Berkeley High Program Connects Students to Past

Berkeley High School senior Stephanie Stephens says black history instruction in many public schools emphasizes the most negative aspect of the African American experience-enslavement.

"When you learn of African American culture (in other departments), you talk about slavery, which is the most negative part of our culture," Stephens says.

That changed once Stephens began taking courses at Berkeley High's African American Studies Department, she says. It is the only public high school department of its kind in the country, according to department head Robert McKnight.

The courses teach students about everything from African innovations in pyramid-building to the hip-hop generation of the American 1990s in courses like "Black Gold, Black Soul, Black Dynamite"-a survey of black history, literature and media.

The department covers black history, literature, psychology, economics and dance from the beginning of African civilization five million years ago to present, McKnight says.

A more thorough understanding of their history and culture changes the way black students think about themselves, students say.

"It makes you feel you are a part of America, that you are a part of its history," says senior Kayla Reyes. "That's something I've gained-being proud of my history."

But like many programs in the Berkeley Unified School District, the African American Studies Department was cut dramatically after tens of millions of dollars were slashed from the district budget.

When McKnight joined the department's faculty in 1971, there were about 900 students and more than 10 teachers in the program, he says. The department, then under different leadership, flourished, McKnight says.

The department has been slowly shrinking since 1997-in 2002, four teachers remained. Then the department lost its journalism teacher, and publication of the department's black student newspaper, "Ujamaa," ceased.

Of the three teachers currently in the department-McKnight, Kiswahili teacher Joseph Omowamba and Afro-Haitian dance instructor Naomi Washington-McKnight teaches a majority of the 13 courses. The current enrollment in the department is between 425 and 450 students.

Despite its drastic reduction in size, the African American Studies Department has resisted incorporation into other departments at the high school, McKnight says.

"(African American studies) is too important to world history and world civilization to lose its identity by becoming co-opted in other departments," he says.

A major challenge facing the department now is maintaining its enrollment as the high school plans to move half of its student population into small school programs, which means students would leave the larger high school's curriculum and commit to smaller, themed programs.

With anticipated funding for two or three additional sections next semester, the African American Studies Department plans to offer courses at the Communication Arts and Sciences small school and the larger school's Academic Choice program in an effort to adapt to these changes, McKnight says.

McKnight estimates that 15 percent of the students in his classes are not black. He expects that percentage to rise once the department's Academic Choice courses begin next semester.

Berkeley High alumni who visit him say their experience in the department was unique and valuable, McKnight says.

"One of the things they always shared, 100 percent of them, was that students cannot believe that they had an opportunity to take African American studies in high school," McKnight says. "What they know about their culture places them light-years beyond other (college) freshmen."

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