Ed Whitfield is social critic and community activist who works closely with the Beloved Community Center in Greensboro, NC, and has just become the Executive Director of the newly formed Fund for Democratic Communities. He recently played a prominant role in the establishment of the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission. After graduating as a Presidential Scholar from Little Rock Central High School in the late 60s, he went on to Cornell University where he became the leader of the Black student organization during the period of struggle for Black Studies. He left Cornell in 1970 to teach at Malcolm X Liberation University in Greensboro. Following the closing of the school he remained in NC to do labor and community organizing. Whitfield lectures on issues of education and racism, has hosted a weekly radio talk show on community issues and has been a regular columnist in the local African American press writing an iconoclastic column on community, education and peace/justice issues. He has written a collection of essays on the 9/11 attacks and the issues of war and justice as well as a book on school diversity that is currently used in the Graduate School of Education at A&T State University. Ed is currently working on a book reexamining school integration in the light of the current discourse on "re-segregation."

Blog Entries by Ed Whitfield

What Studies Might Show

Posted September 20, 2007 | 04:56 PM (EST)


There are some new studies that have been released showing that black kids learn better in mixed settings. At this point in my life I am not even interested in reading them. Let me explain why.

Suppose someone offered to do a study to see whether or not it...

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What is Really Missing?

Posted August 21, 2007 | 10:34 AM (EST)


When white liberals like Jonathan Kozol walk into urban inner-city schools they can look into the eyes of the children in that sea of dark faces and see that something serious is wrong there. From the anger, from the despondency, from the frustration and from the hopelessness, they can see...

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A Different View on School Desegregation

Posted August 13, 2007 | 10:35 AM (EST)


The initial reaction in most liberal circles about the recent Supreme Court decision on so-called voluntary desegregation plans does not surprise me. The prevailing view is that it represents another setback to progress from a reactionary court. What you will not hear much of is the reaction from grassroots black...

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What Should my Eight-Year Old Granddaughter Learn About White People?

Posted August 9, 2007 | 03:44 PM (EST)


We are regularly told that school diversity is important because we live in a diverse world and in order to be able to get along with other people successfully, we need to learn about them and have some experiences with them as early as possible. With that in mind, I...

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