In 1978, the Boston-based public television show Rebop (hosted by Levar Burton) devoted its program to the Oakland Community School. In the first of its two segments on the OCS, Kellita Smith, an OCS student, conducted a revealing interview with Black Panther Party founder Huey Newton.
Newton offered that when he was growing up in the Oakland Public School system, he was taught mostly “about white people… the school wasn’t teaching us anything about ourselves.” This statement is in close alignment with the fifth point of the BPP’s 10 Point Program, which begins: “We believe in an educational system that will give our people a knowledge of self.” He also says that when he was in school, his questions were discouraged, whereas at OCS, students are encouraged to constantly ask questions and never accept what they hear as the full truth.
Kellita discusses the Justice Board, a student committee that delivers “methods of correction” to students that break the rules. In one classroom, young children learn about Native American history, white settler colonialism in the U.S., and the Revolutionary War. Kellita says that students are served three meals a day (often by teachers) because parents may not have enough food at home to provide for everyone in the family.
In the last part of this segment, Newton says that he believes the children are the future, and encourages Kellita to always continue to ask questions.
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A second segment focuses on an older student, Fred Morehead, and his involvement with the OCS as both a student and a teacher. It captures Fred playing with others on a field trip to the Oakland redwoods, learning to read, speaking with his father (who is not a member of the Black Panther Party) at the dinner table, teaching Tae Kwan Do, and performing his volunteer work with the Safe Transportation Program, which shuttles seniors to medical appointment and facilitates their daily life.