“Booker T. Washington, you have W.E.B. Du Bois, you have Nelson Mandela,” said Bernard Gassway, principal of Boys and Girls High School. “Dr. John Henrik Clarke. You have Dr. L.A. Sanford. You have Shirley Chisholm. You have Sojourner Truth.”
They marched exactly 60 years after the Supreme Court issued its unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The landmark case desegregated public schools, but protesters said the education experience still isn’t equal for black and white children.
“Why, when 600,000 students in NYC school system, are black and brown children, they’re not being taught their history? That makes no sense whatsoever,” said Stan Kinard, youth development coordinator at Boys and Girls High School.
“Black history today will stop us from being in jails tomorrow,” said former City Councilman Charles Barron.