Black Minds Matter is a national movement to celebrate Black minds, support excellence, and promote the development of high-quality school options for Black students. We encourage and empower elected officials, community members and families to be innovative, demand excellence in education, and increase the number of schools founded by Black individuals.
Only 15 out of 100 black students nationwide are proficient in reading. High school graduation rates for black students continue to lag behind their white peers, and studies show that 70% of black males without a high school diploma will end up in prison. Nourishing black minds with a rich education is the first step to breaking generational poverty and societal inequities. We are committed to ensuring every Black student has access to a high-quality education of their parent’s choice.
Black Minds Matter is a project of the American Federation for Children Growth Fund.
Mission Statement
Our mission is to nourish Black minds with a rich education by any means necessary.
Our essence and our being deserve life. That means that protecting Black lives has to simultaneously include nurturing Black minds. Anything less is unacceptable.
“We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.”
"Freedom is not something that one people can bestow on another as a gift. They claim it as their own and none can keep it from them."
“Every man has two educations: that which is given to him, and the other which he gives himself. What we are merely taught seldom nourishes the minds like that which we teach ourselves.”
It takes a village to raise [and educate] a child.
"Our essence and our being deserve life."
Leadership
Denisha Merriweather
Founder