NPE Action endorses Jitu Brown for Chicago School Board, District 5.
The Network for Public Education Action is proud to endorse Jitu Brown for Chicago School Board, District 5. Jitu was born on Chicago’s south side and is a product of the Chicago public school system. Jitu has volunteered in his community since 1991 when he began volunteering for the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization (KOCO). KOCO is the oldest black-led community organization in Chicago.
He is currently the National Director of the Journey for Justice Alliance (J4J), working with grassroots organizations and youth organizations in over 30 cities across the country. Jitu is an advocate for sustainable community schools, which offer wrap-around support for children, and alternatives to the privatization of public education. He is focused on the continued work that exposes the connection between the attacks on public education and the disempowerment of African American communities all across the country. In an interview for The Hill in 2022 Jitu explained, “For the casual listener, a wraparound support could be a speech therapist or a school nurse, and that’s very true, but wraparound support is simply anything that removes an obstacle to learn. A debate team and Afro-American history clubs are wraparound supports. The question we began to raise is, why don’t our children have access to that?”
In perhaps his most powerful demonstration of community organizing, Jitu was one of 12 parents, grandparents and community members who went on a 34-day long hunger strike to save Dyett High School in Chicago. Please listen to Jitu explain the hunger strike journey in this video, The Children We Choose Not to Educate. Dyett was the last open enrollment High School in the historic Bronzeville community. As a result of the hunger strike, Dyett High School was saved and continues as an open-enrollment, neighborhood school. Finally, Jitu was also instrumental in the fight to get elected school boards brought back to Chicago. That dream was realized when the Illinois legislature approved a law allowing 10 of the 21 school board members to be elected in 2024 and all 21 to be elected in 2026.
Jitu served for ten years as a member of the NPE Action Board of Directors.
NPE Action urges Chicago District 5 public education supporters to get out the vote for Jitu Brown in the Primary on November 5th.
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate committee. Authorized and paid for by Network for Public Education Action, PO Box 227. New York, NY 10156. 646-678-4477.