BLACK HISTORY Preserving Tony Green's Quest to Safeguard African American Studies
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ears ago, Tony Green listened to a podcast episode where a corporate leader at Cisco Systems said that taking a Black Studies class in college had changed his life. “He said that the class gave him a sense of who he was,” said Green, a teacher and coach at Catholic high school Bishop O’Dowd in Oakland, CA. Hearing this validated Green’s work with the school’s Black Student Union and his belief in the value of ethnic studies. Green is now nearly finished with his second year of teaching the newly developed advanced placement African American Studies course, in which students can take an exam and earn college credit. TrooRa magazine’s Executive Editor, Trystanne Cunningham, and I visited his class one day in late April to learn about the course and share our work with TrooRa Magazine. “The publication is unique, very forward-thinking,” he said. He commented that he admires innovation and that he sees it in the global African diaspora. “Africa has always produced this futuristic way of thinking. Always ahead of the curve.”
WRITTEN BY CRISTINA DEPTULA PHOTOGRAPHED BY BAIDI KAMAGATE
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