Sharif El-Mekki of the Center for Black Educator Development says our kids still need to be taught truth and knowledge of self.

The Black Panther Party for Self Defense turned 58 this October.  Its Ten-point Platform and Program, written by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, is as vital as ever.   

As a Black man who grew up as one of the Children of the Struggle — with parents and cousins in the Black Panther Party (BPP), attended schools founded by our people, and was raised by Panthers — I feel deeply the connection to each of the demands in the list of 10. 

As a Black male educator, however, I naturally gravitate to #5:  

“We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present-day society. We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of self. If you do not have knowledge of yourself and your position in society and the world, then you will have little chance to know anything else.” 

This demand for truth in education and knowledge of self directly informs my work at the Center for Black Educator Development. It is foundational as my team and I work to not just get more Black folks into teaching, but to equip them with the skills and abilities they need to build a positive racial identity — and more broadly build the agency — of the students whom they teach. It also comes to mind  as I see how far we must go to deliver the empowering, truthful, and just public education that the Ten-Point Platform called for.   

This spirit is close at hand for this month in particular as October is recognized as Black Male Educator Month in my home city of Philadelphia.   

We continue to live in a nation of radical failure, epic injustice, and stubborn disparity for Black and brown people.  But we cannot let that slow us down or dissuade us from our continued pursuit of educational opportunity the Ten-Point Platform articulates.  

We have seen through history how authentic grassroots solutions can be co-opted and toxified when they are “taken to scale” — or, more accurately, when the powers that be pull them  from the hands of those that created them.  

Take for example, the Black Panthers’ remarkably successful Free Breakfast for School Children Program, which  first attracted my mother to join the BPP.  

Before academics began publishing peer-reviewed studies demonstrating the connection between good nutrition and academic outcomes, Party elders knew that a hungry child can’t learn. Not wanting to let a good idea go unpunished, the federal government eventually got into the school breakfast game,  neutralizing a revolutionary act. Now, instead of the fresh fruit and wholesome meals  the Black Panthers served up, schools make do with limited financial resources, and the menu is often unhealthy, unappetizing, or unsustaining.  

We see the same thing in the public education sector writ large. The BPP’s creation of Liberation Schools — premised on the knowledge-of-self ideals that undergird Point #5 — directly influenced the creation of many Black-led schools in cities across the country. Today, there are Black-led, publicly-funded charter schools that are independently managed and can be positioned to educate  the whole Black child with love and care.   

Unfortunately, many of these schools were swept up in hostility towards Black history and culture; they were taken over, or outright closed, for not delivering the kinds of “results” that the education establishment said should take primacy over building a positive racial identity. 

Fortunately, there are still some Black, Brown and Indigenous-led public and independent schools, and organizations like the National Charter Collaborative, the Diverse Charter Schools Coalition,  support them. Those schools  remain essential partners in our shared pursuit of the more just educational vision the BPP articulated nearly 6 decades ago.  

So let us reflect on all that is right, all that is left to make right, and all that cannot be left as it is for Black people here in the U.S. and beyond.  Our forebears knew the transformative power of an education that affirms the racial identity of Black children and tells the truth about the world around them.  As a Black man, as a Black educator that remains my North Star.  

And, we will continue to do the work, emboldened and empowered. The BPP gave us much to learn from and build on.