Demographics
University City High School is situated on 36th street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, between Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania. "Uni" was built forty years ago in 1971 on top of an inner city neighborhood affectionately called "The Bottom", that was demolished by eminent domain in order to build the campus that also includes Drew Elementary School (slated for closure next year). At one time Uni enrolled almost 2400 students and at another, more recent time, ranked as one of the lowest performing schools in the state on the Pennsylvania State Standard Assessments. Nonetheless, its primary neighborhood of Mantua is becoming gentrified, the catchment population has decreased in size and scope due to the closing of several middle schools, and an increase in charter school opportunities around the city has meant that enrollment now hovers around 650 students.
Most of the students at University City High School qualify for federally funded school lunch vouchers, and all receive one. While the student population is approximately 95% African American, with 5% an international mix of recent immigrants from Bangladesh, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Haiti, Saudi Arabia and parts of West Africa, 25% of all students are special education students with Individual Education Plans (IEPs). Of the remaining 75%, close to another 25% are students from outside the catchment area of University City, often because of individual issues within other comprehensive or discipline high schools, including "Community Education Partners" (a residential jail for students under the age of 18).
In the past three years the school has benefited significantly from a generous Department of Labor grant of about $1.2 million per year, as well as a Federal School Improvement grant and adoption as one of (now former) Superintendent Arlene Ackerman's "Renaissance Initiative," making it the largest "Promise Academy" in the School District of Philadelphia. The Promise Academy model has meant that fifty-five of seventy-eight original staff members were reassigned to other schools and the remaining twenty-three who were rehired had had to reapply for employment within the very same school where they had worked, including the principal. All remaining positions were filled with teachers new to the school. When budget cuts occurred on the state level at the end of the first year, all new teachers were laid off and replaced with veteran teachers from around the district. Now, at the end of the second year, budget cuts at the city level have meant that twenty-six staff positions have been cut permanently, including one of the four counselors for the 650 returning students, the only music teacher, an art teacher, and more.
The larger context of so much change is Philadelphia, where in 2012 the homicide rate is close to the highest in the country for all big cities, earning the city the nickname Kiladelphia, and according to a comparison made by the Philadelphia Daily News, one was more likely to be the victim of gun violence in West Philadelphia than in Iraq. Ultimately, the violence on the outside can translate to incidents within the school, where fights have frequently put Uni on the city's list of "persistently dangerous" schools over the past decade. Gangs from 60th street and 38th street, historically called "The Tops" and "The Bottoms" have tussled so long there is no longer any knowledge of why, except that any kid can rattle off the recent drama as if they were reporting from a war zone for CNN.
Despite such an alarming description, I am delighted to go to work every day, in large part because of the poetry elective and the "Enrichment," or extra-curricular hour-long period which next year will follow each school day. I adore my students, and we share a lot of love. One senior, Davontay Boseman, wrote a poem last year that made the "Wall of Fame" in our classroom, and marks the wisdom many young people find in working with words:
Love is not how you forget but how you forgive
Not how you listen but how you understand
Not what you see but what you feel
+ Not how you let go but how you hold on.
–Davontay Boseman, 2012
Many people say the old should step aside and make room for the future, but I believe history has shown that if you forget the past you are doomed to repeat it. Oppression, starting well before the age of my high school students, has been a historical constant, and recalling one's ancestors and forebears is an important thread in the lessons we can learn from the Black Power era. I remember seeing Black Arts leader Sonia Sanchez recite almost 100 historic names before even beginning any poetry at the Germantown Poetry Festival in 2009. Through specific black women's and men's writing during the period addressed in this unit we attempt to reconnect with the long tradition of voices by women and men of color, of content both personal and political, and for the purpose of personal and political transformation. In the words of Assata Shakur in "Women in Prison: How We Are" (1978), "While most women contend that whitey is responsible for their oppression they do not examine the cause or source of that oppression." (Marable & Mullings, p.509) We can, through the study of the historical record of this period, find ways to a kind of freedom that cannot be restrained by any prison, whether a physical, a personal, or a political one. Just as I do not want to tyrannize my students, and instead desire to have them learn self-determination in the classroom, neither should our government at large dictate laws that prohibit the greater goal of freedom for its people. Again, Assata Shakur: "Women can never be free in a country that is not free. We can never be liberated in a country where the institutions that control our lives are oppressive." (Marable & Mullings, p.512) Here we study that oppression and seek to disarm it.
Perhaps all of our liberation lies in the strong verse of poets, the enduring stories of writers, and the loud voices of conscience. Angela Davis, in a stirring 1970 speech, announced: "Before anything else I am a black woman." (Marable & Mulling, p.460) Made by an outsider, this identification could be an aggressive characterization limiting her potential; for Davis, this was a declaration of her strength. In many of the readings we will address in this unit of study, black women have found strength from a long line of outspoken individuals with the courage to self identify for the purpose of achieving Black Power, and these leaders are the constellations who stand out against the backdrop of the American sky, they are the shooting stars in the universal course of time. Finally, liberation from oppression and the freedom that comes with Black Power may come down to, in Assata Shakur's words, an unavoidable imperative:
it is imperative to our struggle that we build a strong black women's movement. It is imperative that we, as black women, talk about the experiences that shaped us; that we assess our strengths and weaknesses and define our own history . . . Let us rebuild the culture of giving and carry on the tradition of fierce determination to move on closer to freedom. (Marable & Mullings, p.512)
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