Our boys are back in school! Today's Thoughtful Thursday offers quotes to help our sons and ourselves with the transition to a new school year. Here are some quotes to remind us of the value of the educational journey, and some to encourage them as they return to the classroom. Share with your sons, and enjoy. Education is the [...]
This morning's New York Times reported yet another innocent young Black man being gunned down on the street. NeShawn Plummer, 16, was killed in Far Rockaway, Queens, caught in a spray of bullets aimed at a crowd of teens on a street corner. Police suspect it was a gang related attack and are seeking two suspects. Incredibly, his brother [...]
Even as we enjoy the last bit of summer vacation, we at GCP are already thinking about school's return. Today's Thoughtful Thursday offers up a student and a teacher's perspective on a day's lesson. Acclaimed Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes provides the student's perspective in "Theme for English B". Elizabeth Alexander, poet and author of the recently published (and [...]
As we approach the one year anniversary of the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, we present poetry old and new which references the past and present struggles for equality. "The Tradition" is by Jericho Brown, an associate professor at Emory University in Atlanta. "Let America Be America Again" by Langston Hughes gives us an historical perspective of our [...]
Greetings from London! GCP is on the road, checking in on globetrotting children. Since we are here on Thoughtful Thursday, today our focus is on Black British poets. From the many talented poets we present here just a few: Benjamin Zephaniah ("Dis Poetry") is a British Jamaican writer and dub poet who was included in The Times 2008 list [...]
GCP is at Chautauqua Institution, for the end of their week discussing "Boys Will Be Boys, Then Men". This week's Thoughtful Thursday (the Friday morning edition) comes from the amazing performance here last night of Daniel Bernard Roumain's symphonic composition of "Meditations on Raising Boys", featuring Marc Bamuthi Joseph performing spoken word with an all male chorus of 10 [...]
Happy Independence Day from GCP! Hope you all are enjoying the day with your family and friends. May your bbq be tasty and the fireworks delightful. Have a safe and wonderful holiday. To celebrate the day, we will give the Fourth of July the Thoughtful Thursday treatment. Here are some poems from an assortment of poems about America from [...]
Happy Father's Day from GCP to all of the fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and all of the wonderful men who give fatherly love and direction to children who may not be theirs by birth but are theirs by choice. Here are some poems and thoughts about fatherhood. Those Winter Sundays Sundays too my father got up early and put his [...]
With great sorrow we turn yet again to the topic of how we talk to our sons about a senseless tragedy. This time it is the horrific massacre of nine Black parishioners in a historic black church in Charleston by a 21-year-old white young man. Images of the victims smiling with their families in the days prior and of [...]
Did you know that June is African-American Music Appreciation Month? In a proclamation signed on May 29th, President Obama declared the month of June as the time that we should "recognize the artists who have enriched our lives and the ways their beats and harmonies have advanced our unending journey toward a more perfect union." He further explained, "By [...]