The Rev. Dr. Edwin R. Edmonds(1917-2007)

Posted on February 13, 2026 by mdbwell

After graduating with a master of divinity degree from Yale University, I was unsure what I wanted to do.  I had vied for the senior pastor position at three Baptist churches, but did not succeed in getting called.  I remained an associate minister at a local church, and continued as chair of the Community Outreach Committee of the Association of New Haven Clergy.  I needed to find work, or an academic institution to continue on to earn a doctoral degree in some area of religious or theological studies—which I knew I would do eventually.  A former theology professor I had at Yale Divinity School had guaranteed a seat for me as a doctoral student in theology, but I was not certain I wanted to pursue that area of study.  I was more interested in ethics, plus I hesitated over some of the stringent requirements of graduate school at Yale, especially regarding foreign language requirements.  So, I let that option fester in my mind as I sought some temporary employment.  

Wanting to earn a Clinical Pastoral Education certificate that I had not sought wile a seminarian, I found a job at a facility for mildly retarded adult women (their terminology) and gained permission for the pastor of my church to oversee my progress—the end result acquiring a CPE license.

In addition, I found work as an after-school program coordinator at an Episcopal church, where I received the unofficial moniker of an associate youth minister.  Whereas things were looking up in the income-earning department, I was clearly dissatisfied from directionless and unfulfilled academic or pastoral pursuits.

One day, I decided to go to Dixwell Avenue Community Center to see if there was any opportunity there.  In the process, I was directed to visit with the Rev. Dr. Edwin R. Edmonds, the pastor of Dixwell Avenue Congregational United Church of Christ Church.  He was glad I had earned my master’s degree from Yale and asked me if I might be interested in pursuing membership in the Congregational denomination.  I was partially curious, albeit I had been a Baptist all of my life.  He did connect me with a seasoned UCC minister to discuss possibilities, but I suspect the man detected some lack of enthusiasm in me.  He did present me with some denominational paperwork that I completed, but I did not receive any follow-up from him or any denominational authority.  Meanwhile, Edmonds offered me two preaching opportunities at his church while he would be on vacation in the summer.  The congregation treated me well, and the experience was welcome.

What intrigued me more than Edmonds’ kindness toward me was his life story.  While he was born and raised in Texas with sight, and graduated from high school at 15, his vision began to fail while he was a student at Morehouse College.  His official status was legally blind, a designation often used for individuals who have some remaining vision but meet specific clinical criteria for severe impairment.  Despite his visual impairment, he graduated from Morehouse in 1937, just a year later than expected, and subsequently earned a Bachelor of Sacred Theology from Boston University continued on to complete a doctorate in social ethics.  While he faced “much difficulty” with visual tasks, he utilized his other skills to become an invaluable contributor in the struggle for racial justice.

Needless to say, this biographical information piqued my interest, for I was well aware that my hero, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., had graduated from B.U. with a Ph.D. in systematic theology.  As we talked further, I discovered that a few professors who taught there while King was a resident student from 1951 stimulated, although I had no intention of pursuing doctoral work in systematic theology.

Subsequently, I applied to two graduate schools.  One was the Illiff Scool of Theology in Denver, Colorado.  That’s when I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Vincent Harding, to whom a person in admissions transferred me, I believe, simply because I was Black!  Harding did a good job of selling the school to me!  It was much later that I found out Harding had greatly contributed to the speech King made at the Riverside Church officially coming out against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War on April 4, 1967. . .exactly one year before he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee!

The other school was Boston University, where Dr. King, Dr. Edmonds, Dr. Samuel Dewitt Proctor, and others had matriculated.  B.U. had an excellent reputation for awarding the most doctoral degrees to Black students in the religious/theological area in the 1950s and 1960s!  I settled on B.U. primarily because King went there; and he had put in his chapter on his “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence” in his first book, Stride Toward Freedom:The Montgomery Story, that the dean of the B.U. School of Theology, Dr. Walter George Muelder, had helped him to consider Gandhian nonviolence as a strategy to help improve the lot of Black people.  Needless to say, I elected to go to B.U. to major in social ethics—which was a specialty of Muelder’s (and Edmonds’).  Edmonds was one of my references, and thus easily secured my admission to its graduate program.

Despite becoming blind, Edmonds became a renowned civil rights leader and served as the pastor for 43 years at the Dixwell Avenue Congregational United Church of Christ.  But prior to coming to New Haven, Edmonds was a professor of sociology at Bennett College, an historically Black institution for women in Greensboro, North Carolina.  As a matter of fact, the only time Dr. King ever spoke in that city was at Bennett’s Annie Merner Pfeiffer Chapel, upon the invitation of Edmonds!  King and Edmonds met in 1958 at an NAACP convention in Detroit and the two corresponded until King was slain.

Edmonds was a prominent civil rights leader in the city.  He became the president of the Greensboro, North Carolina, chapter of the NAACP, and is attributed with revitalizing that chapter in 1955.  He served as an adviser to the “Greensboro Four” during the 1960 sit-ins.  The Greensboro Four were Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond, Franklin McCain, and Joseph McNeil.  These young men were students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College (NC A&T).  Edmonds is recognized as a pioneer in the fight for equal rights for minorities in Greensboro.

In an reflective interview in 2004, Edmonds recounted his efforts to integrate New Haven’s schools and the discrimination he faced in the attempt to find affordable housing as well as his wife’s difficulties finding a job as a teacher. He stated that the local trade unions and the White Citizens’ Council, a coalition of businessmen, both tried to restrict African American access to jobs and job training. Edmonds appealed to Mayor Richard Lee to put pressure on these groups. This led to the establishment training programs for African Americans who wanted to learn a trade and efforts by Lee to integrate the New Haven police force. Edmonds also cofounded the group Community Progress Incorporated, which was created to organize citizens into local advisory groups who could make recommendations for community development initiatives and to lobby cooperatively for civic improvements and fixes for neighborhood problems. Edmonds also talked about the creation of Head Start in New Haven. 

Edmonds, who moved to New Haven in 1959, is credited with helping to build a thriving black middle class there. When the Ford Foundation gave the city $1 million to pilot anti-poverty and job-training programs, Edmonds was appointed to the original board of the project, called Community Progress, Inc.  At the time of his death in 2007 at the age of 90, he was the retired pastor of Dixwell Avenue Congregational UCC, where he had served for 35 years!

Digging deeper, during his pastorate, the congregation sponsored the building of the Florence Virtue Homes, the formation of the Dixwell Housing Development Corporation, as well as sponsoring and housing within the church, the Dixwell Day Care Center and the Dixwell Children’s Creative Arts Center.Rev. Edmonds also spearheaded the development and construction of the edifice at 217 Dixwell Avenue, which was dedicated in 1970.  Rev. Dr. Edmonds retired with Emeritus status in 1995.

Under his leadership, the church built a housing development and a creative arts center for the community. In addition, he was involved with many community service groups, such as the Urban League, the Association of New Haven Clergy (whose community outreach committee I had chaired in the early 1980s), the Amistad Committee, and the New Haven InterFaith Ministerial Alliance.  He was also a long-time member of the New Haven Board of Education, serving as its chairman from 1979 to 1988.

Edmonds and his wife, Maye, had four daughters: Lynette Johnson, Karen Spellman, Cheryl Edmonds, and Connecticut State Rep. Toni Walker (D-New Haven). After retiring from his pastorate at Dixwell, he became a member of Church of the Redeemer UCC in New Haven.

Edmonds taught sociology at Southern Connecticut State University beginning in 1966.  Even after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70 in 1987, Edmonds continued to teach at the university by applying for special permission annually.

