Every black male student in Oakland can be
a king
By Joyce Tsai
Posted: 12/19/2015
Teacher Lamar Hancock, right, greets his student Nehemiah Vaughn, 15, in the hall on his way to another class at
Oakland Technical High School in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015. Hancock teaches the African
American Male Achievement class at Oakland Tech. (Laura A. Oda/Bay Area News Group) ( Laura A. Oda )
OAKLAND -- A recent Wednesday class at Oakland Tech started with Gil Scott-Heron's famous
funk groove-infused anthem from the early 1970s playing in the background:
"You will not be able to stay home, brother.
"You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out."
Lamar Hancock chose the song, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," to jump-start the class,
injecting it with a playful energy that he would use to teach his students about Pan-Africanism
and later the black social protest movements of the '60s and '70s. But it could just as well be an
anthem for the innovative class he teaches, too.
Morris Jackson, 17, right, reads along as classmate Derric White, 16, center, reads aloud in the African American
Male Achievement class at Oakland Technical High School in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015. (Laura
A. Oda/Bay Area News Group) ( Laura A. Oda )
The course, Manhood Development, is offered by the Oakland Unified School District's Office
of African American Male Achievement, which was started in 2010 to address the struggles of
young black male students and to find ways to get them more engaged in school and prepared for
the future.
The office oversees community partnerships to ensure that the students get the education, job
advice and mentoring to succeed despite the odds that often are stacked against them.
The class is taught at 18 Oakland campuses, elementary through high school, and serves about
650 African-American males a day. The curriculum steers the students through self-discovery
and self-transformation through lessons steeped in African and African-American history and
culture. They focus on learning how to make choices that build toward future success.
"It makes me feel I'm ahead of the game, and like I know things and I see things differently,"
said Morris Jackson, 17, a junior in Hancock's class. "It really opened my eyes."
Narrowing the academic gap
The efforts are yielding impressive results. To date, suspension rates for the course's students
have decreased by one-third, grade-point averages are higher, and graduations rates have
increased by 10 percent, according to a recent report by Education Trust-West, which singled out
the class for helping narrow the academic gap for black males.
Michael Wooldridge, 16, reads a paper out loud during the African American Male Achievement
class at Oakland Technical High School in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015. (Laura
A. Oda/Bay Area News Group) ( Laura A. Oda )
Ryan Smith, executive director of Education Trust-West, said the district recognized the problem
and "made a choice to stop squandering young black talent."
"The program is ... demonstrating the results possible when education leaders choose to see and
support our black students as scholars," he said. "We've seen other districts follow their lead
across the state and nationally to develop programs that couple high expectations with support
and mentorship."
The class has been so influential in breaking that cycle that its leaders were invited to share their
ideas with top White House education officials last year, and schools in Detroit and Washington,
D.C., are looking to emulate some of Oakland's success. The district's program was the key
reason that Oakland recently was named one of the best cities for embracing initiatives to
improve the lives of black men and boys, according to the Campaign for Black Male
Achievement, a national network of nonprofits.
Last month, Google awarded the program a $750,000 grant to create innovative career academies
for black male high school students, , said Christopher Chatmon, founder and executive director
of the Office of African American Male Achievement. The academies will help the youths gain
admission to four-year colleges by earning a high school diploma with extra focus in startup
entrepreneurship, social innovation and civic engagement, through community-based internships
and work opportunities.
"I feel good about the light that's being shined on the work happening here in Oakland," he said.
"And there's more opportunity to lean on the system, so we can bring more of the change that's
needed. ... And we have so much work to go."
In Hancock's class, students learn not to become another casualty or statistic in a system where
failure is all too common. He refers to all of his students as "his kings," a marker of their
empowerment.
"These kids come from all walks of life, and some from the roughest neighborhoods, but they are
able to change, maintain and grow and become masters of their own domain," Hancock said. "I
want them to learn 'to upset the setup' and find their own voice."
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
On a recent weekday, about five juniors and seniors at Oakland Tech rooted through dictionaries
as they debated whether Scott-Heron's song, which many had never heard before, was an obscure
track by a contemporary musician or an old-school rap. It was prelude to a lesson on Marcus
Garvey, the father of the Pan-African movement. And the message of change resonated.
"There is an incredible vibe," senior Kamauri Fitch, 19, said about the class. "And the way you
can express yourselves is very, very different from the way you can express yourself in other
classes."
Hancock teaches lessons on Garvey and other figures of black social change and cultural history.
The students learn that the richest man who ever lived likely was Mansa Musa, the 14th-century
emperor of the Mali Empire who trekked to Mecca and donated much of his wealth to the poor.
They study African-American literature, as well as pop culture films and comics such as "The
Matrix" and "X-Men," and the game of chess -- each offering its own philosophical truths that
get the students thinking. They also receive mentoring and job advice and go on college tours.
Derric White, a 16-year-old junior, said many of the class's lessons have stuck with him. For
instance, he said he now sees the parallels between life and chess, and the importance of
"looking ahead at everything you have to do, or you'll lose."
Jackson, who is also on the Office of African American Male Achievement's student leadership
council, put it in a slightly different way: "You learn to take the 'red pill,' " he said, using a bit of
"The Matrix"-acquired metaphor that's studied in class to convey the choice to open one's eyes to
a larger system and not be trapped by it.
Senior Anthony Johnson, 17, said calling each other kings came out of a desire to replace a toocommon derogatory street slang with a positive term "to show that you're royalty and you really
have the power to rule the world."
Johnson, who dreams of becoming a pro baseball player, said he let his GPA drop from a 4.0 to
about a 2.5 his first year of high school. He'd sometimes skip class after lunch, play dice in the
boys bathroom and occasionally gamble.
"I was following a crowd I had no business following, and I was trying to be accepted and be a
cool kid because I worried about other opinions of me," he said. "But I was looking out for other
people instead of myself."
After three years in the class, Johnson has raised his GPA to 3.8, is a member of the office's
student leadership council and is juggling acceptances from four colleges, including Howard and
Tuskegee universities.
In addition, he said he's mentoring other young black students in the community to help them
avoid those forces in society that seem to set them up for failure, prison or death.
"I was kind of walking and just living day by day and not knowing what my purpose was, but
just going to this class made me happy to get up in the morning," Johnson said. "It boosted my
energy and revitalized me, and it just helped me to become a man."
Contact Joyce Tsai at 925-945-4764. Follow her at Twitter.com/joycetsainews.