|
From HBCUs to BCUs
Mordecai's Dream Is in Serious Jeopardy
By
Roy L. Beasley
I came to Howard
University in 1972 because of two people who had
substantial impact on my career aspirations. My
grandmother lived outside a small town in Alabama—quite
a distance from New York City, where I grew up, so I
only saw her a few times when I was a child. But somehow
she instilled a profound notion in my small brain: to
become "a credit to my race"—an ambition that was
commonly encouraged back then. My mother's oldest
brother, the patriarch of our extended family, was my
"Uncle Doc"; but in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, he
was "Doc Cromwell," a highly-respected member of the
black community. He was a successful
dentist/entrepreneur who had graduated from Howard
University's School of Dentistry. His success convinced
me that I could also succeed.
By the time I was
17, I knew that I wanted to become a college professor;
and by the time I completed my doctoral courses at
Harvard University, I knew that I wanted to teach black
students. Back then, it seemed to me that historically
black colleges and universities, or HBCUs, provided the
best opportunities to pursue this goal. My uncle's
influence focused my attention on Howard.
Like the Rev.
Martin Luther King Jr.,
Dr. Mordecai Wyatt Johnson, the
first black president of Howard University (from 1926
till 1960), had a dream. He dreamed that Howard could
recruit talented black students from the smallest
backwater towns in the Deep South or from the most
dismal inner-city neighborhoods of the Northeast—students who might have significant academic
shortcomings. Through the brilliance of our teaching we
would provide these diamonds in the rough with an
excellent education that would enable them to graduate
in four years and enjoy successful careers thereafter.
Arriving at Howard in 1972, I was not indoctrinated by
President Johnson himself, but by successors who
subscribed to a more pragmatic version of his dream. If
students lacked academic prerequisites and/or had
financial problems, they might need five years to
graduate while working part-time jobs; but certainly the
vast majority of our serious students would complete
their studies in six years. Graduate students might also
need one or two more years than was normally required to
complete their programs.
From 1972 until
1988, while I was a full-time classroom instructor, I
was firmly committed to this amended vision and I was
proud of the fact that most of the students in my
department did, in fact, graduate more or less on time
and enjoyed considerable success after graduation. And
in my capacity as editor of the
Gateway to HBCUs website since 1995, I have come to
understand that most, if not all HBCUs embraced some
version of
Dr. Johnson's dream. As HBCUs, it was our
raison d'etre, our most impressive claim to fame.
I did not come to
Howard nor did I stay at Howard all of these years
because it was one of the nation's premier research
universities. Indeed, I am deeply offended by
suggestions that Howard's lack of the stellar research
record of a Stanford or a Harvard invalidates the
powerful vision that generated so many extraordinary
contributions to our nation and to the world in years
past. I came to Howard and I have remained at Howard
because of my abiding commitment to the education of
black students. This was my personal "ministry" and I
have gained immense personal satisfaction from its
pursuit.
But in recent years
I have been troubled by the realization that, were I a
much younger version of myself today and had a newly
minted Ph.D. from Harvard, Stanford, or some other
comparably-esteemed university, I might not choose to
teach at Howard or at any other HBCU. Why? Because the
historic tenet that HBCUs provided the best
opportunities for teaching black students has become a
debatable proposition, not just because of the
desegregation of non-HBCUs, but because most HBCUs have
not adapted their historic missions to the changing
circumstances of today's academic environment. In other
words, I have become concerned that Mordecai's dream is
in serious jeopardy.
If the nation's
non-HBCUs were doing a satisfactory job in educating
African American students, there would be no need for
HBCUs. Unfortunately, the graduation rates for African
Americans at all but the most selective non-HBCUs remain
substantially lower than the graduation rates for white
and Asian American students. In other words, almost 60
years after African Americans entered the mainstream of
U.S. higher education, the results have been far less
satisfactory than we hoped. Closing the gaps between the
academic achievements of African American students and
their white and Asian American peers is taking much
longer than we expected. Why?