Even after retiring from the church in 1995, Edmonds was inclined towards continued public service.  When meeting with single mothers who had to defer going to school to raise their children, he helped to establish the Edwin R. and Maye B. Edmonds Scholarship Fund for single parents.

There can be no gainsaying the fact that the Rev. Dr. Edwin R. Edmonds was a drum major for justice, fairness, reconciliation, and peace.

Project for the Beloved Community, Incorporated, founded in 1999 as MDB Ministries, Inc., is a Christian-based, nonprofit corporation that is devoted to promoting justice interpreting individual and social ethics in our society and world, and helping organizations and individuals in need of financial assistance.  Whereas it is not formally a 501(c)(3) with a determination letter, it is classified as a type of church or auxiliary of a church that is automatically tax-exempt.  As such, it is considered to be a 501(c)(3) organization by default and must adhere to IRS regulations, such as not engaging in political campaigns and limiting lobbying.  While it is exempt from filing Form 990, donations to it are tax-deductible.  At the state level, it is considered a nonprofit corporation.

If you feel compelled to make a charitable contribution to donate to the Project, you can do so by sending your contribution via PayPal  (mdbwell@yahoo.com), or CashApp ($peacenik55), or Venmo (mdbwell@yahoo.com).  Make sure to put “Project” in the memo.  Thank you.

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DADDIES KING

Posted on January 27, 2026 by mdbwell

In 1978, after graduating from Wesleyan University with a bachelor degree in government (with many electives in English and religion), and resigning from my job as a teller at Connecticut Bank and Trust in Middletown, Connecticut, I whimsically decided to get on a bus to Atlanta, Georgia—so enamored was I of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  I left most of my small belongings in the basement of a house apartment in Middletown.  When I arrived at the bus station near downtown Atlanta, I had a raggedy, brown suitcase packed with a few changes of clothing and $50 to my name!  Wide-eyed and a tad nervous, I must’ve cut a lost and pathetic figure, for an adult male stranger informed me of vacant rooms at the Butler Street YMCA, which was about 0.6 miles away.  When I got to the Y, I was given a double-occupancy room.  My roommate, who was absent at the time, was a traveling actor who usually played small-but parts in B-movies, often uncredited.  I really wanted a true single, but there were none available and beggars can’t be choosers, as they say. 

Being in a strange land was frightening to me, for the section of the neighboring Auburn Avenue was a red-light location.  Familiar with two landmarks before arriving in Atlanta, I was determined to find a job at the Peachtree Plaza Hotel and was driven not only to visit the Ebenezer Baptist church—given my fascination with all things related to my hero, Dr. King—but also to quiet my anxious spirit through worshipping God in the company of others.  Before the weekend ended, having arrived in the proverbial Black Mecca, I was able to secure a job at the hotel and to pay my first visit to the historic church.

Subsequently, I worked consecutively as a teller for the National Bank of Georgia and as a library assistant at Georgia State University.  Regarding domestic life, after a stay with maternal grandparents in Attapulgus, GA, I stayed a few weeks in the home of White House counsel, Robert Lipshutz, whose son was housesitting while his parents were away.  Their maid, Lillian Wright, helped me move into the second bedroom in the home of a single, older male friend of hers, where I stayed several months before transferring to a dorm room at the Morehouse School of Religion, a constituent seminary at the interdenominational Theological Center (ITC).  I stopped working at the Georgia State Library, for I received Work-Study and worked in the ITC refectory.

By this time in the fall of 1979, I had become involved in various aspects of Ebenezer life: assisting with a youth Sunday School class; participating in a singles’ group; and, along with Philip Broomfield, fleshing out a prison ministry program.

I encountered Rev. Martin Luther King Sr. (1899-1984) occasionally at worship services, while I thoroughly enjoyed the ministries of Senior Pastor Joseph L. Roberts and the Assistant Pastor Timothy McDonald.  What was quite enthralling and moving was when “Daddy King” would drop by the chapel time of the Morehouse seminary at ITC and invariably interrupt the service to give a word to the seminarians.  At that time, he was still a commanding presence and one still carrying the burden of the tragic deaths if his two sons: Martin Luther King Jr. and Alfred Daniel King.

The Rev. A. D. King was born in Atlanta on July 30, 1930.  He was the second son and youngest child of Alberta Williams King (1993-1974).  Unlike Martin, A. D. was less gregarious and rough around the edges, so to speak.  Instead of patiently using words, he was temperamental and would resort to fisticuffs when his patience wore thin.  He was not as studious as his older brother and sister, Willie Christine King (1927-2023).  He was the first of the siblings to marry, which he did on June 17, 1950, to Naomi Ruth Barber King (November 17, 1931-March 7, 2024).  They had five children together: Alveda, Alfred Jr., Derek, Darlene, and Vernon.

King completed his high school education at Bryant Preparatory School, and proceeded to work as a mechanic’s helper and railroad fireman.  But his resolve over time began to weaken, and n 1925, he commenced studying at Morehouse College, and began assisting his father at Ebenezer, where he was ordained on June 5, 1957, and to preach in several black churches in Atlanta.  In 1959, King graduated from Morehouse College and departed from Ebenezer to become pastor of Mount Vernon First Baptist Church in Newnan, Georgia.

Whereas King was supportive of his brother during the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-1956), he did not have direct involvement with the Civil Rights Movement (CRM) until he had relocated to Birmingham.  As a matter of fact, through this brother’s leadership of the CRM, he was committed to the cause m, but stayed in the background—so much so that many, if not most, demonstrators were familiar with A. D. and were not even aware that Dr. King had a younger brother!

On October 29, 1960, both Martin and A. D. were arrested at a student-led sit-in at Rich’s Department Store in downtown Atlanta, and detained at the Fulton County Jail.  Soon, the charges were dropped, and they were released.  However, Dr. King was immediately detained.  for violating probation from a previous traffic ticket and moved to DeKalb County Jail.  In the early hours of October 26, 1960, he was transferred to Reidsville State Prison.   This detention alarmed his wife, Coretta Scott King, who through her and Harris Wofford, an aide to President John F. Kennedy, urged JFK to try to release himon fear for his life.  The call made by Kennedy, while the imprisoning of King was ignored by Republican presidential candidate, Vice President Richard M. Nixon, might have become the edge that won Kennedy his narrow victory over Nixon in the hotly contested 1960 election.

In 1963, A. D., now pastor of First Baptist Church of Ensley in Birmingham, was one of the leaders of the Birmingham campaign.  On May 11, 1963, King’s house was bombed.  When approximately angry residents assembled seeking revenge, King climbed onto a car, grabbed a bullhorn, and urged them to calm down, return to their respective homes, and pray.  in August, after a bomb exploded at the home of a prominent black lawyer in downtown Birmingham, embittered citizens overtook the streets and some even began to throw rocks at the police.  Realizing the face-off between the crowd of 2,000 strong and law enforcement escalating, King  reportedly told the demonstrators if they wanted to kill anybody, kill him!  He reminded them that there was nothing wrong with standing up for their rights, but their modus operandi remained nonviolent direct action—eloquently parroting his brother.

In March of 1965, King was involved with the leadership of the Selma Campaign, often being photographed among them.  Whereas he did not participate in Bloody Sunday (March 7) or “Turnaround Tuesday” (March 9), he was a direct participant in the long trek to Montgomery that began on March 21 and culminated on March 25.

In November 1966, A.D. King was asked by his brother and other leaders to move to Chicago to assist the SCLC’s Operation Breadbasket, led by Rev. Jesse Jackson, and the Coordinating Council of Community Organizations (CCCO), in their efforts to end segregated housing.  In addition, he ran a portion of the campaign’s voter registration project and was considered a key “soldier” in the effort, frequently using his expertise in organizing to bolster the movement.

