Lift Us Up, Don't Push Us Out!: Voices from the Front Lines of the Educational Justice Movement

In crowded gymnasiums from Chicago’s South Side to small-town Mississippi, Black and Brown parents lock arms with students, teachers, and community organizers, refusing to let systemic racism dictate whose children thrive; their stories stretch from cafeteria protests to city-hall testimony, mapping a grassroots blueprint for change. Lift Us Up, Don’t Push Us Out! collects their fiery testimonies, showing how neighborhood coalitions beat back underfunded classrooms, zero-tolerance suspensions, and the corporate-reform juggernaut that touts vouchers and charter takeovers. Essayists from the Chicago Teachers Union, Genders and Sexualities Alliance Network, and dozens more describe midnight canvasses, courthouse rallies, and teach-ins where immigrant parents stand beside LGBTQ youths, labor activists, and prison-pipeline abolitionists, forging an intersectional front for Education Equity and Racial Justice. Each page crackles with practical blueprints—student-led report cards on police presence, parent data teams tracking budget cuts, grassroots campaigns that redirect testing dollars into art and bilingual programs—yet the anthology never hides setbacks, reminding readers that victories sprout from persistent, collective grit. Will your school board hear these frontline voices and join the movement, or will silence keep hallways unequal? Turn conviction into action—click to learn more and march with them.