Campaigns

Jim Crow in Ferndale, Michigan

Ferndale provides a classic example of the Jim Crow system that the suburbs are creating on the basis of the Michigan "Schools of Choice Act," which gives school districts the right to pick and choose which of their schools they open to non-residents. . . .

The high school open to Detroit and other out-of-district students is Ferndale's public charter, cynically and misleadingly named University High School (UHS). Ferndale's UHS is 98% black, has only three AP offerings, next-to-no sports, music or art programs, next-to-no electives, offers only Spanish as a foreign language, requires uniforms, has a closed campus and offers only one career pathway. Because UHS has almost no auxiliary staff its student to teacher/staff ratio is 35 to 1.

UHS promises to place all prospective students in internships with the automobile companies, but in reality it places only a handful of students. Most students at UHS are receiving an education designed to place them in a low-paying technical job rather than a college classroom.

See the Head-to-Head Comparison and BAMN's Pamphlet

Video + Photos of Sacramento March for the Dream Act!

The Sept. 26, 2008 Statewide March in Sacramento for the California Dream Act was a huge success! The march was integrated, militant, and spirited—2,000 black, Latina/o, Asian, Arab, and white students marching shoulder to shoulder for freedom and equality. Even though Schwarzenegger vetoed the California Dream Act at the last minute on Tuesday night, our movement is gaining strength and we will win! The fight continues! ¡Sí Se Puede!

See VIDEO & PHOTOS OF THE MARCH

BAMN Denounces Gov. Schwarzenegger's Veto of CA Dream Act

Governor Schwarzenegger just vetoed the California Dream Act, but the fight continues. We CAN win the Dream Act and full freedom and equality for all immigrants, if we continue to build BAMN and build an organization of leaders prepared to build the new youth civil rights movement.

Read BAMN's press statement HERE.

Meanwhile, watch the amazing YOUTUBE VIDEO from Friday's amazing march! (A better video, including speeches from the rally, and pictures will be available at the BAMN website soon!)

BAMN PAMPHLET:
DETROIT'S GOT THE POWER
It's Time to End Separate & Unequal Education for Detroit Students

For the first time in forty years, Detroit students and parents have the power to win equal, quality education for the young people of Detroit. Over the last five years the metropolitan Detroit area has been turning into a regional school district. Every day, tens of thousands of Detroit students get on buses to attend schools in Detroit suburbs. Students from Southfield, Oak Park and other school districts using the Detroit address of a relative or family friend, to attend Renaissance, Cass Tech and Martin Luther King High Schools and other Detroit schools. What was considered impossible: Detroit majority white suburbs seeking out and welcoming Detroit students to their districts and black parents putting their sons and daughters on busses to attend school in those suburban districts is happening on a mass basis every day.

Read BAMN's Pamphlet: "Detroit's Got the Power: It's Time to End Separate & Unequal Education for Detroit Students"

BAMN Calls on Gov. Schwarzenegger to Sign the California Dream Act
Statewide March & Rally in Sacramento Friday, Sept. 26

On Friday September 26, 2008, students from across the state will march to the West Steps of the Capitol to call on California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign the California Dream Act, SB 1301 (Cedillo). If enacted, the California Dream Act would make campus-based financial aid programs available to undocumented California students. Its passage would affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of poor and deserving students without papers who have the legal right to an education, but cannot attend college because they are discriminatorily denied access to state financial aid programs.

The families of undocumented students pay taxes and make an enormous contribution to California's economy and prosperity, yet their sons and daughters face the same kind of discrimination that young black students experienced in the old Jim Crow south. Undocumented students are unjustifiably denied equal educational opportunities and assigned to permanent second class status. . .

Read the FULL PRESS RELEASE
See the California DREAM Act Organizing Page