By this time, King had already left Birmingham and become the pastor of Zion Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky (January 1965).    While there, he founded the Kentucky Christian Leadership Conference, a local affiliate of SCLC.  He played a key role in the 1967-1968 open housing movement and marches in Louisville. Largely responsible for this movement, his efforts directly led to Louisville passing a landmark open housing ordinance—making it the first city in the South to prohibit housing discrimination!  Moreover, his work in Louisville served as a local model for the national push for the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which was passed by Congress on April 10, 1968, and signed into law by President Johnson on April 11, 1968–shortly after the assassination of Dr. King (April 4, 1968). Enacted as Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, it prohibited discrimination in housing, sale, rental, and financing based on race, religion, or national origin..

On August 26, 1968, his side office at Zion Baptist Church was bombed.  The bombing incident occurred during a period of racial tension relative to the death of his brother.  The culprits were not immediately caught, and the investigation into them was ultimately unresolved.  Following the bombing, a terribly mournful A. D. King returned to Atlanta in late August/early September 1968, whereupon he was installed as co-pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church alongside his father.

A. D. King continued to suffer from a king of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from the death of his brother.  He was in the room directly believes brother’s room at the Lorraine Motel when Dr. King was mortally wounded on the balcony above.  When A. D. ran upstairs to check out what was the matter, he became uncontrollably horrified and wholly inconsolable.  For the rest of his life, though still committed to the work of the SCLC, he chose to remain in the background and often enough drowned his deep feeling of loss with alcohol.

On July 21, 1969, he was found dead in his home swimming pool in what was ruled an accidental drowning, though some family members and associates doubted this ruling, for he was an excellent swimmer. 

Daddy King was profoundly grieved, heartbroken, frustrated, and angry at the injustice of his sons’ deaths; yet he was also remarkably consumed with a deep faith as well as a fervent determination to continue their work.  He was no spring chicken, so to speak, at 70 years of age,.  He was understandably “tired, weak, and worn” like Thomas Dorsey, who, in August 1932, while in St. Louis for a revival meeting, received news that his wife had passed.  away during childbirth, and his son died the following day.  Overcome with grief, Dorsey wrote the hymn “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” while sitting at a piano a few days later—seeking comfort and divine strength to overcome his despair.  Prior to their deaths, he had been a prominent blues and jazz pianist, composer, and arranger, often performing under the name “Georgia Tom.”  Subsequently, he made up his mind to focus entirely on gospel music, ultimately becoming known as the “Father of Gospel Music.”

For months, Daddy King had trouble eating and sleeping; and when he did sleep, he frequently woke up crying buckets of tears.  But despite his intense pain, King Sr. publicly advocated for nonviolence—urging people to pray for the country and to forgive the ignorant.  He blamed the atmosphere of hate for the CRM for the loss of both of his sons.  Regarding his youngest child’s death, he found the official ruling incredulous, and believed he would never know the true story.

Daddy King channeled his grief into political action and preserving his sons’ legacies by becoming a New York State delegate in 1968 and remaining active in civil rights advocacy.   In the final analysis, he believed that if physical death was the price his sons had to pay to rid America of injustice, channeling his oldest child, their unearned suffering was “redemptive.”  Ten years before his own death, He watched his wife get murdered byMarcus Wayne Chenault onJune 30, 1974, while she was playing “The Lord’s Prayer” on the church’s newly installed organ just as the service was beginning.  Refusing to succumb to hate, he preached forgiveness and continued to advocate for love, which he still held and bore witness to In his 1980 memoir, Daddy King: An Autobiography.  His daughter, W. Christine King Farris died in Atlanta on June 29, 2023, at the age of 95.

Project for the Beloved Community, Incorporated , founded in 1999 as MDB Ministries, Inc., is a Christian-based, nonprofit corporation that is devoted to promoting justice interpreting individual and social ethics in our society and world, and helping organizations and individuals in need of financial assistance.  Whereas it is not formally a 501(c)(3) with a determination letter, it is classified as a type of church or auxiliary of a church that is automatically tax-exempt.  As such, it is considered to be a 501(c)(3) organization by default and must adhere to IRS regulations, such as not engaging in political campaigns and limiting lobbying.  While it is exempt from filing Form 990, donations to it are tax-deductible.  At the state level, it is considered a nonprofit corporation.

If you feel compelled to make a charitable contribution to donate to the Project, you can do so by sending your contribution via PayPal  (mdbwell@yahoo.com), or CashApp ($peacenik55), or Venmo (mdbwell@yahoo.com).  Make sure to put “Project” in the memo.  Thank you.

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NIEBUHR, HORTON, & HIGHLANDER

Posted on January 13, 2026 by mdbwell

At the end of the First World War, analysis of the state of human affairs reverberated in social clubs, academic lecture halls, political assemblies, and religious institutions.  One individual, who began formulating his responses to war’s massive devastation and dislocation, was (Karl Paul) Reinhold Niebuhr (6-21-1892 to 6-1-1971).

Initially, Niebuhr was in favor of entrance into the global crisis by the United States.  However, after the conflagration, he began to rethink his socioeconomic and political perspectives.  A few years after the passing of the popularizer of the Social Gospel Movement, Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918), Niebuhr began to reshape his Christian understanding of the kingdom of God as a solely apocalyptic, otherworldly destination and view of Jesus only as a substitution for humans’ deserved punishment for their sins, but rather as a revolutionary who emphasized empathy for and activist advocacy towards those struggling in present society.  Niebuhr attended Eden Theological Seminary from 1910 to 1913, in Webster Groves near St. Louis.  Upon his graduation and the death of his father, Gustav, he took over as interim pastor of his father’s German Evangelical Church in Wright City, Missouri, a precursor to the United Church of Christ, because of his father’s death.  He remained in that position only momentarily, for he went on to matriculate at Yale Divinity School, where he earned his Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1914 and subsequently his Master of Arts degree in 1915.  After graduating from Yale, Niebuhr became an ordained minister and became the pastor of the Bethel Evangelical Church in Detroit, Michigan.

Responding to the violence of warfare and embracing the social gospel, Niebuhr began to shift his hawkish political stance to the an antiwar, pacifist faith and his unexamined capitalist heritage to a socialist framework in support of industrial laborers.  By the early 1930s, Niebuhr had been a committed advocate of and worker for these positions.  However, as the Great Depression wreaked havoc upon the masses and the scourge of fascism was spreading through Europe and elsewhere, he again commenced to alter his ideological stances.  He had become an ardent antiwar optimist, having joined the pacifist organization, the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), at one point becoming its national chairperson.   In addition, in 1932, he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Congress under the Socialist Party banner.

Niebuhr broke away from the FOR in 1933, after having published his 1932 seminal work called Moral Man and Immoral Society. He began to emphasize that in the face of human immorality and sin, coercion was sometimes necessary, including warfare, to deal with recalcitrant international conflict and offensive violence.  Hence, he absconded from liberal pacifism—becoming a prominent critic of his former position—and an ardent supporter of U.S. military participation in World War II.