Accordingly, in the
desegregated New Millennium, all of the nation's
colleges and universities are challenged to become more
effective educators of the nation's black students;
hence all must embrace some version of Mordecai's dream.
The following paragraphs present a version of the dream
that I developed over the course of the last six months
while providing technical support for a comprehensive
academic renewal process at Howard.
It's time to leave
the "historical" HBCUs to history. Whereas back in the
early 1970s, over 80 percent of African American college
students still attended HBCUs, not even 20 percent do so
today; and the long-term trend is further downward. In
other words, the days in which HBCUs were the largest
suppliers of postsecondary educational opportunities for
African Americans are over. Given the magnitude of the
new challenges, the nation would be well advised to
stimulate the development of a number of innovative
institutions which, for now, I will call "BCUs.” Their
core mission would have two components, the first of
which would be to develop, demonstrate, and disseminate
more effective methods for educating the nation's
African American students. Please note that the
following paragraphs propose specifications for BCUs
that are already met in whole or in part by many
existing HBCUs, but their core missions are different.
Development and
transfer of more effective teaching methods (core
mission). BCUs would provide leadership for other
colleges and universities by conducting research that
identified more effective methods for teaching black
students; by their success in using their findings; and
by their subsequent efforts to disseminate their
innovations throughout the U.S. system of higher
education via publications, conferences, training
programs, etc.
Racially diverse
student body. While black enrollments at BCUs might be
higher than at non-BCUs, the effectiveness of BCUs as
leaders of non-BCUs would be undermined if BCUs had
black enrollments that were substantially higher than 50
percent. Methods that only worked in predominantly black
environments (if such methods exist) could not be
adopted by non-BCUs.
Racially diverse
faculty. Most of the faculty at non-BCUs are not black,
so innovations that only enhanced the performance of
black students if they were carried out by black
instructors could not be adopted by non-BCUs. This can't
be a "black thing." Furthermore, in STEM fields—science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics—this ideal
becomes an inescapable reality. The persistence of the
Digital Divide guarantees that BCUs would be hard
pressed to hire all-black faculty in STEM even if they
wanted to. Fortunately, non-black academics who are
devoted to providing better educational opportunities
for black students have always been available. Since my
arrival at Howard in 1972, I have had the pleasure of
working with many dedicated, non-black professors who
shared my "ministry." And one more thing: being black
may provide black instructors with an initial edge, but
it certainly does not confer a lifelong monopoly on
insights as to how to teach black students more
effectively.
Gender balance in
enrollments, retention, and graduation. The loss of
black males at every level of our school system is a
national catastrophe . . . and white males are also
fading. Therefore, BCUs would be charged with conducting
research whose findings would enable them to recruit
entering classes (and transfers) that were more or less
50 percent male regardless of race; to retain males at
high levels regardless of race; and to graduate male
students at more or less the same rate as female
students, again regardless of race.
Racially diverse
administration. In the New Millennium even the smallest
college or university becomes a complex institution
whose conflicting obligations to its faculty, staff,
students, and alumni; its donors and creditors; and its
federal, state, and local regulators require comparably
complex managerial skills that have no demonstrable
relationship to a manager's race. Therefore I submit
that it would be counterproductive to insist that a
BCU's management—i.e., its president, provost, deans and
chairs—be predominantly black. Just as being black does
not give black instructors a monopoly on insights as to
how to teach black students more effectively, I can't
see how being black confers superior managerial
insights. The primary qualifications should be proven
skills as academic leaders and the capacity to fully
commit to the defining mission of the BCU.
Undergraduate STEM
programs. One of the most pernicious manifestations of
the persistence of racism in our society is embodied in
the phenomenon called "stereotype threat" wherein black
students (and members of other groups afflicted by
prejudice) underperform whenever they perceive (rightly
or wrongly) that other people expect them to do poorly
just because they are black. Not only do black students
underperform, they also tend to avoid stereotype threat
situations by changing majors and/or by not seeking
careers in fields wherein they think that they might be
more likely to encounter stereotype threat. Needless to
say, stereotype threat is strongest in STEM fields.
