Every Step Counts
Opportunity is Just the First Step. Every Step Counts. Learn more about "steps" either big or small, that are being taken to support black male achievement and SHARE your key step with the tag #every step counts
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Renowned Novelist CHINUA ACHEBE (November 1930-March 2013)
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“Freedom is the right to grow, it’s the right to blossom, Freedom is the right to be yourself”— Assata Shakur (via blackmanonthemoon)
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I always called bullshit on this. The small handful of black kids at my high school didn’t fall...
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This is a must-read.
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Youngest kids in history to pass the university grade, Advanced, A-level exams. These children are now off to college, as pre-teen wonders.
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At 12 years old, Steven Stafford is one of the nation’s youngest ever college students.
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Tommie Smith & John Carlos
1968 Olympics
Mexico City
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“Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house?”—
James Baldwin (via blackmanonthemoon)
Martin Luther King Asked this very question to Harry...
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Black Doll, White Doll. Which one is the nice one?
Self-Perception MUST change for us to fulfill the #AmericanPromise.
Sharing this beautiful mural on what would have been Malcom X’s 88th birthday. #education#americanpromise #streetart
#throwbackfriday #graduation Tag @americanpromise in your grad pic and we’ll share.
![therootnews:
Quote of the Day: Maya Angelou
Read more here-> [http://wapo.st/15NLVtY]
Right on!](http://25.media.tumblr.com/fb0349ab0bad7e8a5562347995e88441/tumblr_mltrbzoe761r08ekxo1_500.jpg)
Letter from a Black Father in CT
I am a African American father of children who come from a mixed background; their mother is a Jewish woman and we live in an affluent community…short for a mostly white community.
I can’t help but feel your pain, trials and tribulations as you struggled to raise and educate your children while documenting this film. I am excited, inspired and amazed by this film as it chronicles what young African American males go through from the culture that says being Black is bad.
It made me realize that I’m not alone in doing what I did to sacrifice everything so that my children would get the best education possible, even if it meant sacrificing myself and my beliefs as well as my integrity as a Black Man.
As a computer engineer and a college educated African American male from a poor family where people celebrated people coming home from prison rather than those of us who went to school, I salute and endorse everything that you represent.
I had to say thank you for telling your story so that I can show this to others and I know your story will hopefully change the way we look
at each other as a people.
Letter From a Mother in DC
Just wanted to reach out and let you know how much I loved American Promise.
I know your story too well because I have lived it. My son James* graduated from school in 2010. I too dealt with the accusations of “aggressiveness”, ADD (which doctors said he did not have), was offered free tutoring when he was doing well, the crazy statements from school officials, his lack of motivation as it relates to the college application process, his responses to rejection from some colleges, etc. It was like revisiting my life on film.
I also know the experiences were also shared by many of my friends; I intend to host a screening at my house one day this summer.
Anyway- I wanted you to know that your work was/is appreciated and needed. We hear a lot of stories about the struggles associated with educating low income minority children; very little is said about the struggles of getting middle class children through!
*name has been changed to preserve anonymity
![therootnews:
Georgia Teen Speaks Out on Integrated Prom
Seventeen-year-old Mareshia Rucker knows her mind and is not afraid to speak it. “She’s one of the racially mixed group of student organizers who are putting together the first integrated prom at Wilcox County High School in Georgia, roughly a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Atlanta. She told The Root recently that the school, which historically holds two private, off-campus proms — one for blacks and one for whites — is “small, so for the most part you know everybody.” She estimates the graduating class is fewer than 100 people, and the county itself has fewer than 10,000.”
Read more-> [http://wapo.st/12q8i5H]
Power to this girl! Young and strong.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/7b0b165fa0838fb6c552fd54f7d09e10/tumblr_mlgqosap9F1r08ekxo1_500.png)
Georgia Teen Speaks Out on Integrated Prom
Seventeen-year-old Mareshia Rucker knows her mind and is not afraid to speak it. “She’s one of the racially mixed group of student organizers who are putting together the first integrated prom at Wilcox County High School in Georgia, roughly a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Atlanta. She told The Root recently that the school, which historically holds two private, off-campus proms — one for blacks and one for whites — is “small, so for the most part you know everybody.” She estimates the graduating class is fewer than 100 people, and the county itself has fewer than 10,000.”
Read more-> [http://wapo.st/12q8i5H]
Power to this girl! Young and strong.
Ha! Funny little GIF
(via blackmanonthemoon)
“I believe wholeheartedly, and without apology, that we have a collective responsibility to the children of our communities even if we did not conceive and bear them. Of course, parents can and should raise their children with their own values. But they should be able to do so in a community that provides safe places to play, quality food to eat, terrific schools to attend, and economic opportunities to support them. No individual household can do that alone. We have to build that world together.”
Melissa Harris-Perry, Why caring for children is not just a parent’s job (via msnbc)
It takes a village to raise a child! Though the concept of a village is rapidly changing in American society, the sentiment holds. #inspire
(via ethiopienne)
A Letter From a Supporter in Philadelphia
Dear Idris,
I invited a friend to the screening here in Philly on Friday night and told her to bring her grandson. Alex* is 13 and his father — my friend’s son — was murdered when he was 5 or 6. His mom doesn’t pay very much attention to him, and they sleep on dirty clothes on top of a mattress on the floor. My friend is thinking of raising him, except that she’s 65 and already raised her son’s oldest child — the girl’s mom is a heroin addict — and that about wore her out.
Alex is extremely bright and likes to learn. But for the past 6 months or so he hasn’t been studying, has been acting out, and he’s starting to succumb to peer pressure. Recently he has been telling her that he no longer wants to go to college. My friend made him come to the screening. She says he was slumped down in his seat when the movie began.
But as soon as he saw the opening scenes, my friend tells me that he sat straight up in his chair. She says he stayed on the edge of his seat for the entire rest of the film. Apparently he particularly resonated with you. He really related to your style, your struggles with basketball, and the fact that he saw intelligence and an academic orientation in someone who looked like him. He says he hadn’t seen someone so academically inclined who looked like him before.
Apparently, Alex talked about the movie all the way home. Then he went to his room and started reading. Yesterday without being prompted he began studying. When she asked him what he was studying for, he said, “I changed my mind; I want to go to college.”
*named has been changed to preserve anonymity
Make him a proud visible man!
On Friday, Gen. Lloyd Austin became the first African-American leader of the U.S. Central Command, he was also the first African American to serve in his previous position as the vice chief of staff.