Myles Horton (7-9-1905 to 1-19-1990) was born in Savannah, Tennessee, to a poor couple, Elsie and Perry Horton, who were forced out of their jobs as educators when the state began to require a high school diploma, which neither of them had.  Eventually, they became sharecroppers, but challenged the notion of being “lower class,” and raised their children well: encouraging them to advocate for and help the indigent as devout Christians.  Myles left home at 15 to attend high school, and worked at a sawmill to support himself.  While working, he became familiar with the plight of laborers.  He also encouraged a strike for higher wages at a tomato factory where he was employed.  He attended Cumberland University in 1824 as he also worked with labor unions and as a state secretary for the Student YMCA.  In the late 1920s, Horton began studies at Union Theological Seminary in New York, where Niebuhr had become a new faculty member in 1928.  He theological and ethical perspectives were greatly informed and enriched by Niebuhr’s emergent radical sociopolitical philosophy and impassioned advocacy for the poor. 

When Horton visited and studied in Denmark, he learned more about the country’s development of folk schools.  They were residential adult education centers that fostered community, equality, and lifelong love of learning through activities such as singing, discussions, and shared living—providing a unique, holistic education primarily for young adults.  There were no entrance exams, grades, or formal diplomas; the learning was driven by personal interest and intrinsic motivation, not external rewards.  They were Christian-based, and promoted Denmark’s democratic transition and a strong rural civilization.

After returning from Danish country, Horton broached his idea of starting a folk school back home with Niebuhr.  His professor supported the concept, and helped him raise the funds to co-found the Highlander Folk School in 1932.  The school’s original purpose, as stated in its mission, was “to provide an educational center in the South for the training of rural and industrial leaders, and for the conservation and enrichment of the indigenous cultural values of [the Appalachian] the mountains [region].”  Niebuhr actually supported the school for decades—even when it lost its charter in 1961!

The educational formulation was to create engaged citizens, provide personal transformation, and build a foundation for a just and democratic society, often serving as a life-changing break from traditional education.  The Highlander Folk School was a crucial training ground and incubator for the Civil Rights Movement, providing integrated education, leadership development, and a physical space for activists, where they developed strategies, learned nonviolent protest, and established Citizenship Schools to teach literacy for voter registration, empowering Black communities to fight segregation and disenfranchisement. It also worked on labor organizing and desegregation workshops, and even indulging in singing protest songs such as “We Shall Overcome.” 

The school became a vital, though controversial, center for social change.  It empowered grassroots activists with the tools and confidence to challenge racial injustice; hosted early meetings for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and trained many of its members, including the inimitable leader, Ella Baker.  After the state shut down the school, the school reopened as the Highlander Research and Education Center.  It was instrumental in influencing and assisting major civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, John Lewis, Ralph Abernathy, Marion Barry, and James Bevel.  It provided integrated training in nonviolent resistance, organizing, and leadership that undergirded the movement’s strategies, with Parks’ experience at Highlander—along with her work as secretary of the Montgomery branch of the NAACP—inspiring her pivotal role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott and beyond.

Today, the Highlander Research and Education Center, a social justice leadership training school in New Market, Tennessee, northeast of its second location in Knoxville, continues the folk school legacy of education and organizing for nonviolent social change.  In the early 1960s, Horton transferred the leadership of the successful Citizenship Schools program to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to focus on new challenges.  Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Horton turned his attention toward the struggles of Appalachia, specifically addressing environmental problems such as strip-mining and toxic chemical dumping, as well as worker health initiatives for coal miners. 

The school had helped to train Bob Moses, who was noted for his yeoman work in Mississippi and innovative mathematical instruction, and participating in the Poor People’s Campaign—erecting a tent complex at Resurrection City in Washington, D.C., following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. (4-4-1963).  Horton himself officially retired as the director of Highlander in 1973, though he remained an active participant and influential voice in international popular education discussions.  In 1990, shortly after his death, his autobiography, The Long Haul, was published, along with We Make the Road by Walking, a collection of conversations with Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, who is most noted for his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed(1968/1970).

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A TRIBUTE TO RONALD DELLUMS

Posted on October 27, 2024 by mdbwell

One of the classiest, sincerest, and most charismatic persons I had the pleasure of meeting was Congressman Ronald Vernie Dellums of California.  He came to the university where I worked to discuss Black history and the debt the United States owed the descendants of slaves.  He had been involved in the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 that apologized for the interment of Japanese Americans during World War II and reparations of $20,000 for still-living survivors.  He used this example to base his argument to repair the breach of humanity for slavery and Jim Crow segregation.  He had just ublished his autobiography entitled, Lying Down with the Lions: A Public Life from the Streets of Oakland to the Halls of Power (2000).  He was the first African American to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from northern California.A member of the Democratic Party, Dellums was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus.  The CBC was established to gather Black elected officials together to address issues of concern for Black Americans.  He was candid and straightforward about positions he held, yet sought to persuade others—regardless of party affiliations—of his perspectives.  

In addition to repairing the breach of dignity and respect towards Blacks, Dellums advocated for economic justice and the end of war as an alternative to diplomacy. Although he ran as a Democrat for Congress, he was an avowed socialist.  He did not like how labels were used to demean or discredit another m; however, he believed his views on fairness and equity necessitated a transparency in philosophical presumptions.  He balked at the imperialism of affluent nations, including the United States, and challenged the decision to go to war in different parts of the world.

In addition to his public address in the evening, Dellums sat down with me for a televised interview.  At both venues, he was patient in considering and answering questions with clarity and honesty.

Dellums was a member of the House from 1971 to 1998.  Among the committees he served, he made his mark.  He opposed the U.S. military escalation in Vietnam and sought openness from the intelligence agencies.  In addition to membership on the Armed Services  Committee.  He harshly criticized the use of B-2 bombers, and ultimately helped to prevent the increase in their manufacturing.

Dellums had retired from Congress in 1998, and began work as a lobbyist.  In 2005, with the announcement of the retirement of the mayor of Oakland, CA, a number of residents and associates implored him to run for the vacating post.  In 2007, Dellums became Oakland’s mayor!  Dellums joined the fight to charge the country with committing war crimes.  He could not finger foreign countries while his own violated international law.   As a member of Congress, Dellums had sat on the Foreign Relations Committee.

He was a strong supporter of labor unions and women’s rights.  In addition, he was involved in the rapidly growing conservationist, or environmental, movement.  On several occasions, Dellums was nominated and/or invited to run for President (or Vice President).

As mayor, Dellums became an advocate and sponsor of mass participation in the body politic.  He emphasized job formation and the hiring of locals.  When shootings in Oakland increased, he vowed to decrease crime in the city and was successful at doing so amid harsh criticism.  In addition, he was concerned about racial profiling and police brutality, and sought to punish and prosecute rogue officers.  Furthermore, Dellums worked on narrowing the academic achievement gap Blacks and other people of color experienced by decreasing truancy and reducing high school dropouts.  He was able to receive federal grants for his initiatives and attempted to portray Oakland as a “model city.”

Dellums encountered a lot of naysayers for a variety of reasons.  He was accused of secrecy in his political activities and of failure to pay income taxes.  As a movement to recall him mounted, he eventually elected not to run for a second term in 2010.

On July 30, 2010, Dellums died from prostate cancer at the age of 82.  He was buried with military honors in Arlington National Cemetery.

We can all learn from the life and legacy of this worker for social justice and peace.  Today’s pervasive and persistent divisiveness could benefit from studying the efforts of Dellums to dialogue with others without dissembling and with a graciousness in persuasion and a refined charisma.

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MASS DEPORTATION & THE UPCOMING ELECTION

Posted on October 24, 2024 by mdbwell

The news media have generally shirked its responsibility to report the moral depravity involved in the mass deportation scheme that Trump proclaims he would perpetrate if reelected.  Instead of addressing the flagrant racism and ethnic cleansing embraced by the idea, the news programs have general simply performed cost-beneficial analyses of the resources needed to prosecute the removal of millions of human beings—most of whom have legal protections from such oppressive practices without due process.