Consequently, BCUs must focus considerable energies on
developing more effective methods for teaching STEM
subjects to black students.
Two-year and
four-year BCUs. It's not enough for BCUs to provide a
better education for their own black students; they must
also determine why they were more effective and which
factors were most significant. Answers to these
questions will be obtained through multi-year research
projects that employ sophisticated statistical
assessment procedures. Although the faculty at most
two-year and four-year colleges don't have the time or
the technical expertise to conduct such research,
two-year and four-year BCUs can finesse both shortfalls
by entering into strategic partnerships with
university-level BCUs.
Continuing
education and distance learning. As information
technology accelerates innovation throughout all sectors
of our society, everybody will have to go back to school
from time to time. Therefore BCUs would also run
programs for non-traditional students, i.e., older
students whose family and/or work obligations preclude
their enrolling in courses that meet during daytime
hours on weekdays—in other words, students who have to
take courses on evenings and weekends or via distance
learning.
Research
initiatives and related graduate programs (core
mission). Repeated mention has been made of BCU research
designed to identify more effective methods for teaching
African American students. The second component of a
BCU's mission would be its commitment to conducting
high-quality research on issues that have
disproportionately negative impact on African Americans
and on other peoples of color in Africa and throughout
the African Diaspora. BCUs would also offer masters and
Ph.D. programs whose students would learn how to extend
or apply this research. Some examples of these “real
world” research issues are noted below:
|
—Dysfunctional urban school systems,
especially as they impact underperforming
black males.
—Hypertension, obesity, diabetes, drug
addiction, AIDS, and other health problems
related to diet and lifestyle that have
disproportionate impacts on black
communities.
—Environmental impact of toxic waste
disposal.
—Development and transfer of low cost
technologies for housing, water
purification, and energy (wind, solar, etc).
—Recovery from earthquakes, floods, and
other catastrophes whose negative impact on
poor communities is exacerbated by
inadequate infrastructures—e.g., New Orleans
and Haiti. |
On a personal note
with regard to the last example, I was recently
gratified to learn that one of my former graduate
students provided tangible relief to the victims of the
Haitian earthquake (January 2010) via the low-cost,
solar-powered bakeries that she had organized in the
hill country outside of the earthquake's epicenter. So
while I was watching the depressing video clips like
millions of other sympathetic but ineffectual TV
tourists, she was in thick of things, feeding 1500
earthquake victims per week! Wouldn't it be great if
BCUs became THE "go to" sources of expertise that
provided reliable relief whenever such "catastrophes of
color" occurred?
Given these core
components, which HBCUs will evolve into BCUs? How many
other MSIs ("minority-serving institutions") will elect
to do so? And how many of the highly profitable
for-profit universities that have been so successful in
their recent efforts to recruit African American
students—e.g., Phoenix, Kaplan, Strayer, and DeVry—will
see the long-term profit opportunities to be gained from
the know-how they might derive from sponsoring
successful BCUs? Given the magnitude of the challenges,
I submit that the nation should actively encourage the
emergence of high-quality BCUs within each of these
groups.
3 August 2010
Roy L.
Beasley is academic systems analyst in the Office of
the Provost at Howard University.
Source:
Inside
Higher Ed
*
* * * *
Mordecai Wyatt Johnson (January 4, 1890 – September 10, 1976) was an
American educator. He served as the first black president of
Howard University, from 1926 until 1960. (See photo above right.)
Johnson was born in
Paris, Tennessee, the son of former slaves Reverend Wyatt J. Johnson and
Carolyn Freeman. Johnson received his
B.A. from
Morehouse College in 1911, and second bachelor of arts degree from the
University of Chicago two years later.[1]
He studied at several other institutions of higher education, including the
Rochester Theological Seminary,
Harvard University,
Howard University, and the
Gammon Theological Seminary.[1]
He married Anna Ethelyn Gardner on December 25, 1916. They had five
children.
On June 26, 1926 Johnson was
unanimously elected President of Howard University, becoming the first
permanent African American to head that institution. He served until 1960.
