NAACP Urges Parents to Step Up

Declaring “African-American children in Charlottesville are dying” because of a school system that fails them, M. Rick Turner, the flame-throwing dean of African-American Affairs at UVA and recently elected president of the local NAACP, exhorted black parents to rise up to their responsibilities as “the primary educators” of their children. “White folks are not going to educate your children,” Turner said to a gathering of about 140 people at Pilgrim Baptist Church called by the NAACP. Turner, who has regularly used School Board meetings to cast allegations of racism, even comparing white parents and teachers to Klansmen as recently as Tuesday evening, said tonight, “I know full well that every white citizen in the Charlottesville community is not racist.”