Now, Trump has made outlandish pronouncements before that did not come to fruition: not only because they were too intricate to execute, but also because a critical mass of people were horrified by the cruelty that manifested itself in separating children from their parents and caging them like wild animals.  His forecast about building a wall along our southern border and forcing Mexico to pay for it was as laughable as it was impracticable.  Moreover, his caustic rhetoric depicting immigrants as dirty, subversive, drug addicted, terroristic, genetically inferior, and so forth made mockery of the U.S. presidency as the model of freedom and democracy around the world.

The United States would not even exist without massive immigration from around the world.  Unfortunately, even back in colonial times, settlers committed homicide and genocide against indigenous peoples, including Mexicans, engaged in the slave trade forcing Africans to work without pay as the property of whites, and mistreated other ethnics such as Chinese, Irish, Italian, and Japanese peoples among others.  America, so called, was headed for a type of greatness, but her racial and ethnic prejudices and discriminatory practices substantially and severely damaged her global reputation—and still does so today!

The blatant fear-mongering regarding immigration by Trump, harks back most recently to the misrepresentation about affirmative action.  The policy was enacted to redress  the longstanding history of slavery and segregation that plagued our country from her beginnings.  Centuries of dehumanization clearly deserved recompense in a variety of ways that the policy of affirmative action did not even purport to accomplish.  In education and employment, the lie was perpetrated that Blacks were taking over positions that more qualified, particularly white, applicants should have attained.  If these lies were true, Blacks would have been radically disproportionately represented in all facets of society.  Needless to say, that clearly did not happen as the racial disparities among blacks academically and occupationally continued to grow.  Affirmative action primarily placed qualified Blacks and other people of color in positions they deserved just as much as others—all things told.

What we need is humane immigration reform and a regulated and judicious path to citizenship—especially for those seeking asylum from persecution at home as well as for those sincerely seeking a better life for their families and themselves that have been impossible to achieve from where they departed.  Furthermore, our country should seek to help improve the standard of living in places where the job market and economy are failing their citizens.  If we want friendly and productive neighbors in the western hemisphere, and a healthier immigration process, we should seek to assist those suffering nations in constructive, positive, and effective ways.

Let us not allow Trump to disparage categories of people any longer.  Instead, let us appreciate the beauty of diversity and aspired to a truly pluralistic society and culture.  We can do this by making sure the racist, xenophobic, obtuse sociopath does not step foot in the White House ever again so that he can make America a fascist state.  We fought a war to defeat Hitler’s Germany; so why would we support a candidate who idolizes the Nazi dictator?

Vote instead for a stronger, more progressive and egalitarian government in conjunction with the candidacy of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz!

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OF KENNEDYS AND KINGS

Posted on October 21, 2024 by mdbwell

I watched the Zapruder film in my dormitory room on march 6, 1975, on Geraldo Rivera’s show on ABC called Good Night, America.  I had my doubts about the findings of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy—commonly known as the Warren Report.  Hence, the critical commentary of Robert Groden and Dick Gregory accompanied by my watching the film tended to confirm or corroborate my suspicions of the government’s stance as explained by the Warren Commission and presented to Lyndon Johnson on September 24, 1964.  From news reports that followed its publication, I was convinced that if Lee Harvey Oswald acted, he did not act alone; and that regardless of named potential conspirators, it was contemporaneous and former actors within the government of the United States who were responsible for the horrific act.  Subsequently, I explored Mark Lane’s Rush to Judgment (1966) and Groden’s JFK: The Case for Conspiracy (1975).

I never entertained the role of a conspiracist.  Instead, I characterized my suspicions as based on the obvious coverup of the federal government and the news media.  As I increased in my knowledge and understanding of the Kennedy administration, especially with regards to the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the dynamics of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the emergence of a moral commitment to oppose racism, and the burgeoning peace initiatives of the president regarding the Soviet Union, the nuclear arms race, and the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Vietnam.  Furthermore, as I learned incrementally about the suspicious deaths of many related in some way to the covering up of factors involved in the lead up to and the follow through of the assassination, I peremptorily perceived that something was seriously amiss surrounding the whole macabre affair.

Moreover, my views on the murder of JFK found parallels with the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., which occurred on April 4, 1968–precisely one year after King had formally declared his opposition to U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam at the Riverside Church in New York City.  By the spring of 1968, the antiwar movement had grown exponentially, with the help of Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy, Dr. Benjamin Spock, and King.  In addition, the lies about the Tet Offensive were exposed and the weakening and disruption of domestic policies such as the War on Poverty conspired to lower President Johnson’s approval ratings.  As a result, he felt coerced to withdraw his name from nomination for a second term on Sunday, March 31, 1968.  That surprising announcement was followed by an even more astonishing occurrence: the killing of Dr. King!  And even though I still harbored resentment for Bobby Kennedy for his collusion with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s wiretapping of King, my hermeneutic of suspicion was further reinforced by the murder and subsequent inconclusive investigation and coverage of the snuffing out of the life of the senator from New York who was running for the Democratic nomination for president on June 6 of that year.

With the narcissistic return of Richard Nixon to the White House, this time as President, and his clandestine approach to political matters, he demonstrated a brutality against opponents and protesters that further eroded my confidence in the ethics of the political leadership as a whole.

Consequently, by the time I watched the Zapruder film initially, I was despondent over the failure of Nixon’s ability to lead the country faithfully and responsibly and intensified my distrust of the government and its political machinations, subterfuge, and shenanigans.  Coupled with the knowledge of revelations concerning America’s involvement in regime changes in the world—Diem, Lumumba, Allende, et al.—I was secure in my mistrust by the summer of 1975, when I turned twenty in July.

By the time I was about to graduate from Wesleyan University with a bachelor’s in government, I found myself fiercely resistant to any participation in the political or legal professions.  Most recently, I had been involved in the student divestment movement on campus to force the South African government to dismantle its apartheid system that oppressed the Black majority as well as other citizens of color.  I had become an ardent supporter of the nonviolent movement in that republic.  I gave a eulogy for the activist Steven Biko, who was murdered in prison, and commiserated with the efforts of Bishop Desmond Tutu and Rev. Allan Boesak.  I continued my support of divestiture and the Free South Africa international campaign until Nelson Mandela was released from prison on February 11, 1990.

In addition to the murders if King and the two Kennedys, I was also wary of the death of King’s younger brother, the Rev. Alfred Daniel King, nine days shy of his thirty-ninth birthday.  The cause of death was drowning, although he was an excellent swimmer.   Of course, A.D. King did not have the recognition and public persona as his charismatic brother, he was a constant and prominent local figure in support of the Civil Rights Movement.  I felt at the time that his death was another way the U.S. government sought to prevent anybody else succeeding the inspirational activism of Dr. King.  

Soon, I found confirmation of my amassing suspicions by the piecemeal revelations of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program, commonly called COINTELPRO.  Hoover was intent for a decade and a half on attacking activists through secret and substantially corrupt and illicit means.  Many government insiders were aware of Hoover’s hatred of so-called “subversives,” and were fluent in, despite being silent about, the sinister manner of his retributive measures.  In the mist of the first moon landing and the mysterious drowning of Mary Jo Kopechne in Poucha Pond off the Dike Bridge on Chappaquiddick Island of Martha’s Vineyard, the curious death of King on July 21, 1969, just did not receive much media coverage or analysis.  And the story Sen. Edward “Ted” Kennedy told regarding the incident that caused Kopechne’s death was simply unbelievable.  Perhaps, the real incredulity was that he remained ensconced in the halls of Congress until his death from brain cancer forty years later on August 25, 2009, in Hyannis Port in Barnstable, Massachusetts.

