‘I Love My Skin!’ Why Black Parents Are Turning to Afrocentric Schools

By Eliza Shapiro, New York Times

Ember Charter School’s founder, Rafiq Kalam Id-Din II, described the school’s mission: “Everything you do needs to be focused on agency and empowerment.” Credit: Demetrius Freeman for The New York Times

While New York City schools are deeply segregated, some black families are choosing an alternative to integration.

“I love myself!” the group of mostly black children shouted in unison. “I love my hair, I love my skin!” When it was time to settle down, their teacher raised her fist in a black power salute. The students did the same, and the room hushed. As children filed out of the cramped school auditorium on their way to class, they walked by posters of Colin Kaepernick and Harriet Tubman.

It was a typical morning at Ember Charter School in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, an Afrocentric school that sits in a squat building on a quiet block in a neighborhood long known as a center of black political power.

Though New York City has tried to desegregate its schools in fits and starts since the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, the school system is now one of the most segregated in the nation. But rather than pushing for integration, some black parents in Bedford-Stuyvesant are choosing an alternative: schools explicitly designed for black children….

And though a recent study found that some Afrocentric charter schools are low-performing, they remain popular among parents and many educators. Milwaukee and Chicago both have prominent black-centric charter schools. In Georgia, some black parents have decided to home-school their children to help ensure they learn about black history. New Afrocentric public schools and programs have recently sprouted in Washington, D.C., and Oakland, Calif….

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