Gwen Samuel

Episode 2 Article 8 with Gwen Samuel   “If we look throughout American History, advocacy journalists have held an important place in pushing for social change, highlighting stories that the traditional press has either refused to cover or are ignorant of.  That’s why the world needs more young journalists, more women journalists, more journalists of color — because perspective matters. Your story matters.”  Megan DeSombre    

“Taking responsibility for our children’s academic and life success is something we do, not something that is done for us.” – Gwen Samuel, Founder CT Parents Union      

Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy has called the segregation of schools in his state “unconscionable” and he has proposed a bill in an effort to change it. Murphy cites that 19 percent of the schools in Connecticut where nearly every student comes from a low-income family are located in Hartford, even though the capital city only houses 4 percent of public schools. If you look at a state like mine, you see unconscionable levels of racial and economic segregation,” Murphy, D-Conn., told…

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As a Black mom, an active voter and for the most part, a supporter of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), I was very disappointed to read that the CBC opposes changes in the Democratic Party platform – namely calling for open primaries — because they fear “that allowing independent or Republican voters to participate in Democratic primaries would dilute minority voting strength in many places.” Does this mean that the Congressional Black Caucus opposes full civic engagement of all registered…

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This piece originally ran at Huffington Post. Yesterday, I visited a beautiful inspirational, fairly new high school in New Haven Connecticut called Amistad, an Achievement First charter school. The school design has distinguished adult figures etched throughout the exterior and interior of the school: Cesar Chavez, Mexican American labor leader and civil rights activist, who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, Barack Obama, the first African American President of the United States, Maya Angelou, an African American…

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Dear Department of Justice (DOJ), with all due respect, this Black mom wonders are we reading and learning from the same History books? Let us recap. Sixty-two years ago, the United States Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, declaring states that establish separate education laws for black and white students to be unconstitutional. This decision overturnedthe Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, which allowed state-sanctioned segregation through “separate but equal” laws, as…

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