From the vantage point of sixty-one years after the assassination of Pres. Kennedy, I doubt that I will ever know the truth about the aforementioned slayings before my own demise.  Meanwhile, my suspicions remain evermore strongly.

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OUR SORROWFUL POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

Posted on February 15, 2023 by mdbwell

There seems to be a belief that if you keep telling a blatant lie, that lie morphs somehow into the truth.  Nikki Haley classifies herself as white, although she is the daughter of Indian immigrants.  In the past, she has recounted that her parents were discriminated against in this country; yet she asserts that the United States is not racist.  That African Americans, for example, are disproportionately deprived of fulfilling the major indices of quality of life does not seem to indicate to Haley that something is amiss.  It is not because there are innate things in Blacks that make many of their lives challenged in the well-being categories.  Therefore, there are other elements outside of themselves that preclude the possibility of such fulfillment.

Now, it is not because Haley and other Republicans of her ilk are unintelligent or have difficulties with understanding research data.  Instead, they are consciously and deliberately denying a reality because they do not want to confront the evidence that institutionalized, or systemic, racism is pervasive in our society.  They want to claim that racism might have been a part of the past—since the enslavement of Africans is clearly something that cannot be denied—but they do not want to realize what the history entails and how it continues adversely to affect the descendants of slaves into the twenty-first century.  Such denial of structural racism allows Haley and others in the GOP to ignore the flagrant injustices against Blacks (and other racial and ethnic minorities) and do nothing about the impact such oppression has upon them in the present day and in the foreseeable future.

An ideology that counters self-evident facts is more than just ignorant.  As a matter of fact, it is probably not ignorance at all.  For ignorance gives such stupidity a pass.  Rather, it is an unethical and evil stance so that the issues of the suppression of many American citizens do not need to be addressed or redressed.  And I use the word “citizens” purposely, for Haley, during the Senate race between Herschel Walker and Raphael Warnock, actually stated that the latter, born in Savannah, GA, needed to be deported!

Thus far, the candidates for the presidential nomination aligned with the Republican Party all cater to the drum and fife of racial prejudice and white supremacy.  They are trying to save the United States for white people—as if they can really stop what has been badly characterized as the “browning of America.”  The fact of the matter is that over two-thirds of the world are people of color, so to speak, and that actuality is going to become the reality of the United States by the end of this century.  To put forth that idea is not a scare tactic; rather, it is merely a statement of fact.  No matter how hard it is for some folks to accept and appreciate, there is nothing any individual, group, organization, or institution can do to counter this inevitability.

Certainly, there are some Republicans who are able to face this reality and who appreciate the beauty of diversity.  Rather than fight against it, seek to delay it, or use their current advantages to practice forms of genocide, are there not some who want to fight for an egalitarian society where everyone has the opportunity to seek the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?  Will we continue to travel down the road of culture wars and xenophobic division in order to exploit and dehumanize fellow Americans because they have more melanin in their pigmentation?  Must we seek to protect our future generations from learning about the violence the early settlers of this nation perpetrated against the indigenous peoples and against Black and Hispanic folks, and others, to foster a system of advantage and superiority?  Or should we not grasp the adage that those who fail to remember and study history are doomed to continue to practice the evils of the past?

For all intents and purposes, the 2024 election cycle has already begun.  Are we going to allow the prevarications and the supremacist attitudes to rule the period?  Or are we going to challenge at every turn the ludicrous lies and historical falsehoods and contemporaneous denials that pollute the political discourse of the Republicans?  Can we not identify and bolster those who recognize their words and behaviors as anathema to our democratic republic and pluralistic nation?

I do not have any illusions about where we are today.  If we do not object to the ideological dangers we see around us, we will continue to go down a road that will be a dead end for democracy.  It will place us in the camp of other states, past and present, that are fascistic in nature.  Those who believe in freedom and inclusiveness and equal opportunity must come together and continue to fight tooth and nail against the stoppage of the so-called American Experiment.  The struggle is real.  God help us to be fit for the battle!

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DIVERSIFYING & INTEGRATING CURRICULA

Posted on January 25, 2023 by mdbwell

Research informs us that the majority of social studies classes in upper primary, secondary, and postsecondary schools have as the central substantive core an emphasis on white society and culture.  This neglect and dismissal of the critical roles, perspectives, attitudes, and actions of people of color are deliberate and the ramifying consequences of a country steeped in racism and xenophobia.  The exclusion of traditionally underrepresented groups—their coping mechanisms, their development of sociocultural identifiers, and their persistent endurance, despite adversities, resulting in meaningful and essential contributions to the nation’s character and metier—is a false narrative of the past and a flagrant distortion of the dialectical path that entails where we are today.

To compensate for these shortcomings and the failure to depict historical and contemporaneous realities, there have been countless attempts to diversify social studies curricula by integrating the philosophies and actions of people of color.  Because of the ineptitude of bigotry, scholarly obstructions by various disciplines, weak challenges to the value of such broadened analyses by largely picayune disagreements with historical minutiae that do not abrogate the salient and conclusive contributions of so-called racial and ethnic minorities, these genuine endeavors for inclusion have been primarily in vain.

Therefore, recourses to make available a more realistic presentation of the evolution of the American experiment, so to speak, instituted specialized classes designed to spotlight the challenges, achievements, sociocultural distinctions, and critical scholarship of BIPOC individuals, groups, and organizations.  Needless to say, many of these resorts, or alternatives, met with much resistance by the dominant scholastic culture.  Programs in Black, Chicano/Latino, Native American, and Asian Studies were significantly marginalized, unsupported, underfunded, mocked, ignored, and truncated or discontinued.  

In one university where I taught, I chaired a committee that established a Black Studies minor.  At the same time, there was developed a Woman’s Studies minor.  The following fall, as the two minors commenced, a group of us on the two separate committees went to the new president’s meet-and-greet gathering.  We were eager to share what we had accomplished.  After we had exchanged hellos, we introduced him to the two minor programs.  Without any hesitancy whatsoever, that new president responded that he did not like “specialty” classes in the curriculum!  His unashamed expression of sheer ignorance and reflexive stupidity initially astounded us despite our visceral understanding of the pervasiveness of such insipid disinterest!  In spite of his pet peeves, both the programs still exist today and he is no longer president!

At yet another postsecondary institution, I chaired a committee to form an American Ethnic Studies Minor.  It passed all the required curricular hurdles and became an official academic program.  However, when it came for a coordinator to be assigned to oversee and market the minor, none was assigned.  The committee had recommended me for the coordinator, but because I was an administrator in another division and an adjunct faculty, I technically did not qualify.  For two years, there was no coordinator named, and this inattention led to the removal of the program within two-and-a-half years!  It was clear that many did not wish the program to succeed.

When I was a student at Boston University in the mid-to-late 1980s, I had the privilege of becoming friends with the renowned scholar-activist Howard Zinn.  I took a graduate seminar with him called Politics and History, and we worked together on Free South Africa movement activities outside of the classroom.  In the course, we discussed how the writing of history is often based on the author’s perceptions in addition to scholarship.  One reason why he wrote A People’s History of the United States is because he found much scholarship to ignore the role of traditionally underrepresented groups in the making of U.S. history and the concomitant failure of interweaving their roles into the developing tapestry of this nation.  It is necessary, he averred, to learn the conditions, cultural expressions, worldviews, and perspectives of those oppressed, exploited, and marginalized—yet the mechanisms by which they survived and contributed masterfully in the creative processes over time.  Would that there were more like Zinn in the academy as far as submitting a comprehensive view of our variegated past is concerned!

