said that any discussion on educational equity should acknowledge the enormous achievement gaps that still plague Black and Hispanic students.
“If these gaps aren’t closed, our community doesn’t have much of a future,” Lambert said.” Even though high school graduation rates are better now than 30 years ago, we still face a situation where more than a quarter of Black students, for example, are dropping out. Most Black students in the largest U.S. cities are attending schools with high concentrations of poverty. Over half of our young, Black men are either dropping out or finishing K-12 late, hence 1 in 3 end up trapped in some fashion in the criminal justice system.”
Despite high approval from many civil rights organizations, school district administrators, like Robert Lowry, the deputy director of the New York State Council of School Superintendents still believe that the new law might shine light on imbalanced revenue and create the perception that some students are being shortchanged, even when this may not be the case.
“We question whether the state officials would even have the expertise and the capacity to evaluate spending levels between schools,” Lowry told Education Week.
Though Lowry’s concerns may be valid, Lambert believes that full transparency is a plus.
“This is a good way to learn about flaws in the system and how those flaws are aggravated by a lack of Black and [Hispanic] expertise and perspective in the curriculum, the classroom and the leadership office,” Lambert said. “We can also find out if school districts with a larger number of Black and [Hispanic] educators are experiencing high levels of funding disparities and uneven attention from policymakers.”
PASADENA, Md. (AP) — Following reports of a teacher calling a student a racial slur and a social media post targeting Black students, a local NAACP chapter says Black students at a Maryland high school are subject to daily abuse and humiliation.
Anne Arundel County NAACP President Rev. Stephen Tillett said at a press conference on March 13 that families have seen “a decades-long pattern of resistance to change and the creation of a hostile environment for children of color” at Chesapeake High School and feeder schools.
Anne Arundel County Public Schools spokesman Bob Mosier told The Capital the school system wants to combat the system of intimidation Tillett describes. He said Chesapeake’s principal met with the NAACP March 13.
Investigators identified the threat’s poster as a Black student, but Tillett says the student’s identity doesn’t negate other experiences.
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos will give applicants for federal grants a leg-up if they are planning to embrace things like school choice, STEM, literacy, school climate, effective instruction, career preparation, and serving military-connected children and students in special education.
The department gives away at least $500 million in competitive-grant money every year. Every administration sets “priorities” for that funding. These matter because applicants that include one or more of those priorities in a grant proposal are more likely to get money. The priorities are one of the few vehicles DeVos—or any secretary—has for pushing an agenda without new legislation from Congress…
Read the full article here: May require an Education Week subscription.
(From left-right) Derrick Johnson, the president and CEO of the NAACP; Leon Russell, the chairman of the NAACP; Dorothy Leavell, the chairman of the NNPA, and Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., the president and CEO of the NNPA sign a strategic partnership agreement to join forces in focusing on key issues that affect the Black community, during the 2018 NNPA Mid-Winter Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Freddie Allen/AMG/NNPA)
By Stacy M. Brown (NNPA Newswire Contributor)
THE DALLAS POST TRIBUNE — The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), a trade group representing more than 200 Black-owned media companies, signed a historic, strategic partnership with the NAACP, one of the most influential civil rights group in the world, during the NNPA’s Mid-Winter Conference in Las Vegas.
“Sometimes you have to take a step back and reconnect in order to move forward,” said NAACP chairman Leon W. Russell. “Signing this agreement is taking that step back and it says it’s time for us to recommit to each other and work together to move our people forward.”
NNPA President and CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., who once served as president of the NAACP, called the partnership historic.
“This [signing] consummates a working relationship of two of the world’s largest organizations focused on the empowerment of Black people,” said Chavis.
NNPA National Chairman Dorothy Leavell added that she’s very pleased with the new partnership.
“I attempted to do something similar in the nineties and I’m very determined now,” said Leavell. “We are going to set a precedent and I hope we will be able to repeat this with many other national organizations, because if we solidify our strength, things will be different for all of us in the United States of America.”
Derrick Johnson, the president and CEO of the NAACP, said one of the things he and Russell share in common is the rich tradition of the NAACP.
“Anytime we move away from that [tradition], we lose our way,” he said. “The NAACP would not be here, if not for William Monroe Trotter, a civil rights activist, newspaper editor and real estate businessman based in Boston, Massachusetts; the NAACP would not be here today, if not for Ida B. Wells, a newspaper writer…the NAACP would not be here today, if not for W.E.B. DuBois and his “Crisis’ magazine. I commit today, that we will be joining the NNPA.”
Johnson added that the NAACP is as strong as its volunteers and the Black Press is as strong as its readers, many of whom are NAACP members.
The signing, which took place on Friday, January 26 was attended by a number of NNPA members, staffers from both organizations and Gary, Indiana Mayor Karen Freeman Wilson, the first African American woman to hold the office of mayor in the state of Indiana.
“We have to take the resources that we have in our collective communities and we have to use these resources in a way that educates our children and benefits our people,” Wilson said. “We also have to support [Black] businesses.”
Wilson added that Black consumers have to let go of the stereotype that Black businesses are inferior to White businesses.
Wilson also noted that African Americans aren’t receiving a fair shake from the federal government and, in her city, finances are a challenge she’s trying to meet head-on.
“Many of the answers depended on the state, but last night, a light bulb went on and it was that we can’t wait on the Republican governor to save Gary,” she said. “So, I said to my team that whatever the governor does or doesn’t do, we are going into the war room and we will stay there and not come out until we have a plan.”
Wilson joined Russell, Johnson, Chavis and Leavell in advocating for a strong relationship between the NAACP and the Black Press.
“If Black newspapers didn’t tell our stories, no one ever would have,” said Russell, echoing the founders of the Black Press, Samuel E. Cornish and John B. Russwurm who stated 191 years ago: “We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us. Too long has the public been deceived by misrepresentations, in things which concern us dearly.”
Lynch will share the guest speaker role with the Honorable Gonzalo P. Curiel, District Judge for the U.S. District Court of Southern California. Branch President Stephen Mays, and Indiana State Senator Eddie Melton, who serves as Honorary Chairman will also be in attendance. Dorothy R. Leavell, also an Honorary Chairperson and publisher of the Crusader Newspaper Group (Gary and Chicago) and Chairman of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), also will attend.
At the annual Life Membership Banquet, Lynch and Curiel are expected to address civil rights, immigration and other legal challenges the country is facing under President Donald Trump. Lynch became the nation’s most powerful attorney after her predecessor Eric Holder, the first Black U.S. Attorney General, stepped down in 2015. She was nominated to the position by former President Barack Obama.
By Lauren Poteat
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos will give applicants for federal grants a leg-up if they are planning to embrace things like school choice, STEM, literacy, school climate, effective instruction, career preparation, and serving military-connected children and students in special education.
