March on Washington
We gather tonight at the nexus of
conflicting realities. Our public school system is in crisis, teetering on the
edge of bankruptcy. Students, parents and teachers are caught up in a chaos of
uncertainty. Residents of our city
struggle with poverty and joblessness. While the police commissioner says that
homicides are down, there is still way too much violence on our streets. These
are the grim realities that many of us face and all of us live with.
Yet this Saturday, my wife and I,
along with what is expected to be 100,000 other people, are going to gather on
the Mall in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. to commemorate the
50th Anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
that took place on April 28, 1963. The March was the brainchild of A. Philip
Randolph, head of the Pullman Porters Union, and was first proposed in 1941. On
that day an estimated 200,000 people gathered from communities across the
country on that sweltering August day that is most often remembered for Martin
Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in which he proclaimed that they had come
there to cash in a promissory note at the bank of justice.
I was only ten years old when
that march occurred and was living in an all-white Midwestern suburb where the
Civil Rights movement seemed something far removed from my family’s life.
However, today I realize that what Randolph, John Lewis, Dr. King and the
others who were speaking about was essential to the well-being of all
Americans. And so I am going to pay tribute to that original vision, and
reaffirm my commitment to work to help realize the Beloved Community that Dr.
King so often spoke about. That’s what POWER is about, and why are so concerned
about the struggles of people in our own city.
Goals of the Original March
For a few moments I want to look back
at the original March on Washington and the goals that brought folks there.
They were as follows:
- - a comprehensive civil rights bill,
- - legislation to protect the right to vote,
- - a $2-an-hour minimum wage nationwide,
- - desegregation of all public schools,
What came of their efforts?
-
They got a Civil Rights Act of 1964; but through legislation like the
Patriot Act we have seen those rights eroded.
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They got the Voting Rights Act of 1965; but just
a few months ago the Supreme Court gutted the provisions that required the
states to get federal government approval for changes that might disadvantage
certain groups of their citizens; and so even here in PA we are fighting Voter
ID laws specifically designed to disenfranchise poor and senor voters and
voters of color.
-
When they marched, the minimum wage was $1.15/hr.
and it was raised $1.25. Which doesn’t seem like much but that would translate
to $9.54/hr. today. $2 would have equaled $15.27 today. Today our minimum wage
is $7.25/hr.
To further put things in
perspective, unemployment among African Americans is higher today than it was
in 1963. In 1963 it was 10.9%, today it is 12.6%, and we know that roughly 25%
our citizens in Philadelphia, working or not, live below the poverty line.
So, while much has changed for
the better since 1963, it must be put in perspective. Many of the gains that were made then have
been eroded or lost. This is why organizations like POWER are so important; the
struggle for justice is never done. As Frederick Douglass reminded us 175 years
ago, those in positions of authority never relinquish their power without a
fight and a struggle; that is what we in POWER are engaged in.
Education
However, I want to speak
specifically about education.
The March also called for the desegregation of schools
because even though the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision outlawed
segregation it have given states the freedom to decide when and how they would
desegregate; Most states did nothing. For instance, I went to Boston in 1971
and they were just beginning to desegregate schools then.
Not much has changed on that
score. Just because a law is in place, does not mean it will get enforced. For
instance, the PA constitution requires the state government to “provide for the
maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system
of public education to serve the needs of the Commonwealth.” What we have been
experiencing is anything but thorough and efficient, and if they were offering
maintenance and support, would we be in this position?” Sometimes OUR JOB is
simply to get the political establishment to do ITS JOB.
The rationale for fighting so
hard for desegregation in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s was not just so black and
white kids would go to school together. No, those in the NAACP and others who
fought for desegregation realized the only way that black kids would get access
to same resources as white kids was by being in the same schools with them. Then and now desegregation was about ACCESS
and RESOURCES.
When we look at what is happening
to our schools here in Philadelphia we see that our system discriminates against students of color and
poor kids of all colors; that it denies
them the access and resources they are entitled to by LAW. What we are looking
at the effects of a system that is racist and economically unjust.
Institutional Racism
Let me pause here and say a
couple things about racism.
First of all, when people
think about racism they think about overtly racist acts or statements like
George Zimmerman’s profiling of Trayvon Martin or Riley Cooper’s statements
that have gotten so much press. But when you are talking about something like
the Philadelphia school system, we are talking about what Stokely Carmichael (now
Kwame Ture) called “institutional racism.” People see a black school
superintendent, a black mayor, a black City Council president, and Asian and
Hispanic leaders in both the educational and political roles; so how can it be
racist? Well maybe it’s because Governor Corbett is white – and he won’t
authorize funds – is that why it’s racist? Not exactly.
