Building Confidence, Not Suspensions: The Case for African-Centered Education

The quote that opens this book is from an article titled “In The American Public Education System, Black Children Are the New Cotton,” written by father, educational activist, and writer Chris Stewart. Stewart’s fundamental argument is that “[w]hite America…always [has] an interest in the education of Black folks, but never for the purposes of [Back people’s] freedom.”6 Instead of being the nurturing environment that builds confidence that America’s Black youth need to survive in this world, far too many schoolhouses across America (ranging from preschool to high school) are nothing more than penitentiaries where Black bodies are prisoners of war. For example, “many Black children attend schools with more metal detectors than mental health services, more police officers than counselors and more of a look of a starter prison than a school.”7