Education which ended segregation in Public Schools. Hosted by the Thurgood Marshall fund, this is just over 45 minutes. Were excited about whats to speaker, dr. Next steve perry. He told me to keep his introduction short so i will do that. Grassrootsected by Community Members and Inter National leaders dr. Steve perry is one of the most sought america. Cators in a diverse array of politicians and groups from the urban league alek, even President Donald Trump have reached out to dr. Hear his insights on what matter to parents and children. And powerful voice has been featured on msnbc, fox, cnn, aljazeera, tv 1, bet, and , as well as on the Oprah Winfrey network on multiple show s. He provides a fascinating perspective that is not often and hen Public Discourse has been fighting for dis advantaged children and families for 30 years. Welcoming dr. In steve perry. [applause] steve long time no see. Thank you for staying for the conversation. Dr. Paine, thank you, sincerely, thank you for what you do and what youve done. [applause] its all too easy for us to get caught up in ourselves, not that there are people upon whose shoulders we stand. And you represent the very best of our community. So, again, sincerely, humbly, i thank you for having me and the here. F us also, i thank you for the work that youve done to make it colorle for children of and black people in particular education. Ess to an a lot of people talk about it but youve been about it. So thank you so much again for that. Like to thank all of the sponsor who is are here, the coke foundation, thank you for what you do. Maybe about a month or so ago my i, sons wife and i, went to the africanamerican museum, which is just fascinating. Just a stunning, startling,. Ompelling experience what made it even more compel were theret we. Ith ruby bridges my sons still see their grandmother as a kid. Up in there caught fact that they were talking to rudy bridges. One of the curators said to them maybeknow, one day your dad will be here. And they were like, no, he wont. Hes not really that important. But ruby bridges. Probablyre right, im not. But what they did talk about was the we went through africanamerican History Museum we saw controversy. I must be because becoming more visible. Because as i come to speak, more soen people ask me to not be controversial. Im not saying anybody here asked me to do that but im just that to point out sometimes our friends are afraid of what is really the in convenient truth. And i dont know what it is that is so controversial except for the fact that i am aware that black people are as group. S any other that latinos, that people who are equally intelligent got the gene pool lottery. Everybody has access to. Same capacity is given the same opportunity. And here we are having a about brown v. Education 63 years later. And the reason were having that conversation is because the persist then are here today. In fact, there are segregated schools. I appreciate people, you know, smart people that come up with new definitions for the same old thing. You just pick em called prom bacon. T its still there is segregation. We need to understand that real. Ation is segregation is limiting someone s access by virtue of fact that they are different in this country what that latinoly means is black, or poor. There is segregation in the United States. There absolutely is. And what becomes controversial much in the say way as charles houston and, i dont know, Thurgood Marshall were controversial, is that they inconvenients truth and said, well, wait a minute, why then should my children not have access to the education as everybody else when theyre the same . Arent they american . See, whats so troubling to me in our conversations we often overlook the obvious. The obvious is that there is a system in the United States of america that is designed to poor people and black people in particular, but people of color in general, do access to the quality of life that chief justice about. Talked earlier dr. Smith talked about a book written by another controversial figure. Have heard of him, dr. King. Here . Re do we go from community chaos. He did talk about a lot of things but it was at the end i found the most compelling. In the final chapter, the final book that dr. King wrote, he education. T saidartin luther king jr. That american schools do not know what to teach or how to teach. Dr. King. I guess hes controversial. Because he pointed out something should have been obvious to many of us, that this system is broken. We keep referring to the Public Education system is broken. It aint broken. Working the way it was designed in 1635 to make sure that white kids from small gain access to the power that was believed to be to hold. In annie grayian society, in an egragarian calendar. Its doing what it was designed to do. So we say its broken. Maybe we dont understand the definition of broken. See, something thats broken means it doesnt work. Its working. The same system was designed to as anothere time system that we offer refer to as broken, the justice system, also sure that black people in particular dont gain freedom. Theyre the same system. Ugly system as one another. The same system designed to produce the same results theyve been producing since they were designed. And the reason why in this day age they persist is because we are unwilling to have the honest conversation about why were here. Its very easy to have a dale,rsation about garden alabama. Come on, how hard is it . Right . We know our friends, southern racist, ham, they bumble, fumble , they dont even try to dress it up. Look, we are seceding they even said seceding. Are you bugging . Seceding today . Youre not even going to try to come up with a different word . Exodus. Redistrict. Come up with something. No, not them. Secede. Going to see, thats easy for us. Hanging real easy, low fruit for us, these highminded northern easterner northeasterners to discuss how dare they secede. Thing. E they do such a its so racist. Its