The Community College is, for the most part, an available but unavailed of source for black community development, individual black achievement and collective work and responsibility. The four year college/university continues to fall short and create far more problems for studens of color than it solves. It cannot solve the problems because they (the four year post-secondary institutions) are a fundamental part of the problem. There are four major sections to this book: Part 1: Bowen & Bok's Shape of the River: Race, Education and a New Look at the Community College Option; Part 2: Segregation, the Law and the Importance of the Community College Option; Part 3: Defning the Educational Plutocracy and Part 4: The Community College as a Liberation Laboratory. There has never been a book like this one, a book that promotes the community/junior college as a way to change the minds of Black students and make future visionary contributions to Black communities. We should expect the unexpected. An article by D.A. Austin (1988) titled, "I Didn't Expect to Find Racism Here!" offers an important warning: "We come from a history of our foremothers and forefathers instructing their children in both subtle and direct ways about how to survive the horrors or slavery and Jim Crow laws. We cannot afford to abandon such instruction, even though civil rights laws have provided us with opportunities heretofore denied. We cannot afford to send our young people out into the battles they must fight in this country without the proper armaments: realistic expectations." This book is based on realistic expectations and many of the sources hail back to the 1990s when the concept of education was still being cemented into the minds of the American public. The community college option, even back then, received the kind of short shrift that it got when, during the old days, the two year college was deemed "13th and 14th grade." Seriously. The community college has received short shrift from four year schools and were deemed "inferior" until recently when matriculation agreements were entered into so that the community college could serve as a remedial savior for those students who were pushed out or socially promoted during high school years. Bissett (1995) was correct when she wrote, A major aspect of the community college's mission, known as the "open door" policy, originated with the passage of the GI Bill of Rights and was actualized in the 1960s when the "baby boomers" were entering higher education in record numbers ... In essence, the community college mission removes academic, financial, social, and geographic barriers to achieving a college education and has its greatest impact on the disadvantaged. As such, the two year college has been labeled the "people's college, "opportunity," and "democracy's college" as well as the "Ellis Island of higher education" (Bissett, 1995: p. 36 - emphasis added) Even the nicknames cited above place the community college in a position to elevate students who need education and direction the most that is superior to any four-year college or university. On March 29, 2018, President Donald Trump further maligned the community college by attempting to re-define these institutions as "vocational schools". Perhaps once he reads this book he will not have so much time to chase skirts and waste valuable time, ink and energy exposing his ignorance. Now: talk among yourselves!
About the Author: Matthew C. Stelly is a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee working on a degree in Urban Education and Community Policy. He holds three Master's degrees: Urban Studies (1982), Urban Education (1983) and Political Science (2000). He is working toward his doctorate in Community Policy/Urban Education at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is the former editor of the Milwaukee Courier newspaper, former director of the Great Plains Black Museum and the Plano (TX) African American Museum, and lead archivist for The Black Academy of Arts and Letters (TBAAL) in Dallas, Texas. Stelly has more than 2,500 articles in print and has won two national essay competitions. He is the founding director of the largest African-American neighborhood group in Nebraska, the Triple One Neighborhood Association and Parents Union. He is publisher and editor of the Triple One News, a two-time nationally recognized newsletter. He is the father of five children - Mandla, Malik, Clariece, Charisse and Shannon -- and remains actively involved in community organizing and neighborhood development in several cities, including Milwaukee and Omaha.