Each week of Black History Month, we’re sharing some key resources, articles, organizations, and leaders in law as part of our Wednesday Wisdom Blog series. This week, our Wednesday Wisdom is focused on the issue of education and care for Black children. Check out the resources and content on the topic below!
Key Changemaker: Jane Bolin
(1908-2007) – Judge, Lawyer
Jane Bolin was the first African American female judge in the United States, with four decades of service on the bench in New York. She was also the first African American woman to graduate from Yale Law School.
Bolin spent her time as a Family Court judge advocating for the welfare of children and their families in both her professional capacity and personal life. She also dismantled segregationist policies in the judicial system, encouraging racially integrated child services and ensuring childcare agencies did not discriminate by race. Always an advocate for children’s rights and education, Bolin served on the boards of the Child Welfare League and NAACP.
Read more about Jane Bolin as part of the ABA’s 2022 trailblazer profiles here, or from her biography found here.
Those gains we have made were never graciously and generously granted. We have had to fight every inch of the way.
– Jane Bolin
Article Spotlight: With Child Welfare, Racism Is Hiding in The Discretion. Vivek Sankaran, The Imprint, 2020.
This article by Vivek Sankaran discusses how racism permeates the U.S. child welfare system, hiding in the discretionary power afforded to caseworkers and judges that allows implicit and explicit bias to affect the decisions made about the education and care for black children. Sankaran outlines how the system today is “full of children of color traumatized by family separation inflicted in the name of ‘saving’ them,” and offers solutions for how we can “dismantle our flawed approach to child welfare and replace it with one that supports families and resists state intervention except as a last resort.” Read the full article here.
Organization to Support: The Brotherhood Sister Sol (BroSis)
Founded in Harlem, The Brotherhood Sister Sol (BroSis) educates, organizes, and trains youth of color on social justice, and offers opportunities for young people across the country to transform their lives and communities.
From the BroSis website:
For more than 25 years, The Brotherhood Sister Sol (BroSis) has been at the forefront of justice — racial, economic, educational, environmental, criminal and gender. Through unconditional love, around-the-clock support and wraparound programming, we make space for Black and Latinx young people to examine their roots, define their stories and awaken their agency.
Learn more about BroSis and what they have accomplished here or consider supporting their efforts with a donation here.