In the courses I teach on racism
I tell my students that when talking about institutional or systemic racism we
need to distinguish between intent and impact. It does not matter what a
person or a government or school system intends to do, it’s the impact of what
it does that really matters.
So for instance, in the issue of
school closings we look at impact. These decisions were made by a black
superintendent – how could it be a racist decision? Look at the impact. According
to one report I saw, black students make up 58% of the students in the school
system, but make up 81% of the students affected by the school closings. White
students make up 14% of the students in the system, but only 4% of students
affected by closings are white. We don’t
need to know what Dr. Hite and the SRC intended in the decisions they made, we
just look at the impact.
So first when talking about
racism we need to look at impact not intent.
The second thing about
racism is that we can’t talk about in isolation from other forms of
discrimination. When we look at the way
public education is funded we need to take this into account. Racial segregation
is important to note but it become much more critical when we see it linked to what I call economic segregation. This dual
form of segregation is evident in the way we have established communities in
our wider metro area and the way schools are funded.
Example of Institutional
Racism
One of the examples I often think
of in this regard is a comparison of Overbrook High School and Lower Merion
High School. The schools are less than 4 miles and 10 minutes apart on the map,
but they exist in different worlds when it comes to education.
According to the Philadelphia
Inquirer in 2012 the average funding per student in Lower Merion was $21,
399. In Philadelphia (of which Overbrook is a part) the average funding per
student was $11,078. That’s a difference of $10,000 per student. In
practical terms that means students in Lower Merion have smaller class sizes,
more technology in the classroom, more highly trained teachers, overall newer
facilities, larger and more contemporary collections in their libraries and an
overall higher quality educational experience.
PA Dept. of Ed reports that in 2012, Lower Merion HS had 98%
of the students entered 9th grade graduate; By contrast, only 56% of
the ninth grade students of Overbrook graduated.
Racism, mixed with economic discrimination spells segregation of
another kind.
This why on the POWER Education Team we
have been researching fair funding formulas for the State of PA. Pennsylvania
is one of only 3 states in the US that doesn’t use some fair funding formula.
As compared to other states PA depends most heavily on local property taxes to
fund their schools. This is why Lower Merion ends up so much more per student –
they have higher property values and even though their tax rate is lower
than Philadelphia, the amount of money they take in is much higher.
And while money is not the only
issue, it does translate (as we can see) to higher rates of success.
The Importance of Education
and Despair
Why this is important is because
we know that there is a correlation between getting a high school diploma and
success and other areas of life.
There is a correlation between...
- Dropping out of high school and joblessness
- Dropping out and amount of income one can make
in their lifetime
- Dropping out and violence
- Dropping out and incarceration
The reason we must address this
issue of education is because so much else hinges on the kids in our school
system getting a fair shot at making it in life.
Now one of things we need to
remind ourselves is that correlation does not necessarily mean causation. In
other words just because two things happen at the same time, that does not mean
they necessarily caused the other. For instance, dropping out of school does not necessarily
cause joblessness, or poverty or violence. Often when you see correlations like
this there is a third factor causing both. And I think the cause for both
dropping out and the other social problems is despair.
At its root in POWER we are
battling despair, people just giving up and throwing in the towel.
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Its why it’s so important we partner with groups
like PSU and YUC who motivate students to advocate for their own education
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Why it’s important that we organize parents, so
they realize they are not alone, when they stand up to principals, administrators
and politicians and demand a quality education for their kids
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Why this fight for education is going to be long
and hard, and We MUST WIN.
New Vision
Once we get the funding solved,
and WE WILL, our job is not finished. The
racism we are facing is multi-faceted and multi-layered and requires a long,
committed struggle. Down the road we will need to to look at what’s happening
with charters, the privatization of the public schools, curriculum, teacher training and innovative
ways of doing education for specialized learners. More than that we need a
vision of what the Philadelphia School System can and must be.
Dr. King inspired the people 50
years with his vision of a dream. We need to help the students, parents,
teachers and administrators of PSD develop a vision beyond just surviving and
keeping schools open. We need a dream of
quality education that can pull us forward. Then and only then will we live out
the legacy Dr. King left us 50 years ago, a dream toward which we are still
reaching.
