“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.” —Angela Davis Last year today, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania took a noteworthy step to change the unacceptable: a...
Tag - Pennsylvania
It’s October, almost seven months into a pandemic that has turned the world upside down. Since the shutdowns in March, folks have adapted; businesses have gotten creative with curbside pickup and contactless delivery. Families...
Growing up in the African-American community, one becomes intimately familiar with numerous time-honored phrases and colloquialisms. One such phrase was introduced to me as a teenager while walking to the corner bodega with a...
Last month, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia released a brief exposing the gaping digital inequities between those with and those without broadband access and the related impact on the city’s worsening unemployment...
Pennsylvania’s teacher roster is the least diverse in the nation; less than 5 percent of Pennsylvania’s teachers are people of color, according to the state Department of Education. Yet evidence regularly points to the...

When Black Parents Were the Ones to Go On Strike Against A School District – A Tactic Black Parents Should Exercise Again.
There is always much talk about integration, segregation, and desegregation. There is less talk of the power Black families hold and a blueprint Black parents can use to make demands that create seismic shifts for what they...
The show was going really well. We were in Pittsburgh, taping a live 8 Black Hands podcast episode at the State of Black Learning Conference, and we were just wrapping up the Q&A. Then, a White woman stood up and...
There is no honor in the world like being a teacher. And in a school, every single person can play a teaching role. In fact, even our students can be their teachers’ teachers. Maye-gan Brown has played that role in my life...
Students around the country are taught about America’s glorious victory in Brown v. Board of Education, the seminal moment that undid Plessy v. Ferguson’s separate but equal racial segregation. Desegregation is touted as a...
Affluent people love their walls. They’re willing to spend tons of money to create a barrier between them and people who “look different.” The current administration’s push to build a border wall didn’t come out of...