Nikole Hannah-Jones and Najya Hannah-Jones

Nikole Hannah-Jones is in the news again. The creator of The 1619 Project, for which she won a Pulitzer Prize, and which some historians roundly criticized as revisionist history, while others lauded, has written an essay in The New York Times entitled “In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?” The essay is behind a pay wall, but you also have the option of creating a free account or even receiving a one time code to access it.

In her essay, Hannah-Jones writes of her regret that she and her husband, Faraji Hannah-Jones, elected to send their only child, their daughter Najya, to a public school in New York City that was predominantly populated by poor, Black students. P. S. 307 was in a poor neighborhood, surrounded by public housing projects, and regularly rating among the lower performer schools in its district. The Hannah-Jones’ reasoning in their decision to send Najya to such a poorly performing school was founded on ideology: the academic disparity between poorer, predominantly Black schools and wealthier, predominantly White and Asian schools, as well as the fact that schools in NYC remain largely segregated by race and class 70+ years after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling, is a symptom of systemic racism. The only way to overcome the segregation of NYC schools and the academic poverty of poorer, Black schools, is for middle-class and wealthy Black parents to intentionally choose to enroll their children into the schools and work to improve them.

The Hannah-Joneses were convinced that, while school and district administrators felt empowered to ignore the complaints of lower-class Black parents, they would not feel so empowered to ignore the complaints of middle and upper-class Black parents, especially those with such prestigious occupations as a journalist for The New York Times who is as well-connected socially and politically as she. Alas, they underestimated the intransigence of lifetime employees of a school system who feel no need to be accountable to their students’ parents, because firing them is a feat of which God almighty Himself has surrendered any prospect of achieving. While Hannah-Jones does report small steps toward progress, she admits that such victories were too little, too late, and came only after multiple unanswered phone calls, multiple unanswered emails, multiple unanswered requests for sit-downs, and multiple unanswered requests for access to her child’s academic work. It is to her credit that Hannah-Jones kept pressing for the above. Even still, her account of these persistent efforts in her essay speaks to her incalculable naiveté that she assumed her socio-economic status and professional credentials would count with school administrators any more than did the absence of such among her daughter’s less economically privileged classmates. When God Himself cannot fire you, no one else is going to be considered worthy of the time of day, either.

The most upsetting part of Hannah-Jones’ essay, for both the reader and, clearly, for Hannah-Jones herself, is the day she was confronted by her daughter over the decision to send her to an academically inadequate public school. Najya and her group of “nerdy” Black girls, the ones who were considered smart by their peers, hatched a dream of being accepted into some of the more prestigious colleges and universities in the country. When they looked at the requirements for being accepted, their curiosity led them to investigate where their own school ranked among the hundreds in NYC. To their shock, they learned that their school was ranked among the lowest in the city for academic achievement and prepardness. Najya’s shock soon turned to anger. She confronted her mother in their car after being picked up for school one day. She figured that her mother must have known the status of her school when she and her father decided to enroll her there. So, why did they decide to do that? Najya knew that her parents had the money to send her to the best schools in the city. Why, then, did they decide to send her to one that they must have known would fail to adequate prepare her academically?

At first, Hannah-Jones explained that they believed that, despite the poor school, Najya would be alright. After all, she had two well-educated, professional parents who could afford to hire to services of a tutor, if need be. They eventually did so, but only after learning, when Najya was a freshman in high school and attending a superior school (after being allowed to choose her own high school), that not only was she not the whiz at algebra Najya thought she was, but she was woefully ill-prepared for ninth-grade algebra because she had failed being taught the basic stepping stones of mathematics that make it possible for a student to make any sense of algebra. Indeed, Najya, who regularly received A’s on her report card from her elementary and middle schools, was well behind that national average in the “three R’s” of primary education: readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmatic! As such, when she first enrolled in her high school of choice, a wealthier, predominantly White and Asian public school, it was only by the efforts of her tutors and teachers that Najya climbed the ladder from failing most, if not all, of her subjects, to passing all of her classes with A’s and B’s by the end of her first semester in high school. Which, incidentally, speaks volumes to the intelligence and work ethic of Ms. Najya Hannah-Jones. In a phone conversation Hannah-Jones had with her daughter, of which she writes toward the end of her essay, Hannah-Jones admits to Najya that she finally understood her daughter’s anger at her parents and came to genuinely regret the decision they made, sacrificing the quality of their child’s education on the altar of social and political ideology. She apologized to Najya. Still, in what must have been heart-breaking words to hear from her sixteen-year-old daughter, Najya told her mother that she wished she had thought less of all the other disadvantaged Black children and more about her.

