The revolutionary must heed the mind but also sustain the body. So 25 years ago, after long days spent struggling to make ends meet, a group of black parents in their 20s and early 30s would go jogging through the Grand Crossing neighborhood on Chicago’s south side. The parents staffed a tiny African-centered school called the New Concept Development Center, which was housed in a storefront at 78th and Ellis. Their jogs took them past Saint Francis de Paula School on South Ellis, a two-story red brick building near the corner of 79th Street. “As we’d pass that school I would always say to everybody, ‘What we could do with a school like that!’” Haki Madhubuti recalls. “That’d get everybody talking—’How could we obtain a school that nice?’”
For 16 years Safisha Madhubuti served double duty as a teacher and principal at New Concept before leaving to finish her PhD at the University of Chicago. Today she teaches in the School of Education at Northwestern (under the name Carol Lee). Yet she too can point to no prouder accomplishment than New Concept. Two years ago the school held an impromptu reunion that drew roughly 100 former students. “I remember looking around the room with this great pride,” she says. “These were young people who were centered. They are black and love being black. They feel a need in their lives to contribute to the greater world, to make a contribution as African-Americans to their world. They are well mannered. They’re not into gangs and not into drugs. They’re wholesome young people who have big views. They think big, which is what we wanted them to do.”
Mornings at New Concept start with the “unity circle.” Just before 9 AM, the children and staff gather around a large white circle painted on the worn tiled floor of the gymnasium to recite what might be called the black pledge of allegiance. Shrieks and laughter bounce off the high ceiling as kids ages two to 13 jump and play in place. In the circle’s center, a teacher surveys the room. “Kwame, hang your coat!” she commands. “Ayana, don’t be making a mess!” Kwame immediately goes for his coat. Ayana freezes.
“Struggling for national liberation—”
There are Iyabos and Ajamus at New Concept but also Kenneths and Johnnys. Kids wear T-shirts that claim their African heritage, but also sweatshirts touting favorite Sesame Street characters. Teachers wear kufi hats, mud-cloth blouses, and lapa skirts, but one teacher dresses in a cream-colored silk blouse, a blue blazer, and a matching blue skirt. She wears a scarf that could be described as African or simply colorful.
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Yet do they truly teach that Socrates was black at New Concept? No. Or that the Greeks stole their greatest achievements from Egyptians? No. Or that Cleopatra was black? At least one teacher does. Several New Concept parents and even an administrator had never even heard the claim that Cleopatra was black (though more than one joked that the queen of the Nile surely didn’t look anything like Elizabeth Taylor, who portrayed her on the big screen). Most were aware of the debate, but they questioned its relevance to a school geared to preteens.