about as racist as teachers black,to make sure latino and poor kids cant get to school. Thats racist, too. Anythingnt call it other than what it is. When one group does not want a of children to go to school and gain access to a down southion we call it racist. Oh, theyre racist. Racist. Yeah, they probably are. Frt about as racist as those enemies as yours, yeah, the , gotho is drive the subaru the hillary bummer sticker on to whole foods, saying they want to support Public Education. Public education aint the same as your Public Education. You cant support mine if mine yours. Erent than if i dont have access to the same thing that you do, then you and i are not supporting the fight. When you are fighting to make sure that we focus on the teach ers more than we are the children when you shifted the focus of education around to make sure that we focus on the , not the students, then you, my friends, are walk ing really close to that line of racism. Want to call our friends racists because its like throwing water on a witch do. Thats what i be, i dont have the time to polite to yall. I got a couple of school as to schools to run with real kids in them. Im not a public speaker. I work in education. A real job where i tomorrow morning will be back in connecticut, where we started a school where over 85 of the children could not on a write, or do math grade level. 85 . But yall say you want the parents to be more involved. Well, 1,000 of them applied to our school. Thats pretty damn involved from where i sit. Feet. Oted with their my good friends, the dems in connecticut are choice. School 850 of them went right back to their old school. We cant change this until we change how we look at the problem. If we can always pass it off on a convenient enemy, the person were used to blaming for these things then well never hold ourselves accountable. Sons to any my school. Because i know the game. And i can make my way through a system and show people how to be successful even in the worst School System. Find the aalways nominally. Theres always some school with a Large Population of africanamericans with a strong history that we can focus on and talk about. To send oure want own kids to that school. But you cant disavow yourself that youadvantages already have today. Your understanding of the allows you toem beat the system. But thats not whats going on sister who is raising two, three kids by herself while her husband sin cars rated. Thing. A different theyre fighting a different fight. They need school. His is all they have they cant all augment their Academic Experience because first they have to learn what they are. They have been done wrong by the now forced they are to send their children to. The reason there is still segregation is because we still that black people and poor people deserve access to the same education. Because if we did, we would do away with school districts. [applause] dont worry, yall aint got to clap. You. Cant hear if we wanted every single child that had access to a quality education in the entire state, the state would take on the education responsibility of education. It the way wedo it the way we do is it because thats how weve done it because in when we first set it up for a small group of white people, i mean, doing it in they glendale dish mean the same way its happening in manhattan i happeningame way its all over this country. See, the deal is the system is doing just fine. Public Education System is doing just fine. The reason why its doing fine because weve defined Public Education as the product not the process. See, the product of Public People is ar many school that they refer to as a Public School, a Public School building. A Public School. The process of educating the public. See, when you educate the public , you do not care what method they are educated by whether its charter or traditional. Person. Or in neighborhood or magnet. Vocational technical or yet to be designed. Why we care what type it is is because we care about the product and the product is by, again,arge part our good friends in the union. Can garnish the wages of the teachers who work a publicen its education. But if they cannot garnish the wages of a Charter School principal or a private school , then its not a Public Education. Public go there . Arent the public being educated it would seem, because i current ly run a Charter School, that im a Charter School advocate. Im a good school advocate. I dont care what kind. See, because ive seen most specifically the black community , cordenned off to the educational scraps that this to offer. S had i seen us claw our way through find atem to try and break in the matrix to try and find a way to teach children to read. Or like many of us who find ourselves teaching our own. Randparents to read my grandfather was born in 1918, 1999. N he was illiterate when he passed. See, you cant tell me about segregation. Because segregation is very real today. Terrible that our concern is more so about the controversy of the conversation the violence that it pushes upon children. Are we not running into the streets . Ourare we not hurting in very soul . Why are we not crying out when we see a child who is 7 years old says i hate school . Why doesnt that rip us to our core . Afraid of . Are you scared of grown people . Kids. Ared of the reason im scared of kids is because the way you create a perfect weapon is not to put a gun in a childs hands. Its to take education out of. Heir future look around. Look around. The reason why brown v. Board of decided the way it was in large part, was because the Supreme Court realized that you could not fully participate in america if you could not. Ully be educated shocker. Manyranklin said that years before. In fact, its been said over and over in every continent that in order to fully participate in whatever country you are in, you need to have access to an education. And in the black community we talk about preaching the word. Preaching the word and what that means for many