Author | Tavis Smiley (introduction) |
---|---|
Language | English |
Publisher | Third World Press |
Publication date | 2006 |
Publication place | United States |
The Covenant with Black America is a 2006 political, non-fiction book edited by the American talk-show host and writer Tavis Smiley. [1] [2] Its theme is power relations between Black and White Americans. In 2006, the anthology was listed as The New York Times' number one bestseller. [3] Smiley has stated that this was one of his goals for the book and by placing on the list it would make people discuss the book and its contents, as it would "force everyone to talk about it". [4]
The book consists of a collection of ten essays written by scholars and activists who are fighting to balance the scale between White and Black America. They offer a call to action for Black Americans, filled with "practical advice", to close the gap between them and White America. The overall message of the anthology recalls the 1970s campaigns of Jesse Jackson" [5] The anthology's ultimate goal was to help Black America gain social, economic, and political power because without that power, the disparities between Black and White America will continue to grow. [6]
The Covenant's ten essays, all focused on different areas of social and political disparities, offer theories to help alleviate these disparities. Listed as "Covenants", the ten essays are as follows: "Securing the Right to Health Care and Wellbeing", "Establishing a System of Public Education in Which All Children Achieve at High Levels and Reach Their Full Potential", "Correcting the System of Unequal Justice", "Fostering Accountable Community-Centered Policing", "Ensuring Broad Access to Affordable Neighborhoods That Connect to Opportunity", "Claiming Our Democracy", "Strengthening Our Rural Roots", "Accessing Good Jobs, Wealth, and Economic Prosperity", "Assuring Environmental Justice for All", and "Closing the Racial Digital Divide". Cornel West concludes the book with a final call to action. [7]
By David M. Satcher, M.D., PhD.
As the sixteenth Surgeon General of the United States, Satcher defines health as reflective of both mind and body. In this essay, he elucidates the needs of Black America to have a culture between healthcare provider and patient; in addition, he focuses on the disproportionate representation of Black America in the healthcare system and justice system. [7]
By Edmund W. Gordon, Ed D.
Edmund Gordon illuminates, in this essay, the relationship between educational opportunity with "race, ethnicity, gender, etc." He attributes this the title of the "Black-White achievement gap". [7]
By James Bell.
As the president (and founder) of the W. Haywood Burns Institute, [8] an institute to help communities (like Black America) reach equality, James Bell advocates for justice within the juvenile system and adult justice system in his essay. He calls for help in liberating the members of the Black community that have been imprisoned by the "flawed justice system". [7]
By Maya Harris. [7]
By Wade Henderson. [7]
By Oleta Garrett Fitzgerald and Sarah Bobrow-Williams. [7]
By Marc H. Morial. [7]
By Robert D. Bullard. [7]
By Tyrone D. Taborn. [7]
Redlining is a discriminatory practice in which financial services are withheld from neighborhoods that have significant numbers of racial and ethnic minorities. Redlining has been most prominent in the United States, and has mostly been directed against African-Americans. The most common examples involve denial of credit and insurance, denial of healthcare, and the development of food deserts in minority neighborhoods.
Meharry Medical College is a private historically black medical school affiliated with the United Methodist Church and located in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1876 as the Medical Department of Central Tennessee College, it was the first medical school for African Americans in the South. While the majority of African Americans lived in the South, they were excluded from many public and private racially segregated institutions of higher education, particularly after the end of Reconstruction.
Tavis Smiley is an American talk show host and author. Smiley was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, and grew up in Bunker Hill, Indiana. After attending Indiana University, he worked during the late 1980s as an aide to Tom Bradley, the mayor of Los Angeles.
David Satcher is an American physician, and public health administrator. He was a four-star admiral in the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and served as the 10th Assistant Secretary for Health, and the 16th Surgeon General of the United States.
Haki R. Madhubuti is an African-American author, educator, and poet, as well as a publisher and operator of black-themed bookstore. He is particularly recognized in connection with the founding in 1967 of Third World Press, considered the oldest independent black publishing house in the United States.
Robert Lee "Bobby" Satcher Jr. is an American orthopedic surgeon, chemical engineer, and former NASA astronaut. He participated in two spacewalks during STS-129, accumulating 12 hours and 19 minutes of extravehicular activity. Satcher holds two doctorates and has received numerous awards and honors as a surgeon and engineer.
Third World Press (TWP) is the largest independent black-owned press in the United States, founded in 1967 by Haki R. Madhubuti, with early support from Johari Amini and Carolyn Rodgers. Since the 1960s, the company has focused on publishing culturally progressive and political books of fiction and non-fiction, poetry, and cross-genre work.
