African Centered Curriculum

Below is the transcript of my speech addressed to the school board last night. Starting at minute 57:00

My name is Tracey Wallace, a lifelong Evanstonian and a member of the first desegregated class to matriculate through District 65. I attended Central School and Nichols, where my generation learned to read from Dick and Jane, watched Spot run, and were taught a version of history that praised the Founding Fathers—men who enslaved my ancestors. We were told the Civil War was about “States’ Rights,” and that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves.

The first time I saw people who looked like me in a textbook, they were either caricatures, or packed shoulder to shoulder in the belly of a slave ship—drawn like furniture in a shipping diagram. That image has never left me.

Twenty-five years ago, Terri Shepard asked me to join her as co-chair of the Strategic Planning Committee, for D 65 which was supposed to address the Achievement Gap. I learned civic engagement by sitting at the feet of my elders, they saw something in me that I hadn’t yet fully seen in myself. Through that work—and through the wisdom of her husband, the late Lloyd Shepard, my fraternity brother—I began to shed the skin of assimilation. Brother Shepard showed me what it looked like to speak truth, not just for comfort, but for change.

That’s when I started using the phrase drive-by diversity. Because in Evanston, diversity often serves as window dressing—feel-good language for white folks, while the needs of Black children remain unmet. And too many still carry the fear that anything designed to uplift Black students might somehow diminish their own. The fear of a level playing field.

I was proud to serve on the committee that fought, unwaveringly, for the African Centered Curriculum at Oakton. At the time, I didn’t fully know what an Afrocentric classroom might look like. Somewhere in the back of my colonized mind, I could still hear the whisper: White folks ain’t gonna let you.

But they did. Reluctantly.

And for 19 years, the ACC at Oakton has proven its value—not as a theory, not as a test run—but as a lived success. Academic gains. Cultural pride. Empowered children. Black students thriving in classrooms where they are centered, seen, and affirmed.

So, I’ll close with this:

Marvel has a series called What If…?—stories that ask how a single change could rewrite the entire universe.

What if… the new Foster School—currently named for a Northwestern president, Randolph Sinks Foster,  who stayed just four years—was renamed the Dr. Hardy Murphy Center for Academic Excellence, honoring a Black as opposed to one with no direct ties to the district.

What if… the halls were lined with portraits of Dr. Mae Jemison, Fannie Lou Hamer, W.E.B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, George Washington Carver, Barack Hussein Obama—not just for decoration, but as daily affirmation?

What if… the curriculum was guided by Ma’at—truth, justice, order, balance—and all children learned through African-centered frameworks that promote inquiry, dignity, and community-based problem-solving?

Would Black students benefit? Without question.
Would all students benefit? Absolutely.
Would some people be uncomfortable? Maybe. But discomfort is not injustice—ignorance is.

And as we move forward, let us remember Sankofa—the Ghanaian principle that says we must go back and reclaim what was lost in order to move forward in power.

The ACC is not about exclusion. It is about restoration. It is not a departure—it is a return. A return to truth. A return to cultural excellence. A return to teaching that affirms identity instead of erasing it.

This isn’t about asking permission. This is about standing in legacy.

What if we built a school where every child could see themselves reflected on the walls, in the books, and in the lessons—
What if we finally stopped whispering equity, and started living it out loud?