of us is connecting to god. We say that in order to truly understand who you are, you must first understand the word. And our word in many cases is christianity. Veryse you connect to your humanity. And then you connect to your humanity, you can be more humane if you are more humane, you can be more considerate of others. And you can live out what it is human, which is to put your own selfinterest aside and be able to look at the greater good. Now is a system that is driven solely by self interests. Interests of organizations and individuals who seek to keep their children away from other jobs. To keep their on on the one side you have the worked throughy these things and find themselves. Ith places like gardendale the other side you have the ones saying they are trying to maintain community. Why dont we maintain communities when somebody is to ang their child off private school who is wealthy and white . Hmm. Their community doesnt seem to be falling apart because they. Ent their child to andover you watch al frankin and he goes hard on betsy de voss. Ask him where he sent his kids to school. Education. Lic not so pro public when it came to his own house, huh . See, im about calling out the hip democrats hypocrite if for it for youe and everybody else you roll with to your house and you try frying up some pork and ask say are you eating, you dont eat that mess, it will kill you. I want what youre eating, chief me what you dont want in your own house. Gets all too easy for us to up, those of us who have options , the opportunity to choose, to say that we choose the neighborhood school. Yeah, you also choose to live there. You also chose so many other things. So you cant look at your choice in isolation. Know that country many of us did not choose. Did i not choose to live in the Public Housing project that i born into. I did not choose to be born on mothers 16th birthday. To an eighth grade dropout. Choose those things. So you cant compare my choice to your choice. Choicet even compare my as a father to my choice as a child. Tell my sons all the time, man , i wouldnt have liked you if i was growing up with you. I would have stolen your bike. They said, well, i just get a new one. And thats why i wouldnt like ass. See, we have to recognize it when were looking at choice, has to be parody. We cant talk about choice because choice aint the same for everybody. Voucher. Now, i know a lot of you like to call them different names to in the echot chamber that is washington, d. C. Not have people say bad things about me. I dont care. Yall can talk about me. Im headed out any damn way. Im pro vouchers. You know why . Because you are, too. You know why i know you are . Because some of yall got called a pell grant. Thats a voucher. Let me take it a little further you just in case you figure, well, my family didnt get pell grants. You. For some of yall may have had some way. On 8 along the a couple of you may know somebody who got some food stamp s. You may not have known that because you were too little but i just want to introduce you to this thing called a block of. Heese youre laughing because you know you cannot make Grilled Cheese with it without burning the entire house down. Those are all vouchers. Medicaid, medicare, all vouchers whenwe understand vouchers we understand, wait, the things that ben mitted me . Yeah, those very same things, there. E right see, the way in which were going to begin to finally end segregation is to allow the people to decide. Allowed to vote with their feet, they will choose the schools best for them the root, it is the root, of how you separate from decision. And theyre very different. You. Gation is put upon more house morehouse is not segregated. Segregated. Not howard, not segregated. Hampton, not segregated. Smith, all women. Not segregated. They chose to be there. A very big difference. Can choose where they go to school. Because thats what this whole point was about. Movement washts about choice. Rosa parks wasnt saying everybody got to sit up front. To sit up front, i want to have the opportunity to. To eat at to want woolworth. But if i want to eat at the lunch counter, i want to be able to go there. So we come back to this notion segregation. The reason why we have segregation is because we want feel comfortable in their space. We dont want people to feel the controversy. Offend people. O well, to me its offensive when in a city like bridgeport, connecticut, which is in fairfield county, one of the wealthiest counties in the , almosttates of america 95 of children in some schools cannot read, write, or do math on grade level. The school that we started in bridgeport, the school that we is not in bridgeport segregated though its almost latino. Black and its a choice that these family ownmade for their future. They bet on a school that didnt even exist. I need you understand how badly our Community Wants out. Not one parent until the entire in the entire city knew even where the school was going yet 1,000 applied, 1,000. We accepted all the students that applied that year we would school inthe biggest the city in just our first year. But i know we tell the story of latinos,anamericans, and poor people dont really care about education. Really . That been riding underground railroad since a long time ago not just to get of of slavery but to get out segregation. Because there are quite a few families who today september their children to a school outside their district. And they said their aunt is keep ing their children. Literally forfeiting their parental rights. Folks, youve got to understand this. Somethings got to shake us loose when a parent will for fit and give herright child to someone else today so that she may say that i am doing all i can. This mother will lie. Will say that her kindergartener lives somewhere that child up in the morning at 5 30 a. M. To put them to herr to take them aunts house to get them on a bus so that the man, yes, the man, can hire offduty Police Officers to go around and check ba