​JULY 12, 2021

                    A NEW BEGINNING IN EQUAL EDUCATION                           AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN CHARLESTON, SC

"In elementary schools, Negroes lag one to three years behind whites, and their segregated schools received substantially less money per student than do the white schools.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, 1967

“[W]hite students score an average of 1.5 to 2-grade levels higher than black students in the average district.” – Reardon, et al., 2019

In Charleston County Schools 48% of black students underperformed in math and reading by grade 4 as opposed to 6 and 8 % of white students., yet we boast the Academic Magnet High School (3.7 % black students) is rated number two in the nation. 

Chief Burgess of the North Charleston Police Department, in a recent meeting, determined that most of the murders in his jurisdiction were committed with murderers with a 10th grade or less education. 

These factors can no longer be tolerated. The nation has a long history of lacking educational equality for a large segment of its population. Charleston County has an enormous number of underperforming students is in the Hollywood/Ravenel area. On July 12, 2021, CCSD School board member Dr. Helen Frazier and I witnessed and participated in a “New Beginning” for the students of their county.

One race, different shades, became a new beginning at the Ravenel Hall, in Ravenel South Carolina. Political parties - Democrat or Republican - did not matter. Quality education and criminal justice for our young people superseded the ubiquitous hatred that has plagued the USA since before the riots in 2020.

We attended the “Meet and Greet” event hosted by The D23 Education Improvement Network (a newly formed community organization), and the Baptist Hill High Alumni Association, for the Principals Brendon Glaze of Baptist Hill Middle High School and Ashland Temoney, Minnie Hughes Elementary.  

The community came out in numbers and pledged their support to the two incoming principals, as well as the current principals of EB Ellington Elementary (James Dallas) and Jane Edwards Elementary (Jamalar Logan).

I met and spoke to many of the people in attendance with a common goal - that we need to revamp the way the children in this rural area are educated. God spoke directly through the preachers, principals, and all those I spoke to. I knew our twenty-year fight for equal education and criminal justice was about to blossom.