Essay On African American Education

DuBois and Malcolm differ in their essentials pertaining to the “reeducation” of African Americans. DuBois argues traditional education as essential because it provides people of color a voice with which to protest and is the key to ultimately gaining success. He argues education will help lead racial progress in America, and he proves this by presenting statistical data on the career trajectory of black men who have received higher education.

In the article, Education and Schooling: You Can Have One Without the Other, Mwalimu J. Shujaa of the State University of New York discusses the importance of learning that there is a difference between schooling and education. Can education exist without schooling or vice versa? Shujaa’s article gives an insight into the conjunction of schooling and education and how they impact the culture of African Americans.

African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated; that is 60% of 30% of the African American population. African Americas are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites. “Between 6.6% and 7.5% of all black males ages 25 to 39 were imprisoned in 2011, which were the highest imprisonment rates among the measured sex, race, Hispanic origin, and age groups." (Carson, E. Ann, and Sabol, William J. 2011.) Stated on Americanprogram.org “ The Sentencing Project reports that African Americans are 21 percent more likely to receive mandatory-minimum sentences than white defendants and are 20 percent more likely to be sentenced to prison.” Hispanics and African Americans make up 58% of all prisoners in 2008, even though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately one quarter of the US population. (Henderson 2000). Slightly 15% of the inmate population is made up of 283,000 Hispanic prisoners.

Today's education is often viewed as failing in its goal of educating students, especially those students characterized as minorities, including African American, Hispanic, and Appalachian students (Quiroz, 1999). Among the minority groups mentioned, African American males are affected most adversely. Research has shown that when Black male students are compared to other students by gender and race they consistently rank lowest in academic achievement (Ogbu, 2003), have the worst attendance record (Voelkle, 1999), are suspended and expelled the most often (Raffaele Mendez, 2003; Staples, 1982), are most likely to drop out of school, and most often fail to graduate from high school or to earn a GED (Pinkney, 2000; Roderick, 2003).

The article digs deeper into the problem of incarceration and the decreasing concentration in school by African American students, which has become a problem in the attainment of education in the U.S. There is a gap in the number of whites graduating at the end of schooling and the Blacks with the dropout increasing each

For blacks, the history of higher education typically points to segregated education. Before the Civil War, the social system promoted the belief that blacks wouldn’t get return on their time spent in higher education. Brown and Ricard (2007) noted that most North institutions were reluctant to allow black enrollment in colleges and universities, and in the South, where slaveholder’s were still powerhouse businessmen, slaves would never be allowed to become more educated than their owners. The reluctance of the White leaders to allow blacks to formally be accepted into higher education programs held blacks back from achieving what many aspired to, and were fully capable of, experience.

Also the harsh, unjust acts we have faced being black, growing up in America. After the passage of Civil Rights Acts, after the Economic opportunity act of 1964, which has paved the way for new rulings, laws, white’s attitudes towards African Americans has improved. This has resulted in providing more opportunities for blacks in America. Even though more opportunities have been open for blacks we still have a lot of progression to accomplish. As stated in the article “high schools in black neighborhoods receive less local, state, and federal support than those in white areas.” This statement supports my point of progression, to improve high schools in black neighborhoods we must gain the support of our community, government, and state to have more interest in educating young African American students. The authors audience seems to be African Americans because he is informing readers of what blacks had to go through as people, and what we must do to continue to improve our people. I feel the authors opinions are valid because he does in fact states opinions I have witnessed myself growing up as an African American in the united states. He expresses how he believes we still have room for progression especially in mostly high populated schools filled with African American students. Majority of schools which are primary dominated by blacks seem to have lower graduations

Correspondingly, nobody can inflict a massive transition like the students themselves. The student's program like minority scholar at my school place emphasis on thrusting minority students into advanced class (AP). As an African American myself I often struggle to voice my opinions on the educational matter because I feel like nobody regards my issue as serious. As a fellow peer member, my responsibility lies in uplift minority students to excellence on a land beyond their boundary. Nonetheless, the students need to believe in themselves and their goal considering the fact that not all teachers will partake in their journey for success. There are teachers who care about the student's success and those who could care less. The States and government must step up to the plate and aid the school through funding program to hire the true teachers who are willing to dedicate their time and effort promoting the success of all

Scholars have dedicated their time and attention to furthering the discipline of African American Studies and can define the field with many different definitions. Through looking at the origins and development in the study we can see how it became a legitimate academic field. As we study the writings of the African American intellect, it will fully explain the importance of the discipline. Their work will justify the study of cultural and historical experiences of Africans living in Africa or the African Diaspora. When examining the scholar’s arguments we can develop our own intellectually informed rationalization of the field of African American Studies.

Historically black colleges and universities, otherwise known as HBCUs, have played an integral role in advancing the education of underprivileged black teenagers since their inception after the American Civil War. They have had students extremely well known in their fields today, such as billionaire entertainer Oprah Winfrey, the first African American Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. Though their graduation rates tend to be around 1 in 3, they have produced a majority of successful African American professionals. For the continued advancement of African Americans, HBCUs are necessary for offering educational opportunities that their students had been historically denied and presently out of financial reach, while promoting strong family values and equality that may be lacking at traditional schools and displaying positive African American role models in their alumni and staff.

Education has always been valued in the African American community. During slavery freed slaves and those held captive, organized to educate themselves. After emancipation the value of education became even more important to ex-slaves, as it was their emblem of freedom and a means to full participation in American Society (Newby & Tyack, 1971). During this time many schools for African Americans were both founded and maintained by African Americans. African Americans continued to provide education throughout their own communities well into the 1930’s (Green, McIntosh, Cook-Morales, & Robinson-Zanartu, 2005). The atmosphere of these schools resembled a family. The

“I don’t mind if I have to sit on the floor at school. All I want is an education,” said Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani activist for female education. In today's society, many people don’t realize how grateful they should be for the education they receive. Even the slightest education is much more than people were receiving just three centuries ago, and even more than people in countries besides the United States of America. In specifics, women and African Americans were once unable to pursue any form of education in the United States, along with many other ethnicities.

However not everyone had the same equal education. When the African-American slaves arrived to America, the white European-Americans considered them to be an unintelligent race. They thought they are the superior race over the others, so, in turn, they left the slaves to remain uneducated in the ways of the Colonial Americans. Florens struggled in ignorance

Before African Americans had to go to Blacks only school’s where they couldn’t learn a lot because some of the teachers were parents. But because they were African Americans, some of them couldn’t go to college so they didn’t know a lot themselves. But now they can go to what used to be whites only schools with teachers that went to school for it and know a lot. Because of these African

Ever since I was in high school I’ve always wanted to take an African American studies class. The main reason is because learning basic history always bored me and the only thing that was the most positive we learned that applied to black people were about MLK’s “I had a dream” speech and Rosa Parks not giving up her seat and the reactions they received from the black community. The bad outweighed the good when it came to talking about African Americans in history.There were always topics about cruel treatment of African Americans during slavery and during the Civil Rights movement. History teachers always left out the positive side to how black people always came together to have their voices heard. I always had to do my own research to further