Gregory M. Hodge was the principal for over a decade at The Frederick Douglass Academy (FDA) in Harlem, where he was noted for his tough love, "No Excuses" approach. [1]
Hodge was raised in Harlem and the Bronx. Orphaned by the age of 16, he recounts to his students a life of homelessness that puts him on a par with their own experiences of poverty. [1] After a counselor "forced" him not to leave school, he earned two Master's degrees and a doctorate. [2]
Hodge spent 31 years as a New York City school teacher, culminating in his 14-year tenure at FDA that began in 1995 when he replaced the founding principal, Lorraine Monroe. [1] He retired from FDA and teaching in general in July 2011. [1]
Hodge is noted for his tough love, "No Excuses" approach to education, [3] enforcing strict discipline within his school of mostly lower-income students. [1] He advocated personal attention to the students and personal responsibility: he greeted each student at the door every day [4] [5] and frequently spent nights on the couch in his office. [6] He said: "We do everything we can to help, but we place the burden on them to get the job done." [7] When he became principal at FDA in 1995, the student body was 80% female; he recruited boys to equalize the sexes but achievement did not decline. [8]
Dr. Hodge died on February 16, 2019, at the age of 65. [9]
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. He became the most important leader of the movement for African-American civil rights in the 19th century.
Countee Cullen was an American poet, novelist, children's writer, and playwright, particularly well known during the Harlem Renaissance.
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Raiford Chatman "Ossie" Davis was an American actor, director, writer, and activist. He was married to Ruby Dee, with whom he frequently performed, until his death. He received numerous accolades including a Grammy Award and a Writers Guild of America Award as well as nominations for five Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and Tony Award. Davis was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1994 and received the National Medal of Arts in 1995, Kennedy Center Honors in 2004
VictorFrederick "Viki" Weisskopf was an Austrian-born American theoretical physicist. He did postdoctoral work with Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, Wolfgang Pauli, and Niels Bohr. During World War II he was Deputy Division Leader of the Theoretical Division of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, and he later campaigned against the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
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In rhetoric, antimetabole is the repetition of words in successive clauses, but in transposed order; for example, "I know what I like, and I like what I know". It is related to, and sometimes considered a special case of, chiasmus.
Eighth Avenue is a major north–south avenue on the west side of Manhattan in New York City, carrying northbound traffic below 59th Street. It is one of the original avenues of the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 to run the length of Manhattan, though today the name changes twice: At 59th Street/Columbus Circle, it becomes Central Park West, where it forms the western boundary of Central Park, and north of 110th Street/Frederick Douglass Circle, it is known as Frederick Douglass Boulevard before merging onto Harlem River Drive north of 155th Street.
110th Street is a street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is commonly known as the boundary between Harlem and Central Park, along which it is known as Central Park North. In the west, between Central Park West/Frederick Douglass Boulevard and Riverside Drive, it is co-signed as Cathedral Parkway.
David William Blight is the Sterling Professor of History, of African American Studies, and of American Studies and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. Previously, Blight was a professor of History at Amherst College, where he taught for 13 years. He has won several awards, including the Bancroft Prize and Frederick Douglass Prize for Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, and the Pulitzer Prize and Lincoln Prize for Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom. In 2021, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
Frederick Douglass Academy, is a co-educational public school for grades 6-12 located in West Harlem, New York City. The school offers an SAT prep course program and a variety of Advanced Placement (AP) college courses that students can apply for starting in 10th grade. It is also one of the first high schools in Harlem to make wearing a uniform in a public school mandatory.
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Stephan Thernstrom is an American academic and historian who is the Winthrop Research Professor of History Emeritus at Harvard University. He is a specialist in ethnic and social history and was the editor of the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups. He and his wife Abigail Thernstrom are prominent opponents of affirmative action in education and according to the New York Times, they "lead the conservative charge against racial preference in America."
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The Wadleigh High School for Girls was established by the NYC Board of Education in 1897 and moved into its new building in Harlem in September 1902. It was the first public high school for girls in New York City. At the time, public secondary education for girls was considered highly novel and perhaps a bit scandalous. Newspapers considered it newsworthy enough to devote many stories to describing classroom scenes of girls receiving “higher” education. The building is now shared among several schools including the Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performing and Visual Arts, the Frederick Douglass Academy II, and Success Academy Harlem West.
Eva Sarah Moskowitz is an American historian, politician, and education reform leader who is the founder and CEO of the Success Academy Charter Schools. A member of the Democratic Party, Moskowitz served on the New York City Council, representing the 4th district on the Upper East Side, from 1999 to 2005. Moskowitz interviewed to be Donald Trump's Secretary of Education, but decided not to pursue the position.
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James Monroe Gregory was a Professor of Latin and Dean at Howard University. During the American Civil War, he worked in Cleveland for the education and aid of escaped slaves. He initially attended Oberlin College. He transferred to Howard and was the valedictorian of Howard's first graduating class in 1872. He then became a member of faculty, where he served until the late 1880s. During that time he was active in civil rights, particularly related to the education of African American children. He fought to desegregate Washington, D.C., schools in the early 1880s and participated in the Colored Conventions Movement and was a delegate to the 1892 Republican National Convention. In 1890, he founded the American Association of Educators of Colored Youth. In 1893, he published a biography of Frederick Douglass. In 1897, he was removed at Howard and moved to New Jersey where he became principal of Bordentown Industrial and Manual Training School.
Gregory Hodge, Douglass.