Five Minutes With: Dr. Boyce Watkins on Kelley Williams-Bolar

National Civil Rights commentator and economist Dr. Boyce Watkins will speak at the Mountain of the Lord Fellowship in Akron Thursday with the Rev. Al Sharpton to discuss what he calls the “Holy Trinity of racial oppression,” the economic, education and racial inequities he believes were at work in the conviction of Kelley Williams-Bolar. The Akron woman was jailed for nine days last month and received two years probation and community service for falsifying records to enroll her two children in . Williams-Bolar, a 40-year-old single mother who attends college and works as a teaching assistant in the Akron Public Schools, has maintained that safety concerns led to her decision to move her daughters out of Buchtel schools, an urban district in the Akron system.

The case was presented to the Summit County Prosecutor after an investigator hired by the suburban district discovered that the children did not live full time with their grandparents in the Copley-Fairlawn area, as the mother had claimed. Copley-Fairlawn does not have open enrollment. The state sets tuition at $6,300 per year for students who live outside the district.

A national petition drive born on Facebook, Twitter (#Kelley Williams-Bolar) and liberal news blogs has produced 165,000 petition signatures demanding that Ohio Gov. John Kasich pardon Williams-Bolar. The governor has ordered the Ohio Parole Board to review the case, which is currently under appeal. 

Watkins holds a Ph.D. in Finance from Ohio State University, is a contributor to AOL Black Voices and has written and appeared on television and radio extensively on the Williams-Bolar case. He spoke with Fairlawn-Bath Patch about the case, which has sparked a national discussion on urban/suburban school quality, and what he hopes the Akron event will accomplish. 

The free, public community forum is scheduled from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the church, located at 1477 Copley Rd.

Fairlawn-Bath Patch: What should people expect if they attend Thursday?

Boyce Watkins: People should expect to hear more than about just about Kelley Williams-Bolar. It’s something that concerns us -- to make sure she gets what she needs, but I personally don’t have the time or resources to pursue every individual case.  And I’m not saying she is a wonderful, glowing human being. She may be, I don’t know, and can’t vouch for her. However, to some extent I agree with what’s been said, that this is a modern-day version of Rosa Parks … a person who had to break a law to get something that should be a fundamental American right -- a good education for her children.

Patch: When you talk about an unjust law, are you talking about the district closing its enrollment or are you talking about Ohio’s school funding system, which has been ruled unconstitutional?

BW: The issue with unconstitutionality is certainly problematic and should be an outrage to every citizen. On a broader national scale, the disparity between the quality of education of kids in the inner city and kids in the suburbs is not just a tiny difference. It’s something that undermines the black family in America. Black males who are not educated end up in prison and are the largest unemployed group. If you’re not educated, you’re not in a position to be fit parents to children. It’s the Holy Trinity of racial oppression. Kelley Williams-Bolar was not a thug, not a menace to society. She just wanted to see her kids be educated.

Patch: So, this has morphed into something bigger than Williams-Bolar for you?

BW: I blame overzealous prosecution. I don’t want anyone in Akron or on that prosecution team to think that making things right with Kelley will fix things. We need to make overall long-term changes. 

Patch: So, is the district being racist in its policy? Would you forbid them from closing enrollment?

BW: I’m not here to say what Copley should do.  What I’m encouraging is to have a community conversation about how to create educational equity in their state. I was talking to a public official there who said suburban schools close enrollment to keep black kids out. I don’t know that’s true, but it’s what he believes. If one of those kids was a LeBron James, the outcome would have been different.

I’m not here to tell people how to live their lives, I’m not here to make specific public policy recommendations. I’m not qualified to be a school superintendent.

One of the things I’m not good at is splitting hairs. I don’t know all the details of what is going on in Ohio, but I know an injustice when I see one.

Patch: What’s the goal in Akron?

BW: My goal is to look at the bigger system. It's Stupid Politics 101: We know Ohio’s funding is unconstitutional and no one has done anything about it. Our goal is to start a conversation in Akron and have people there lay out their own lists of solutions. Push for meetings with their legislators … jump-start community action.

Patch: There’s a lot of frustration locally that this has become a polarizing racial issue. Some people feel that the nation is looking into a district and a city from the outside, and unfairly assuming everything that happened boils down to racism. Will white people be welcome if they decide to come on Thursday?

BW: Sometimes people think that loving black people means you hate white people, or that giving equality to black people means taking something away from white people. To some extent the quest for racial equality involves some transition, but the response to this I’ve heard isn’t just a black-white divide. I’ve gotten emails from black people that said (Williams-Bolar) should go to jail. The divide is between people who believe exclusively in law and order, and those who believe in justice.

Everyone in the community is invited to come Thursday. I think white people who show up will be applauded and respected.  

Patch: Will Williams-Bolar be there, and is she scheduled to speak?

BW: She can if she wants to. I don’t know if she will.