[bert]

----The times when blacks were not allowed to read and write are gone----

Now days, urban black males choose not to be literate

[MarDav]

Look at the poem below (by Alice Walker - of The Color Purple fame), and imagine what her "mama's generation" would have to say today:

Women by Alice Walker

They were women then

My mama's generation

Husky of voice- Stout of Step

With fists as well as Hands

How they battered down Doors

And ironed Starched white Shirts

How they led Armies

Headdragged Generals

Across mined Fields

Booby-trapped Ditches

To discover books Desks

A place for us

How they knew what we

Must know

Without knowing a page

Of it Themselves.