“The lynching tree interprets the cross. It keeps the cross out of the hands of those who are dominant. Nobody who is lynching anybody can understand the cross. That’s why it’s so important to place the cross and the lynching tree together, because the cross, or the crucifixion, was analogous to a first-century lynching. In fact, biblical scholars, when they want to describe what was happening to Jesus, many of them say it was a lynching. “And all I want to suggest is, if American Christians say they want to identify with that cross, they have to see the cross as a lynching. Any time your...

A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released last month, “K-12 Education: Discipline Disparities for Black Students, Boys, and Students with Disabilities,” reminds us once again that suspensions and expulsions continue at high rates and offer grave risks to students. The report by this federal monitoring agency reviews data from the Education Department’s Civil Rights Data Collection on school discipline trends across the country, provides a more in-depth look at discipline approaches and challenges faced in five states, and reviews past efforts by the Departments of Education...

I first heard Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speak in person on April 19, 1960 at Spelman College’s Sisters Chapel during my senior year in college. Dr. King was just 31 but he had already gained a national reputation during the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott five years earlier. The profound impact on me of hearing Dr. King that first time is evident in my diary where I repeated long portions of his speech that had vibrated the chords of my freedom- and justice-hungry soul. It is not often that great leaders and great turning points in history converge and sweep us up in a movement. Dr. King...

I am so proud of every one of the brave young survivors and opponents of gun violence, organizers, and marchers who will be leading adults in the March For Our Lives and sister marches across the nation this Saturday. We have so much work to do to build safe communities for all our children. We must follow our marching by electing leaders at all levels of government who will protect children, not guns and stand up to the NRA for every child’s right to live and learn free of gun violence. But that will not happen until mothers and grandmothers, fathers and grandfathers, sisters and brothers,...

Daniela Gonzalez is a mother of two who lives in Jackson, Mississippi. She graduated from middle and high school in Jackson and is now enrolled in paralegal training classes and pursuing her college degree. Daniela is deeply engaged with the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance (MIRA) fighting for workplace safety and other rights for undocumented immigrants, and her dream is to be an immigration lawyer to continue helping others. But first she needs others to fight for her. Daniela came to Jackson with her family at age 11 from Mexico City. She was thrilled when the chance came for her to...

“We see things that adults sometimes can’t see.” --Child participant, United Nations Study on Violence against Children Violence against children. For many people the words alone are unthinkable—the absolute worst of what humans are capable of doing. The school shooting in Parkland, Florida is a stark reminder of the violence that stalks our children in their schools, homes, places of worship, streets, and communities every day. The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students’ brave and inspiring response has reminded us all that adults must take action now to protect our children. The...

God has sent some huge rainbows in the clouds for vulnerable children amidst a profoundly negative political climate. Good news these days has been few and far between but the Bipartisan Budget Package/Continuing Resolution (CR) signed by the President earlier today offers significant and long overdue hope to children, families and communities. We now must give our immediate attention to extending that good news to the nearly 800,000 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Dreamers and the other Dreamers not yet in DACA, who face a March 5th deadline that would end their hopes and...

“You promised.” Children learn the value and power of those words very early on as they begin to develop a sense of morality and trust. A preschooler will show deep outrage when an adult promise isn’t kept. The Continuing Resolution that ended this week’s government shutdown relied on a series of uncertain promises about meeting children’s needs and ensuring their futures. Congress did keep one very critical promise by finally passing a long overdue extension of funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), giving new hope to families after 114 days of partisan politicking with...

It is a national disgrace that children are the poorest Americans. The Children’s Defense Fund’s new report The State of America’s Children® 2017 details the immoral, costly and preventable poverty, homelessness, hunger, health problems, poor education and violence plaguing children who are America’s responsibility and future. The U.S. has 73.6 million children. Nearly 1 in 5 are poor—more than 13.2 million. Children of color, who will be a majority of our children by 2020, are disproportionately poor. About 1 in 3 Black, 1 in 3 American Indian/Alaskan Native and 1 in 4 Hispanic children are...