Black Schools Matter – Chicago Protesters Go on Hunger Strike to Save Their Last Neighborhood School
Somewhere in Chicago tonight, Mayor Rahm Emanuel may be sitting down to his favorite desert – warm pecan pie with vanilla ice cream.
Across the city in the South Side neighborhood of Bronzeville, 11 parents, teachers and community members aren’t eating so well. Their meal – a few sips of coconut water to keep their strength up.
These brave men and women are on the third day of a hunger strike to save their last open enrollment public school.
If the Emanuel administration has its way, this mostly black community will have to choose between sending their children to a failing charter school or a failing public school run by a private company – all while the neighborhood’s historic Walter H. Dyett High School is closed.
Nat King Cole, Dinah Washington, Red Fox and Bo Diddley are all alumni of Dyett.
Why close such a vibrant connection to the community’s proud past?
The unelected Board of Education voted in 2012 to phase out the school because oflow standardized test scores and dropping graduation rates.
It’s the same excuse lawmakers used in 1988 to take away local control from Chicago residents throughout the city. Most Americans have the right to vote for the people who run their local public schools. But not in Chicago, Philadelphia, New Orleans or many other places dark complected people live. The poorer the people and the darker their skin, the more likely the state will swipe away their right to self government on the excuse that their neglected and underfunded schools are “failing.”
Chicago, the third largest district in the country, is a prime example of this kind ofdisaster capitalism.
While schools in wealthier neighborhoods had all the amenities, Dyett students had no honors or AP classes and no art or music. Even physical education classes had to Black Schools Matter – Chicago Protesters Go on Hunger Strike to Save Their Last Neighborhood School | gadflyonthewallblog: