Tag Archives: Denisha Jones

Arts & Culture

Book Review: ‘Black Lives Matter At School,’ An Invitation to Participate in History

Black Lives Matter at School, a book about a national movement for educational justice that was born in Seattle’s South End.

by Ari Robin McKenna

While reading the 31 chapters of Black Lives Matter at School, you may sense that history, instead of trailing behind you, just out of reach, has caught up; we are living in it. If you are involved with public education in the city of Seattle, where this story begins in a South End elementary school, it is especially difficult to read this book and not think the only choice you really have is what role you will play.

Continue reading Book Review: ‘Black Lives Matter At School,’ An Invitation to Participate in History →
News

Fourth-Annual National BLM at School Week of Action Kicks Off With Calls for Local Accountability

by Ari Robin McKenna

Trigger Warning: this article includes descriptions of incidents in which racist language is used.

In a student-lead briefing on Monday, Jan. 25 on Zoom, educators, parents, youth in the NAACP Youth Coalition, and members of the press convened to kick off the Black Lives Matter (BLM) at School Week of Action in Seattle. Now a national movement four years running, it all began here in the South End in 2016 when John Muir Elementary School (JMES) had to temporarily cancel plans for an assembly meant to bolster the morale of Black students. After word spread via Breitbart News Network that teachers at the district-sponsored event would be wearing Black Lives Matter t-shirts, organizers received hate mail and a bomb threat, causing them to temporarily cancel the assembly. Then, in an impressive display of Seattle solidarity with JMES, over 3,000 educators district-wide showed up to work donning “Black Lives Matter” shirts, and a movement was born.

Continue reading Fourth-Annual National BLM at School Week of Action Kicks Off With Calls for Local Accountability →