The African-American middle class consists of African-Americans who have middle-class status within the American class structure. It is a societal level within the African-American community that primarily began to develop in the early 1960s, when the ongoing Civil Rights Movement led to the outlawing of de jure racial segregation. The African American middle class exists throughout the United States, particularly in the Northeast and in the South, with the largest contiguous majority black middle-class neighborhoods being in the Washington, DC suburbs in Maryland. The African American middle class is also prevalent in the Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, San Antonio and Chicago areas.
Nellie Yvonne McKay was an American academic and author who was the Evjue-Bascom Professor of American and African-American Literature at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she also taught in English and women's studies, and is best known as the co-editor of the Norton Anthology of African-American Literature.
Oppositional culture, also known as the "blocked opportunities framework" or the "caste theory of education", is a term most commonly used in studying the sociology of education to explain racial disparities in educational achievement, particularly between white and black Americans. However, the term refers to any subculture's rejection of conformity to prevailing norms and values, not just nonconformity within the educational system. Thus many criminal gangs and religious cults could also be considered oppositional cultures.
Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw is an American civil rights advocate and a scholar of critical race theory. She is a professor at the UCLA School of Law and Columbia Law School, where she specializes in race and gender issues.
Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is an American academic, author, and pundit. He is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. He chaired Princeton's Center for African American Studies, 2009-2015, remaining chair as it expanded to its current form, the Department of African American Studies 2015-2023.
Housing discrimination in the United States refers to the historical and current barriers, policies, and biases that prevent equitable access to housing. Housing discrimination became more pronounced after the abolition of slavery in 1865, typically as part of Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation. The federal government didn't begin to take action against these laws until 1917, when the Supreme Court struck down ordinances prohibiting African-Americans from occupying or owning buildings in majority-white neighborhoods in Buchanan v. Warley. However, the federal government as well as local governments continued to be directly responsible for housing discrimination through redlining and race-restricted covenants until the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
In the United States, the school-to-prison pipeline (SPP), also known as the school-to-prison link, school–prison nexus, or schoolhouse-to-jailhouse track, is the disproportionate tendency of minors and young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds to become incarcerated because of increasingly harsh school and municipal policies. Additionally, this is due to educational inequality in the United States. Many experts have credited factors such as school disturbance laws, zero-tolerance policies and practices, and an increase in police in schools in creating the "pipeline". This has become a hot topic of debate in discussions surrounding educational disciplinary policies as media coverage of youth violence and mass incarceration has grown during the early 21st century.
Khalil Gibran Muhammad is an American academic. He is the Ford Foundation Professor of History, Race, and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and the Radcliffe Institute. He is the former director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a Harlem-based branch of the New York Public Library system, a research facility dedicated to the history of the African diaspora. Prior to joining the Schomburg Center in 2010, Muhammad was an associate professor of history at Indiana University Bloomington.
Structural inequality occurs when the fabric of organizations, institutions, governments or social networks contains an embedded cultural, linguistic, economic, religious/belief, physical or identity based bias which provides advantages for some members and marginalizes or produces disadvantages for other members. This can involve, personal agency, freedom of expression, property rights, freedom of association, religious freedom,social status, or unequal access to health care, housing, education, physical, cultural, social, religious or political belief, financial resources or other social opportunities. Structural inequality is believed to be an embedded part of all known cultural groups. The global history of slavery, serfdom, indentured servitude and other forms of coerced cultural or government mandated labour or economic exploitation that marginalizes individuals and the subsequent suppression of human rights are key factors defining structural inequality.
Societal racism is a type of racism based on a set of institutional, historical, cultural and interpersonal practices within a society that places one or more social or ethnic groups in a better position to succeed and disadvantages other groups so that disparities develop between the groups. Societal racism has also been called structural racism, because, according to Carl E. James, society is structured in a way that excludes substantial numbers of people from minority backgrounds from taking part in social institutions. Societal racism is sometimes referred to as systemic racism as well. Societal racism is a form of societal discrimination.
Kisha Braithwaite Holden is a scientist known for her research on mental health of African-Americans and members of other minority groups. She is professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and community health & preventive medicine and interim director of Satcher Health Leadership Institute (SHLI) at Morehouse School of Medicine.
Richard Allen Williams is an American physician who is founder of the Association of Black Cardiologists. He previously served as the President of the National Medical Association.
Black maternal mortality in the United States refers to the death of women, specifically those who identify as Black or African American, during or after child delivery. In general, maternal death can be due to a myriad of factors, such as the nature of the pregnancy or the delivery itself, but is not associated with unintentional or secondary causes. In the United States, around 700 women die from pregnancy-related illnesses or complications per year. This number does not include the approximately 50,000 women who experience life-threatening complications during childbirth, resulting in lifelong disabilities and complications. However, there are stark differences in maternal mortality rates for Black American women versus Indigenous American, Alaska Native, and White American women.