Prior to his appointment Johnson had served as Professor of Economics and
History at Morehouse. He had also served as Pastor of the First Baptist
Church in
Charleston, West Virginia.
Wikipedia
*
* * * *
Mordecai [Wyatt Johnson] was pastor of the Second Baptist Church in
Mumford, New York while at Rochester. In 1916, he married Anna Ethelyn
Gardner of Augusta, Georgia. They had three sons and two daughters.
Mordecai was a secretary of the International Committee of the YMCA, working
in the southwestern field from 1916-1917. A year later, he became pastor of
the First Baptist Church of Charleston, West Virginia, and established a
reputation as a brilliant orator and "community organizer." In 1922 Harvard
University presented to Mordecai the degree of Master of Science in
theology. In 1923 Howard University presented to him the honorary degree of
Doctor of Divinity. A similar degree was conferred upon him by the Gammon
Theological Seminar in 1928.
Mordecai was appointed the thirteenth
and first African-American president of Howard University in 1926. On June
10, 1927, Dr. Johnson delivered his Inauguaral Address as President of
Howard University. He held that position for thirty-four years. Dr.
Mordecai Johnson died in the year 1976.
Howard in Cyberspace
*
* * * *
In 1922, when he graduated from Harvard
Divinity School,
[Mordecai Wyatt] Johnson was chosen to give the commencement address
which he titled: "The
Faith of the American Negro.” Four years later Mordecai Johnson was
appointed the thirteenth and first permanent African American president of
Howard University, a position he held for the next thirty-four years.
Under Johnson, Howard became one of the
nation’s leading universities and, certainly, the leading African American
university. He was responsible for raising substantial sums from both
Congress and private donors. The number of faculty tripled, the salaries
doubled, academic and admission requirements were toughened, and Johnson
insisted on devoting resources to accreditation of Howard’s graduate and
professional schools.
Howard University hired excellent,
outspoken scholars such as
E. Franklin
Frazier in sociology,
Ralph Bunche in
political science,
Charles R. Drew in medicine, and
John Hope Franklin
and Rayford W. Logan
in history.
Charles Hamilton Houston, the dean of the law school, was the architect
of the legal strategy that led to the 1954 Supreme Court decision,
Brown vs.
the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Wyatt Mordecai Johnson died in
1976.
Howard Reference
*
* * * *
Brief History of Howard University
In November 1866, shortly after the end
of the Civil War, members of the First Congregational Society of Washington
considered establishing a theological seminary for the education of
African-American clergymen. Within a few weeks, the concept expanded to
include a provision for establishing a University. Within two years, the
University consisted of the colleges of Liberal Arts and Medicine. The new
institution was named for General Oliver O. Howard, a Civil War hero who was
both a founder of the University and, at the same time, commissioner of the
Freedman’s Bureau.
The University charter as enacted by
Congress and subsequently approved by President Andrew Johnson on March 2,
1867, designated Howard University as “a University for the education of
youth in the liberal arts and sciences.” The Freedmen’s Bureau provided most
of the early financial support of the University. In 1879, Congress approved
a special appropriation for the University. The charter was amended in 1928
to authorize an annual federal appropriation for construction, development,
improvement and maintenance of the University.
In 1926, when
Dr. Mordecai Wyatt Johnson, Howard’s first black president, assumed the
presidency of Howard, the University was comprised of eight schools and
colleges, none of which held national accreditation. The institution’s
enrollment during this year stood at 1,700 and its budget at $700,000. By
the time Johnson retired 34 years later, the University boasted of 10
schools and colleges, all fully accredited; 6,000 students; a budget of $8
million, the addition of 20 new buildings including an expanded physical
plant; and a greatly enlarged faculty that included some of the most
prominent black scholars of the day. Another key indicator of the
University’s enhanced academic status was the 1955 inauguration of graduate
programs that had the authority to grant the Ph.D degree.
