Debra 'Ibitayo' Butler

Debra 'Ibitayo' Butler

Nineteen hundred ninety-four was an extremely interesting year.  My final semester in college paralleled my final trimester of pregnancy.  In October of that year, I took a short bus trip to visit my Aunt in Washington, DC, which ultimately led me on a plane, in route to Dallas, Texas, with another Aunt.  With less than forty-five days left of the semester, needless to say, an impromptu trip to Dallas with intent to stay was not in my immediate plans.  But I digress.  While in DC, over a fabulous lunch at a quaint restaurant in Adams Morgan my Aunt dropped two precious jewels – the first was in a discussion about Malcolm X when she mentioned one of his daughters’ names – Amatullah [meaning the servant of God].  That named radiated with me, although at the time I had no idea whether I was sharing my inner sanctum with a growing boy or girl.  Later on I would find out his daughter’s name was actually Attallah, but the original name stuck less the letter ‘h’.

The second was shortly after when she told me about a very small private school named Africa-Care Academy in Oak Cliff, Dallas, Texas, that was doing some very progressive things with children.  They were learning about their history, culture, and challenged to embrace their own greatness all while excelling academically.  This experience began as young as two years old and extended through the eighth grade.  Although I never in a million years thought Dallas, Texas would ever see the light of day with me in it again, Africa-Care Academy piqued my interest.  It slowly became a mainstay in my thoughts about this tiny person growing inside of me.  Finally, I had given birth to a beautiful baby girl, graduated and took off shortly thereafter to Dallas, Texas with the intent on staying for three weeks or forever… 

Over the years people have often commented on how intelligent my children are, well spoken, ambitious, talented, etc.  In my mind I always think it is because of a few factors: genetics, A LOT of hard work, and growing up and being educated in a small private school in Oak Cliff, Dallas, Texas, called Africa-Care Academy under the leadership of Debra “Ibitayo” Butler.  Amatulla was eight months old when we finally made it to Africa-Care Academy where I worked for the next eleven years.  Ayade was born there [figuratively speaking]; her name [meaning the joy of our lineage] came from the Yoruba Language we learned from Sister Ibitayo.  My beautiful babies were surrounded by love, academics and culture at Africa-Care Academy because as much as I am a mother to my daughters, so is Sister Ibitayo.

My children grew up at Africa-Care Academy, learning how to walk and talk there.  As they grew older, that turned into marching, saying ‘The Black Child Pledge’, ‘Ode to the Ancestors’, knowing all fifty-four nations of Africa, learning about our history beyond what is written in the standard issued text books, as well as Reading, Writing and Arithmetic.  Africa-Care Academy built and enriched both their academic and cultural foundations.  I would never trade our experience there for anything in this entire world. 

Sister Ibitayo

Who are you?

“I am Debra Ann Butler.  I’m also known as Sister Ibitayo.  I am the Founder/President of Africa-Care Academy.  I was born here in Dallas, Texas. My parents are Mattie and George Butler.  My mama comes first because my mom did the primary raising.  I have four sisters and one brother.  I have a daughter.  I went to school here in Dallas; graduated from South Oak Cliff in 1975.  I went to Roger Q. Mills, George Washington Carver, and Oliver Wendell Holmes.  After graduating, I went to college, majored in Political Science.  Returned to Dallas, got bored, went to Los Angeles and met some interesting people.  Those people would help me evolve and start Africa-Care Academy.”

You said you went to college to study Political Science, what was your goal at that time?

“My primary ambition then was to become a Corporate Lawyer.  For some reason as a child, I wanted to be in Law.  It just fascinated me to look at Perry Mason and to see how Lawyers conducted themselves in court, knowing the law.  For some reason I wanted to go into Corporate Law, I wanted to be in control of finance and trade.

I think primarily because my mother worked at Neiman Marcus.  Working at Neiman Marcus sometimes I saw the different wares from different countries and she was always happy to say this came from this place or this came from that place.  I wanted to go into Corporate Law because I could really make money working for some big corporations instead of working for individuals.  I think that is primarily why I wanted to go into Corporate Law.

I found ME!!!

During the process of gaining my education, especially from Ohio State, I discovered something and it was more important than Corporate Law.  It was ME!  I discovered who I AM and I discovered that person was not really corporate.  What I was sent to college was for a bigger mission, a more important mission than working for a corporation, that I had a job and a duty to liberate and to put us on a higher level of living.  Martin Luther King, Jr. [and today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day] and Malcolm X were people I grew up with and was deeply impressed by, especially by Martin Luther King, Jr. 

As a teenager, I kind of swayed away from the protest movement because it became all about boys, dance and having a good time.  I thought about politics but not as seriously as I did when I was a very young child.  As a child I listened to the elections because I was around people who cared about who was running for President.  At the time, we had Lyndon B. Johnson and Johnson was running against this George Wallace from Arkansas, I think, and he wanted to send Black Folks back to Africa.

