Good morning!
If you’ve followed my column since I began writing for The Tennessean at the beginning of the year, you know that I believe education is one of the most critical topics facing the Black community right now − in Nashville, in Tennessee, and beyond.
So many of the issues we face in society can be traced back to education, from the wealth gap to the housing crisis to the myriad health inequities making real the old adage that, when white folks catch a cold, Black people get pneumonia.
Education has long been known as the great equalizer; as such, we’ve been forbidden from learning to read, denied access to graduate programs, shoved into schools and districts with limited resources, and generally seen as less capable than our white counterparts.
The problems are long-standing and far-reaching, but if you focus too hard on the problems, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. It’s easy to think progress isn’t possible, and to believe that yesterday’s story will be today’s story will be the same story forever and ever and ever.