History of Howard U
*
* * * *
From the 1920s through
the 1970s, Howard University was home to America's most
renowned assemblage of black scholars. This book traces some
of the personal and professional activities of this
community of public intellectuals, demonstrating their
scholar-activist nature and the myriad ways they influenced
modern African American, African, and Africana policy
studies.
In Search of the Talented Tenth tells how
individuals like
Rayford
Logan,
E. Franklin Frazier,
John Hope Franklin,
Merze Tate,
Charles Wesley, and
Dorothy Porter left an indelible imprint on academia and
black communities alike through their impact on civil
rights, anticolonialism, and women's rights.
Zachery Williams explores
W. E. B. Du Bois' Talented Tenth by
describing their role as public intellectuals from the Harlem
Renaissance to the Black Power movement and in times as trying as the
Jim Crow and
Cold War eras.
Williams first describes how the years 1890 to 1926 laid the foundation
for Howard's emergence as the “capstone of Negro education” during the
administration of university president
Mordecai Johnson. He offers a wide-ranging discussion of how the
African American community of Washington, D.C., contributed to the
dynamism and intellectual life of the university, and he delineates the
ties that linked many faculty members to each other in ways that
energized their intellectual growth and productivity as scholars.
He also discusses the interaction
of Howard's intellectual community with those of the West Indies,
Africa, and other places, showing the international impact of Howard's
intellectuals and the ways in which black and brown elites outside the
United States stimulated the thought and scholarship of the Howard
intellectuals.
In Search of the Talented Tenth marks the first in-depth study
of the intellectual activity of this community of scholars and further
attests to the historic role of women faculty in shaping the university.
It restifies to the impact of this group as a model by which the
twenty-first century's black public intellectuals can be measured.
Howard University hired excellent,
outspoken scholars such as in sociology,
Ralph Bunche in
political science,
Charles R. Drew
in medicine, and and in history.
Charles Hamilton Houston,
*
* * * *
Zippety Doo Dah, Zippety-Ay: How Satisfactch'll Is Education Today?
Toward a New Song of the South
Dr. Joyce E. King on Black Education and
New Paradigms
*
* * * *
|
Basil Davidson
obituary—By Victoria Brittain—9 July 2010—Davidson [(9
November 1914 – 9 July 2010) a
British
historian, writer and
Africanist] was enthused early on by the end of British
colonialism and the prospects of pan-Africanism in the
1960s, and he wrote copiously and with warmth about newly
independent
Ghana and its leader, Kwame Nkrumah. He went to work for
a year at the University of Accra in 1964. Later he threw
himself into the reporting of the African liberation wars in
the Portuguese colonies, particularly in Angola,
Mozambique, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau. . . . In the
1980s, with most of the African liberation wars now
won—except for South Africa's— Davidson turned much of his
attention to more theoretical questions about the future of
the nation state in Africa. He remained a passionate
advocate of pan-Africanism. In 1988 he made a long and
dangerous journey into Eritrea, writing a persuasive defence
of the nationalists' right to independence from
Ethiopia, and an equally eloquent attack on the
revolutionary leader Colonel Mengistu and the regime that
had overthrown Haile Selassie.
Guardian |
 |
* * * *
*
Basil Davidson's "Africa Series"
Different
But Equal /
Mastering A Continent /
Caravans
of Gold /
The King and the City /
The Bible and The Gun
John Henrik Clarke—A Great and Mighty Walk
* * *
* *
* *
* * *
|
The White Architects of Black Education
Ideology and Power in America, 1865-1954
By William Watkins
William H. Watkins is
subtle in his story of the “white architects” who developed
Black education beginning in 1865, just at the end of the Civil
War. Watkins shocks you with his “scientific racism” platform
that he explains “presented human difference as the rational for
inequality” and that it “can be understood as an ideological and
political issue” (pg. 39). The reader senses a calm attitude
about the author as he speaks of the philanthropists, beginning
with John D. Rockefeller, Sr, who was most concerned about
“shaping the new industrial social order” (pg. 133) than he was
for providing a useful education. “The Rockefeller group
demonstrated how gift giving could shape education and public
policy” (pg. 134). |
 |
In their support of Black
education, by 1964, the General Education Board (GEB) spent more than $3.2
million dollars in gifts to support Black education. This captivating book
begins with a foreword written by Robin D.G. Kelley who reflects that he
learned one lesson from Watkins, “If we are to create new models of pedagogy
and intellectual work and become architects of our own education, then we
cannot simply repair the structures that have been passed down to us. We
need to dismantle the old architecture so that we might begin anew” (pg.