After publication of the essay, the debate quickly ensued. Hannah-Jones maintains that the segregation of New York City schools and the academic disparity among those schools, generally along racial and class lines, is rooted in systemic racism. I have little doubt that is true for the segregation part of the equation. The fact is, wealthier families, and back in the Sixties and Seventies, that almost always meant White (and now also includes Asians) had the means to move to neighborhoods with better public schools, or to pay for private schools. Or they had the gumption to start their own schools and academies. These families fled the inner-city schools when the integration of schools became the law of the land, effectively imposing segregation back on the public school system. The catastrophe that is the public school system in the United States today, and not only in New York City, will inspire none of these families to return their children to these schools. I do not know how to fix this, because you really cannot require that people send their children to a particular school, or only to a public school. Private schools, and now charter schools and homeschooling, are legal and legitimate options for families in the pursuit of the best education for their child. That’s not going to change. Poorer families, and in today’s inner cities that almost always means Black and Hispanic, lack the resources to move to neighborhoods that have better public schools, much less to pay for private schools. (The exception to this rule are the Catholic schools, who are known for educating large numbers of minority children in our inner cities, but even they have only so many rooms and desks).

As for the academic part of Hannah-Jones’ equation, I fiercely disagree. Poor, predominantly Black or Hispanic schools may lack the technological resources to assist in the best education for these children, but being a poor, predominantly minority school is not an automatic sentence to academic poverty, much less failure. I would remind the reader that, until the mid-Fifties, segregated schools were the law of the land, and these schools, too, lacked many of the resources that wealthier, predominantly White schools of that era had. But these schools had one resource that made up for all of it: committed teachers! These segregated schools with limited resources educated the likes of Martin Luther King Sr and Jr, Rosa Parks, Jesse Jackson, Julian Bond, Benjamin Hooks, Carter G. Woodson, Charles Houston, Ida B. Wells, Jackie Robinson, Fannie Lou Hamer, Richard Wright, Thurgood Marshall, and many other esteemed academics, politicians, and activists. For four of the first five years of my elementary education, the education that builds the foundation for future success, I attended majority-minority schools. Indeed, in second and third grades, I was the only White kid in my class at Charles Houston Elementary School in Alexandria, Virginia. I received an excellent education from the Black teachers who taught me. I was challenged. I was encouraged. I was pushed beyond my limits. Today, I have two undergraduate degrees, a Masters degree, and a diploma in nursing. I’ve had a successful nursing career for over 32 years so far. I am an ordained deacon of the Catholic Church. No one can tell me that academics were wanting in the education I received at these predominantly Black schools. The problem is not that the schools are Black. The problem is that those given the privilege of educating these children are failing in their effort. Who knows why? Racism? Teachers’ unions? Burnout? A lack of involvement from the parents? All of that, sure, and likely more.

When I was a Claretian Volunteer serving in Hayti and Caruthersville, Missouri (in the bootheel), I befriended a local Benedictine, Sr. Sabina. Sister would tutor children at the local school in Hayti. It did not take long before Sister noticed that, in a town that was half-Black and half-White, there were no referrals of Black students to exploit Sister’s tutoring. When Sister pointed out to the school administrators that this seemed odd to her, given the population of the town and school, she was told by the Black administrators that, “Oh, Sister, we’ve given up on them. There’s no hope for them.” The saddest part: Sr. Sabina did not tutor high school. Sister did not tutor middle school. Sister tutored first and second grade. I defy anyone to make much of themselves after having been given up on by the very people who are supposed to be your champions when you are in first or second grade!

The bottom line is: segregation or no segregation, predominantly Black and Hispanic schools do not have to be academically impoverished schools. If teachers are dedicated to teaching well, the students in these schools can thrive. It is a matter of will. It is a matter of commitment. It is a matter of justice.

Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.