Currently, there is a negative ideological thrust that is trending in our extremely divisive society and culture.  Specifically, there is an intensification of notions of white supremacy and nationalism.  Whereas we know these ways of thinking are puerile, crass, foolhardy, and inept, we are also aware that actions emanating from these distortions can be violent, insidious, dangerous, and destructive of living peaceably together—especially if people are radicalized by such lies and self-serving propaganda.  What is equally disturbing is the continuous denial of historical facts that inevitably place their “whiteness” in a terrible light.   Concealing the truth because it is shameful and causes some to feel guilty does not validate such silence.  The truth must be confronted: addressed and, hopefully, redressed.

For example, it is ludicrous to claim there has not been any institutional and systemic racism in our past and that subsists until today.  The disparities in the quality-of-life indices among racial and ethnic minorities are sufficiently researched that it is downright nonsensical to refute the evidence.  The reality of past and present is transparently clear.  A basic course in sociology would establish in rudimentary fashion the structures, processes, policies, and services that manifest the machinations of racial and ethnic discrimination and comprise the very definition of systemic!  The way our foundational xenophobia is exhibited in our daily lives is the warp and woof of interpersonal relationships and the organizing of social institutions.  

Perhaps, a slight digression will be instructive.  Male chauvinism in one sense is expressed by beliefs that females are relegated to certain sectors in our society and not to others.  If men believe women are frail, nurturing, unintelligent, emotional, and desirous of fulfilling men’s lusts, then it isn’t a leap to ascertain why women were considered property, could not vote, were not afforded formal education, and told they needed to be homemakers—but if they worked away from home, they did not deserve the same pay as their male counterparts who simply performed the same or equivalent duties.  When the prejudicial views of women devolve into patterns of oppression as delineated above, the perduring and pervasive result of such suppression is called “systemic.”  To deny systemic sexism in this country is naive and stupid, on the one hand, or deceitful and malicious, on the other hand.  Such denials are lies for they misrepresent reality.

In The Life of Reason published in 1905, George Santayana asserts, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” That happens a lot as we go through cycles of hateful views of specific others.  The perpetrators and circumstances can be different, but the developing dynamics are frequently very similar.  We need to learn from the illogic of our past fraught with the objectification of other human beings and change the way we behave presently and in the future.  The sustaining of old prejudices because we do not understand or appreciate history often results in new expressions of hate that reflect Mark Twain’s nuanced aphorism: “History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”  Or another saying that complements it: “If you tell truth you don’t have to remember anything.”

Until the day arrives when traditionally underrepresented groups are fully integrated into the national story found in already established curricula, there remains a need to educate future generations by making available programs of study that incorporate the whole truth.  Such studies must be fully accredited and carry as much value and weight as any comparable sleight of classes.  

Stop the fear-mongering and the vicious omission of facets that further define and make more accurate the content of social studies courses!  All learners of the whole story will be more knowledgeable, well-versed, competent and astute than their predecessors and contemporaries devoid of the whole reality.  Ultimately, the true story about this country will be grasped and appreciated more and more, and as a result, the sad repetition of our hateful past will disappear and we will be gratefully challenged by new rhymes!

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FUNDAMENTUM OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

Posted on January 24, 2023 by mdbwell

In the early days of our democratic republic, there was no organized system of education.  Small schools did spring up in the 18th century, but they were primarily put together by parents in local communities with no unitary or coherent structure from one school or community to another, respectively.  Needless to say, white boys were the ones to be educated almost universally; however, as time progressed through the latter part of the century, white girls were sparingly and sporadically allowed to go because they would have the most contact with infants and children.  In addition to a lack of uniformity in organization, structure, and goals or objectives, the schools that did exist had no standard curriculum.  

Some of the schools were free, while others had tuition and fees that parents and community members paid or contributed to in order to pay teachers, supply materials, and facilities.  Given the nature of the early days of our developing republic, African Americans and indigenous peoples were not permitted to attend—even if some parents could afford the costs.

It was not until the first third of the nineteenth century that the concept of public, or common, schools emerged especially in New England and northeastern regions of the country.  What was the purpose of these new schools?  The primary reason for the establishment of public schools was to school the young in the meaning of citizenship and to prepare them for competing on the world stage.  An expected byproduct would be to provide moral instruction, ethical decision-making, and character building.  Hence, it was discerned by governmental and civic leaders that the creation of citizens demanded the development of a system of education with common instruction around the basics of the three r’s as well as the principles of fundamental comprehension of and dutiful participation in the body politic.  Consequently, the federal government became integrally involved in building and supporting a public school system.

Advocates of common schools contended these academies should be free of charge and accessible to all regardless of socioeconomic status.  Needless to say, at this time there was no real effort to include persons of color.  Gradually, the curriculum expanded to include other subjects such as social studies, English grammar, debate, public speaking, civics, and moral behavior.  Beyond these badges, what also developed was the notion that common schools should prepare youth for work and economic opportunities and solvency. Education was perceived as a way not only to reach familial and personal stability, but also to accomplish and ensure the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

As one would expect, there were folks who did not want to pay for other children to be educated.  Still others from affluent families, for example, did not want their children to associate with persons of lower economic classes.  Even some who were advocates of a system of public education that would allow for children of different economic status to commingle were nevertheless averse to crossing racial and ethnic lines.

The above notwithstanding, the strongest advocates of common schools articulated a vision in which all children would be able to attend without financial, socioeconomic, or cultural constraints.  Such would prepare the country to compete adequately globally, provide children with the tools to escape from poverty and social malaise, and to reduce and resist the resort to crime, calumny, hatred, and other antinomian and misanthropic activities.

One other significant aspect of the inclination towards public schools was the prevention of certain communities having advantages over other communities by means of money, status, position, authority, etc. By establishing a singularly structured system of public education—that is to say, one that is universally conceived and accessible—with federal funding through tax dollars, the surety of a certifiable process of broad academic achievement goals was formulated and concretized before the turn of the twentieth century.

There were private and parochial schools alongside of the developing and expanding public education system, but they did not receive tax dollars: after all, public funding of education was by definition allocated to public schools.  However, contrary to the tenets of the staunch broachers and defenders of the burgeoning education system, the century that had abolished slavery and made future generations of African descendants full citizens ended with the Plessy v. Ferguson decision by the U.S. Supreme Court of 1896, which asserted that racial segregation laws were constitutional as long as separate facilities were equally provided, maintained, and protected.  It was a ruling that clearly defied the reality of Jim Crow discrimination in all facets of society and culture, including the system of public education.

By the end of the nineteenth century, public education of elementary schoolchildren had become firmly established in approximately three-quarters of communities across the United States.  In many ways, these community schools, like religious institutions, had become places where neighborhood residents could congregate for business, social, entertainment, recreational, and other enterprising purposes.

As public education developed into the twentieth century, secondary schools became increasingly important and mandated for citizens.  The concept of the educational system included the idealistic element that children learning together would improve the amenable congress of people from different backgrounds and eventuate in a more harmonious society.  If it were not for the flourishing of the civil rights movements that sought to make real the promises of democracy for all citizens regardless of race and ethnicity (and eventually expanded to include other underrepresented categories of people), this grandiose intention of the more conscientious advocates of public schools would not have been largely achieved.  With the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education that overturned the fraught policies of separate but equal legitimated by Plessy, and with the passage of landmark civil rights legislation in the 1960s, the dream of inclusivity and appreciation of diversity and pluralism lockstitched in the tapestry of the progenitors of common schools seemed closer to being realized.