xiii). Why don’t the school reformers who mandate educational laws
experience such an awakening?—Review
by AC Snow
Source:
Cre3Design
* * * *
*
 |
West Africa Before the Colonial Era: A
History to 1850
By
Basil Davidson
This
book is excellent as an introduction to West
African history. It begins with a brief
overview of region's history from earliest
times but the focus of the book is on the
thousand years between the 9th and the 19th
centuries A.D.
Comprehensive overviews of the political
histories of both well and little known West
African states and cities are recounted.
These include the histories of the empires
of Ghana, Mali, Songhay, Kanem-Bornu, Oyo,
Benin, Dahomey and Asante. Accounts of
several other smaller states are also
detailed such as the Hausa city states, the
Wollof kingdom, the Bambara states, the
Niger Delta trading states, the Fulani
states of Futa Jallon and Futa Toro, the
important cities of Timbuktu, Jenne and Gao
and several others. |
Apart from these
political histories, Davidson also provides an insight
into the social fabric of West Africa, especially at the
dawn of the 17th century. He describes economic features
(like trade items, routes, currencies etc), religion,
arts and learning in the region, social stratification
and dominant trends. These provide the reader with a
real "feel" of the society at that time. Like all of
Davidson's writings on this subject matter, this book
dispels the myth that Africa had no history or
civilization before contact with Europe. It is clear,
concise and very easy to read.
D. E. Chukwumerije
* * * *
*
|
African Slave Trade: Precolonial History,
1450-1850
By Basil Davidson
The best general
account
of the Atlantic slave trade. It is the story
of one of the most enormous crimes in all
human history. Basil Davidson states that by
examining three important areas of Africa in
the history of slavery 'against a general
background of their time and circumstance'
he was taking 'a fresh look at the overseas
slave trade, the steady year-by-year export
of African labour to the West Indies and the
Americas that marked the greatest and most
fateful migration—forced migration—in the
history of man. This book is about the
course and consequences of this long
African-European connection that endured
from the fifteenth century to the
nineteenth. It makes an answer to three
vital questions: What kind of contact was
this with Europe and America? How did the
experience affect Africa? Why did it end in
colonial invasion and conquest? |
 |
* *
* * *
 |
1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus
Created
By Charles C. Mann
I’m
a big fan of Charles Mann’s previous
book
1491:
New Revelations of the Americas Before
Columbus, in which he
provides a sweeping and provocative
examination of North and South America
prior to the arrival of Christopher
Columbus. It’s exhaustively researched
but so wonderfully written that it’s
anything but exhausting to read. With
his follow-up,
1493, Mann has taken it to a
new, truly global level. Building on the
groundbreaking work of Alfred Crosby
(author of
The Columbian Exchange and, I’m
proud to say, a fellow Nantucketer),
Mann has written nothing less than the
story of our world: how a planet of what
were once several autonomous continents
is quickly becoming a single,
“globalized” entity.
Mann not only talked to countless
scientists and researchers; he visited
the places he writes about, and as a
consequence, the book has a marvelously
wide-ranging yet personal feel as we
follow Mann from one far-flung corner of
the world to the next. And always, the
prose is masterful. In telling the
improbable story of how Spanish and
Chinese cultures collided in the
Philippines in the sixteenth century, he
takes us to the island of Mindoro whose
“southern coast consists of a number of
small bays, one next to another like
tooth marks in an apple.” |
We learn how the spread of malaria, the
potato, tobacco, guano, rubber plants, and sugar
cane have disrupted and convulsed the planet and
will continue to do so until we are finally living
on one integrated or at least close-to-integrated
Earth. Whether or not the human instigators of all
this remarkable change will survive the process they
helped to initiate more than five hundred years ago
remains, Mann suggests in this monumental and
revelatory book, an open question.
