african-american | Not in Our Town

african-american

This is the fourth in a five-part series published by our public media partners at Fronteras. Listen to the accompanying radio piece. New Mexico School Seeks to Serve Black Students By Elaine Baumgartel ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — New Mexico often touts its tri-cultural diversity: a white minority population, a Hispanic majority and nearly two dozen Native American tribes. But the African-American community there is teenie, almost invisible. That makes it more difficult for black students at the University of New Mexico, where four out of five African-American men don’t graduate. The Fuller family moved their six children to Albuquerque to take advantage of New Mexico’s in-state scholarship programs. Jason Fuller left all of his high school friends behind in his hometown of Detroit, a city that’s more than three-quarters African-American. His new home is a dusty, sprawling city in the middle Rio Grande Valley, where African-Americans make up just 3 percent of the population
"African-American people are LGBT people, they are allies of the LGBT community, and family members of LGBT people. The African-American community is not homogeneous. Our community is diverse just like the LGBT community."  When opponents of the LGBT community used President Obama's support of same-sex marriage as an opportunity to drive a wedge between African-American and LGBT communities, Eran Thompson spoke up. Thompson is an activist who serves his hometown of Billings, Montana as the chairperson of Not In Our Town Billings and serves on the board of the Montana Human Rights Network and Not In Our Town/The Working Group. In this piece, Thompson addresses the supporters of the Montana Human Rights Network.