Saying Goodbye to Julian Bond

http://billfletcherjr.com/2015/saying-good-bye-and-thank-you-to-julian-bond/

I did not expect to awaken this morning to news that renowned social justice activist Julian Bond had passed away.  I had not known that he had been ill.  The reference in the announcement was that there had been a “brief illness.”

Bill Fletcher Jr. 

When I first met Julian Bond , sometime within the last fifteen years, I still had in my mind’s eye the picture of a young, audacious electoral activist from the 1960s.  Although he was still very good looking and very sharp, he had by that point reached the stage of an “elder” in the movement.  Yet being an elder did not mean disappearing or retiring from the movement for Julian.  Whether through teaching, writing or serving as the chairman of the NAACP’s Board of Directors during crucial moments in that organization’s life, Julian Bond was far from a disappearing figure.

Why is the NAACP suing New York City Schools?

By Benjamin Todd Jealous

NAACP
http://www.naacp.org/news/entry/op-ed-why-the-naacp-is-suing-nyc-dept.-of-education/

For 102 years, the NAACP has fought to ensure that all our
children have access to high-quality public education. Our
founders made improving education our primary strategy for
improving America. They did so because they knew from
experience that educational inequities are not only the
product of broader inequalities and dangerous social
tensions but also maintain them.

We believe that if we make all our schools great places to
learn, we will have more than better institutions and
better-prepared students - we will have a better country.

Toward this end, we filed a lawsuit last month on behalf of
New York City's public schoolchildren and their parents.

The NAACP has a long history in New York. One hundred years
ago this month, our first local branch in the nation was
founded in Harlem. Since then, thousands upon thousands of
New York students, parents and grandparents have
volunteered with the NAACP to end the mistreatment of
schoolchildren.

This lawsuit was filed for the most common reasons we have
sued boards of education across the decades: Students are
being grossly mistreated, their parents are being deeply
disrespected and the entire community stands to suffer.

There are two issues we are particularly concerned about.

First, the city has located charter schools under the same
roofs as traditional public schools in a way that is unfair
and unjust. Their poor handling has led to many complaints
from our members and their neighbors, including:

    * Students in the traditional public school must now
    eat lunch at 10 a.m. so that charter school students
    can enjoy lunch at noon.

    * The "regular school's children" had library access
    for a little over four hours so that the "new
    charter school's kids" could have access for almost
    seven.

    * Traditional school students" were moved to a
    basement, where they were next to the boiler room,
    to make room for their charter school peers, and
    teachers of the regular students were forced to
    teach in the halls due to lack of space.

Julian Bond: 2007. Chair NAACP