The positive ethical forces that led to these progressive developments became increasingly challenged by many factors as we entered the last quarter of the twentieth and the first quarter of the twenty-first centuries: growing income inequality, emergent white supremacist backlashes, smaller government champions, economic and social class divisions, culture wars, difficulties in achieving the so-called American Dream, and development of multimedia platforms allowing for constant blathering of opinions, falsehoods, extremism, hatred, and violence.  Rather than appreciating the beauty of diversity and the constructive interchange of ideas, we have increasingly entered into ideological silos that made it more difficult to engage in building a less discordant society and enhancing our educational competency in the world.

One element that increased in popularity was faultfinding regarding K-12 public education.  Rather than commit to improving and supporting public education in a variety of ways, many became convinced that autonomous institutions of learning could provide a more adequate path to lifting up their ideological pet peeves and peccadillos, a place for distancing their children from categories of people they deprecated, and to assimilate their children to a worldview congruent with their own interests.  For sure, there were some whose intentions were more valorous than these, but usually their perspectives fell prey to more myopic and divisive trends.

Accompanying the expansive freedom of self-flagellating opinionizing made possible by technological advances and social media, alternatives to public education such as private, parochial, and charter schools began to populate and thrive.  Why cannot our children go where we parents feel they can separate themselves from others and isolate themselves from sociocultural situations they dislike?  As a result, some communities started to become tales of segregation according to perceptions of the failure of public education to endorse their own multiple prejudices.  Instead of seeking to ameliorate the public school system in holistic ways, many looked elsewhere and advocated for alternative schooling and the economic means to provide it for their offspring.

Nowadays, there are a number of states that are supporting the development of charter and other alternative schools with the use of taxpayer dollars to enable families to afford the costs associated with these newer entities.  It is a no-brainer to understand that funneling monies out of traditional public education will increasingly erode what the system can offer and inevitably challenge families that depend upon the inexpensive learning institutions.

What is ineluctable about these alternative individual and sometimes small collectives is that certain curricular standards will have to be met that will conflict with some of the narrow criteria that spawned them.  For example, a school that chooses to glamorize a particular historical era that is universally regarded as oppressive can intensify divisions in society that are contrary to the principles of unity, community, shared values, and overall comity.  Denial of the horrors of African slavery, the interment camps of Asian peoples, the near genocide of indigenous peoples, the holocaust perpetrated by Nazism, the repression of women, etc., can be conveyed in ways both subtle and blatant, but should not be allowed to be taught despite the opinions of teachers, families, and other supporters.  Eventually, standardization will be necessary and rigorously monitored—something that is already fundamentally in play in the current system of public education.  Unless all schools become charter schools as is already happening in a couple of states, the differential educational goals, objectives, and substance of voucher programs alongside of a traditional public education network will remain very problematic.  What will happen is that parental choice will nullify isolationist tendencies because evidence-based research and scholarship—in addition to the three R’s—will have to become normative.  Else, the idea of a United States of America will deteriorate—which may be what some folks intend.

 __________

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“WOKE”: TO BE OR NOT TO BE

Posted on January 21, 2023 by mdbwell

When I first entered the teaching profession, I was relegated to instructing introductory courses in religious studies.  One of them was called, “Religion in America.”  During the 16-week semester course, I spent one week on African American religious expression.  Very few scholars in the area of religion and society would discount the significant role of Blacks in the history of religion in the United States.

At the end of the semester, a couple students criticized my class by commenting that I talked about Black people throughout the course!  My department head came to me and told me that I needed to curb my discussion of African American religious experience in my classes.  He did not ask me anything; he simply assumed that I did what the two students had reported!

Although I wanted to curse the ignorant chair, I calmly took out my course syllabus and showed him the schedule of subject matter that revealed the solitary week on Black religious expression.  He then stated that maybe I needed to watch how I lecture during the other weeks and not casually or extemporaneously mention Blacks.  I simply thanked him for the advice, and clearly sent the message that the conversation was over and what he had spouted was sheer nonsense.

The student population and the faculty at the university was overwhelmingly Caucasian.  Of course, such a composition should not make any difference with the material in the course.  It is fairly standard to present the history and culture of the United States in order to understand how religious expression developed, variegated, influenced and manifested itself in our society.

Moreover, this self-same head called me into his office on another occasion to ask me about the portraits on my wall.  He informed me that a couple students who had visited my office shared their discomfort over the fact all my hung photos were of Black people.  He averred that I was being insensitive to the students who were largely non-Black.

Realizing that the complaints were puerile and offensive, I decided that my being in his office could be a teachable moment.  First, I told him that my photos were of major historical figures: Martin Luther King, Jr., W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary McLeod Bethune, Malcolm X and Shirley Chisholm.   Second, I told him that I also had on my wall photo of Mohandas K. Gandhi, who was obviously not Black, but indeed a person of color.  And third, I made it a point to look around at the pictures on his walls and then asserted all his personages were white!

Rather than be supportive of a faculty member in his department, this head immediately sided with the students with whom he identified were like him!  Choosing and putting pictures of famous historical figures on my office walls were my prerogative.  As a matter of fact, they could be conversation starters for visitors who were unaware of who they were.  To challenge my choices because a couple students had expressed discomfort demonstrated his inability to inform the students of the beauty of diversity in our increasingly pluralistic society and in the already vastly multicultural world.

When teaching historical and sociological facts about the United States, it is imperative to discuss the variety of peoples present in the land and how they not only came to be here, but also survived, lived, and endured in light of their specific circumstances.  Things happened in certain ways, which must be transparently explained and interpretations of which must be shared lucidly.   To deny students the evidence-based research and the multiple and cumulative perspectives about what occurred because of the perceived, alleged, or real discomfort of students is intellectually negligent, morally deficient, and patently dishonest.

The oppression, discrimination, and exploitation of people of color since the early settlement of this already occupied land between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans are not debatable.  Moreover, the legacy of that inception has perdured throughout this country’s history.   They have constituted a central theme in our body politic.  Prejudice against racial and ethnic minorities was institutionally codified and legalized very early on, and the effects of that ever broadening malaise continue to infect our society today.

The multifarious dehumanization is lockstitched into the structures, processes , policies, and services of this country—making it both pervasive and seamless.  Consequently, the disparities in reaching the quality-of-life indices as outlined by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development are largely defined, at least in the United States, along racial and ethnic lines.   Hence, the argument alleging there is no institutional discrimination against racial and ethnic minorities historically and contemporaneously is utterly unintelligible, untrue, unfounded, and unethical!

Lately, there has been a lot of noise about “woke-ness.”  On the one hand, it is a term that suggests that the story of the  so-called American experiment is distorted by the omission of the persistent mistreatment of racial and ethnic minority groups; thus, being “woke” implies discerning that reality and making it blatant in any representation of U.S. history.  On the other hand, it is a term derided by those who wish to conceal the historical truth and the current reality.  Nowadays, like many other matters, the term has become a type of slogan for those who use the term— whether in exposing the deniers of the major elements of our history or in claiming that a discussion of our derogatory past and present regarding people of color is more destructive than constructive and enlightening.

Personally, I do not fancy sloganeering, for it is reductionistic and socioculturally sloppy.  The data on how institutions affect people according to race and ethnicity are quite extensive and explicit—just as they are concerning sex, gender, age, ability, and so forth.  If we are going to increase our level and quality of knowledge in the world—which seriously lags behind—we must deal with facts, evidence, and truth.  Those who desire to keep these factors hidden are cheating present and future generations, and are demonstrating a level of immaturity, inhumaneness, and deception that is unconscionable!

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