A City Education: Telling the Truth About Modern School Segregation | Education on GOOD

A City Education: Telling the Truth About Modern School Segregation | Education on GOOD:

A City Education: Telling the Truth About Modern School Segregation

In our A City Education series, City Year corps members share their experiences working as tutors and mentors in schools in hopes of closing the achievement gap and ending the dropout crisis.
By all accounts, the walk down Auburn Avenue in downtown Atlanta is very different today than it was 50 years ago. What was once a truly vibrant black community is now divided by Interstate 75 and Interstate 85. Those overpasses don’t just serve as highways. Underneath one in particular is a paradox that embodies the community today. One side of the street is a large sculpture of Martin Luther King Jr.—a reminder that this is the place that produced our nation’s greatest civil rights leader. On the other side, the highway serves as a roof for the city’s most unfortunate and forgotten citizens.
The homelessness and poverty just a few blocks from Ebenezer Baptist Church and the resting place of Dr. King changed my perspective of equality and race to such a degree that I knew after I graduated from college I wanted