After spending a joyous weekend this past fall, at my 30th high school reunion, I reflected on the fact that I was a pretty disengaged high school student, and I don’t mean just a little disengaged either. I loved so many of my...
Author - Sharif El-Mekki
Almost every December 31, at 7:00 p.m., my family joins the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition (ATAC) to honor our ancestors who awaited in breathtaking suspense for Lincoln’s promise of an Emancipation Proclamation. This...
Last year, we reached the 300 milestone for published blogs. Time flies, but we know that progress often doesn’t. There were many articles that resonated with our readers. Below I highlighted the top ten. Enjoy a read or a...
A New Jersey high school student was forced to choose between cutting his hair and forfeiting a wrestling match. The video of someone standing behind him with scissors chopping his hair off and her (the adult’s) dignity away...
We could not do the work of using education as a platform for liberation without the deep support of our parents. They are our most important and most knowledgeable partners in this work. And, we deeply value the two-way...
While some folks are lamenting that Philly did not become Amazon City II, I, for one, am not (apparently, neither is Will Bunch from the Inquirer). To see that a coalition of businessmen and political leaders came together to...
In the 1860s, Black Codes, including vagrancy and loitering laws, were established to prevent black people, particularly black men, from coming together. These Black Codes were used to vilify and cement a distinct and racial...
I was recently in Hartford, Connecticut, at the invitation of Mama Gwen Samuel, an activist who works on behalf and with the community. I wasn’t prepared for what I was to encounter; callousness of Black bourgeois, disregard...
The #SchoolToActivismPipeline is real. When Nasiha Thompson-King was given a temporary reprieve and allowed to continue playing basketball for Mastery Charter last February, mere days after a referee would not allow her to enter...
Sharif El-Mekki doesn’t often roll up his pant leg to reveal the scars on his lower leg where the gangrene set in and almost forced doctors to amputate his lower leg. He doesn’t talk about the 12 excruciatingly painful...