Year 1- Campaign to promote culturally relevant curriculum and culturally responsive schools
Part 1 with H.A. Jabar & Karen Lynn Morton
Part 2 April 6, 2017 with Baba Dr. Samori Camara from the Kamalia Academy
Part 3- June 7 2017 with Baba Victor Gibson, retired Detroit Public School teacher at Paul Robeson/Malcolm X Afrocentric school
Year 2 Campaign to promote cultural relevant curriculum
and culturally responsive schools
Part 1, Season 2- November 2017 w/ RJN! Interim Director H.A. Jabar
Part 2, Season 2 – January 15, 2018 with Dr.Molefi Asante
Professor, Chair at Temple University Africology and African American Studies
Expertise Afrocentricity, African Civilizations, Africological Theory and Methods, African American Experiences
Molefi Kete Asante is an activist intellectual who is President, Molefi Kete Asante Institute for Afrocentric Studies, and Professor and Chair, Department of Africology and African American Studies at Temple University in Philadelphia. He also serves as the International Organizer for Afrocentricity International. Asante is a Guest Professor, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China and Professor Extraordinarius at the University of South Africa. Asante has published 83 books, among the most recent are Erasing Racism: The Survival of the American Nation, Revolutionary Pedagogy, The History of Africa; African Pyramids of Knowledge; Facing South to Africa, and, As I Run Toward Africa. Asante has published more than 500 articles and is considered the most published African American scholar as well as one of the most distinguished authors in the African world. He has been recognized as one of the 10 most widely cited African scholars. Asante has been recognized as one of the most influential leaders in education.
Part 3 – March 14th 12:00 pm PST, 9:00 am EST with Chris Chatmon
Imagining a New System:
Pushing thought to radically shift your definition of equity
Click on image or HERE to view the slides from Chris Chatmon’s presentation.
As a part of our second year campaign to promote culturally relevant curriculum and culturally responsive schools, Racial Justice NOW! and the West Dayton Youth Task Force will host veteran education/ administrator Chris Chatmon from the Oakland unified Schools District. Baba Chris serves as Deputy Chief of Equity for the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) and was named as a “Leader to Learn From” by Education Week magazine. Chatmon was selected as a Campaign for Black Male Achievement “Social Innovation Accelerator” because he is committed to improving life outcomes for all youth and especially African American males. Chatmon is passionate about uplifting the African American community and has dedicated his career and life work to creating pathways of success within Oakland and beyond. His inspirational leadership motivates educators and community members to engage, encourage, and empower young people regardless of gender or non-gender identity, race, class, or nationality.
Chatmon is Founding Executive Director of OUSD’s Office of African American Male Achievement, was principal of an alternative high school in San Francisco, and served as Executive Director of Urban Services at the YMCA in Oakland for over 10 years. Chatmon started his career in education teaching history and physical education in the San Francisco school district. In his spare time he is working with the Brotherhood of Elders Network, Concerned Black Men, and is an active member of the Bay Area Chapter of 100 Black Men, Inc. Chatmon earned an M.A. in Education and a secondary teaching credential in Social Science from Brown University. He also holds a B.S. in Psychology with a minor in Physical Education from San Francisco State University. Chatmon is a dedicated husband and father of three sons.
The Office of African American Male Achievement was launched in 2010 and creates the systems, structures, and spaces that guarantee success for all African American male students in OUSD. African American Male Achievement is an ambitious project designed to dramatically improve academic and ultimately life outcomes for African American male students in Oakland. AAMA is leading the school district by analyzing the patterns and processes that are producing systemic inequities. OUSD’s theory of action, Targeted Universalism, asserts that by transforming the system to support successful outcomes for OUSD’s lowest performing subgroup, OUSD will create a district that improves academic and social-emotional outcomes for all of its students.
As a veteran/ Elder educator and administrator, Baba Chris will cover topics, such as:
- Cultural identity
- rites of passage
- his transformational trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico
- the significance of the history of the Black Panthers and the Brown Berets on curriculum
- strategies and tactics from overcome institutional barriers
- the necessity of healing work
- classroom rituals and routines outside of the European construct
- serving all communities while being intentional to the needs of Black children
- the concept of mastery (personal/academic)
- the concept of transformation