* * * * *
 |
The Education of Blacks
in the South, 1860-1935
By James D. Anderson
James Anderson critically reinterprets
the history of southern black education
from Reconstruction to the Great
Depression. By placing black schooling
within a political, cultural, and
economic context, he offers fresh
insights into black commitment to
education, the peculiar significance of
Tuskegee Institute, and the conflicting
goals of various philanthropic groups,
among other matters. Initially,
ex-slaves attempted to create an
educational system that would support
and extend their emancipation, but their
children were pushed into a system of
industrial education that presupposed
black political and economic
subordination. This conception of
education and social order—supported by
northern industrial philanthropists,
some black educators, and most southern
school officials—conflicted with the
aspirations of ex-slaves and their
descendants, resulting at the turn of
the century in a bitter national debate
over the purposes of black education.
Because blacks lacked economic and
political power, white elites were able
to control the structure and content of
black elementary, secondary, normal, and
college education during the first third
of the twentieth century. Nonetheless,
blacks persisted in their struggle to
develop an educational system in
accordance with their own needs and
desires. |
* *
* * *
|
Ratification
The People Debate the Constitution,
1787-1788
By Pauline Maier
A
notable historian of the early republic,
Maier devoted a decade to studying the
immense documentation of the
ratification of the Constitution.
Scholars might approach her book’s
footnotes first, but history fans who
delve into her narrative will meet
delegates to the state conventions whom
most history books, absorbed with the
Founders, have relegated to obscurity.
Yet, prominent in their local counties
and towns, they influenced a
convention’s decision to accept or
reject the Constitution. Their
biographies and democratic credentials
emerge in Maier’s accounts of their
elections to a convention, the political
attitudes they carried to the conclave,
and their declamations from the floor.
The latter expressed opponents’
objections to provisions of the
Constitution, some of which seem
anachronistic (election regulation
raised hackles) and some of which are
thoroughly contemporary (the power to
tax individuals directly). |
 |
Ripostes from proponents, the Federalists, animate
the great detail Maier provides, as does her recounting
how one state convention’s verdict affected another’s.
Displaying the grudging grassroots blessing the
Constitution originally received, Maier eruditely yet
accessibly revives a neglected but critical passage in
American history.—Booklist
* *
* * *
|
Whatever It Takes
Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and
America
By
Paul Tough
What
would it take? That was the question that
Geoffrey Canada found himself asking. What
would it take to change the lives of poor
children—not one by one, through heroic
interventions and occasional miracles, but
in big numbers, and in a way that could be
replicated nationwide? The question led him
to create the Harlem Children's Zone, a
ninety-seven-block laboratory in central
Harlem where he is testing new and sometimes
controversial ideas about poverty in
America. His conclusion: if you want poor
kids to be able to compete with their
middle-class peers, you need to change
everything in their lives—their schools,
their neighborhoods, even the child-rearing
practices of their parents. Whatever It
Takes is a tour de force of reporting,
an inspired portrait not only of Geoffrey
Canada but also of the parents and children
in Harlem who are struggling to better their
lives, often against great odds. Carefully
researched and deeply affecting, this is a
dispatch from inside the most daring and
potentially transformative social experiment
of our time. |
 |
Paul Tough is an editor at the New York Times
Magazine and one of America's foremost writers on
poverty, education, and the achievement gap. His
reporting on Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children's
Zone originally appeared as a Times Magazine
cover story. He lives with his wife in New York City.
* *
* * *
The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
* *
* * *
Ancient African Nations
* * * * *
If you like this page consider making a donation
* * * * *
Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
* * * * *
The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery
* *
* * *
The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
* * * * *
* *
* * *
ChickenBones Store
(Books, DVDs, Music, and more)
posted 5 August 2010
|