I can remember my Aunt [saying] ‘I am not going back to Africa!  I am not an African!  I am not going back to Africa!’  But I said, ‘Well, we’re Black!’  She said ‘No, don’t EVER say that!’  Back in the ‘60s, they started calling us Black People but she said ‘Don’t say that, we are Negroes!  It’s better to a Negro than to be Black.’  For some reason, she felt it was better to be a Negro. 

As time evolved we became Black and I don’t know if my Aunt ever embraced the term ‘Black’ but through her Political comments I became interested in Politics.  She was always listening and keeping up with events so that kept me aware of what was going on.  While I was in college, I began to understand the events and issues that I had been previously been exposed to in regards to Black People, independence, and especially segregation.  It was at the end of segregation, I saw a little bit of it.  I felt proud when I went to Ohio State because I was the first of a new generation opening up the gates to Ohio State.

I felt like I had a duty to do and that duty was to make sure more black students get a chance to go to college and to have a better chance at succeeding in their careers than I did.  I felt that even though I had graduated from high school, I did well in school, I made decent grades, I wasn’t an ‘A’ student, I wasn’t an honor student.  I graduated early but I didn’t really consider myself to be smart.  Smart only when I applied myself but not a born genius.  I felt like I had to do more.  The next generation, in the ‘70s and ‘80s, had to be more prepared for college and knowing who they are.  We had kind of drifted away from that.  I decided that maybe I can do something, but I really wasn’t sure.  Teaching wasn’t even a thought.  I thought maybe I’d go into Politics.

For a while, I worked with a group called the Ohio Public Interest Campaign.  I saw how hard it was, politically, to get issues on the ballot, to lobby, to just get anything done and even the timeframe given for an official to be effective.  By the time you are elected to office and learn how everything works, it’s time to leave or campaign again.  It leaves very little time for a new person to really get anything done.  There had to be a better way of making social changes and I still hadn’t thought about teaching.  But there had to be a better way.  I really didn’t know what that WAY was, yet.

After leaving Ohio State, I came back to Dallas and I worked for a newspaper company, called the “Dallas Times Herald”. While there, I wrote a few commentaries.  Because my view was not welcomed, they told me not to write them anymore.  Also while in college, I became what they call ‘blacklisted’.  My ideas weren’t accepted by the teaching professionals, matter of fact before I graduated I had to switch to the African Studies Department even though I was still in Political Science and International Studies.   I had to go through African Studies in order to graduate because my counselor in Political Science had dropped me. 

I had no advisors and at Ohio State students are advised from the moment you enter school until you leave to always be with an advisor because the course load is so enormous and sometimes courses are not offered each and every year or not offered in the day or at night.  Your advisor is going to keep you abreast to the changes in the course offerings and tell you where you stand as far as graduation and how you can sometimes get around things.  I had to go the African Studies Department for counseling, which turned out to be a very good thing.  My counselor was the head of the African Studies Department and through that association I got a chance to take even more classes and get closer to some of the professors who were teaching African Politics. 

Love of Africa

During one of my courses, I became exposed to a group called the AAPRP [All African People Revolutionary Party] and that was probably the best course I had taken in African Politics.  The teacher was from Africa.  He was from Nigeria, couldn’t been any more than about 27 years old and had a PhD.  That impressed me so much and then he knew so much, not only about African Politics but about our political history here as black people, and he was able to bridge the two together.  He would allow non-college students to come to his class.  Some of these students were from the All African People Revolutionary Party.

The way he taught it [the course] made you just fall in love, seriously in love, with Africa.  It made you really proud to be an African and eager to learn more about Africa and its political history and how it related to our history and vice versa.  Some of the reading was from AAPRP required reading; I definitely wanted to be a member of the All African People Revolutionary Party because of their interest in educating the masses and especially college students.

My interest in black studies and politics led to my association with some other student organizations, including women’s studies group.  AAPRP invited people like John Henry Clarke, I remember John Henry Clarke because he was blind and when he came to Ohio State, the woman’s group that I was a part of clashed.  One of the reasons was because the AAPRP felt that the women’s group, which was more integrated, pushed the book by Michele Wallace called Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman. 

This was a serious book about the intimate relationship between black men and women.  The women’s group that I was working with had invited Michele Wallace, and she and John Henry Clarke were on the stage together.  Her book discussed how men, black men, were not intellectual but instead physical.  Black men are proud of their reputation to seduce and satisfy sexually.  After the Civil Rights Movement in the ‘60s and early ‘70s black men took on more of the Mack type.  The men were projected as Macks in public media to replace the Revolutionary type.  Respectable organizations including the brothers from the Panther Party kind of went into being the Mack.  For this reason, she wrote about in the book.  The Superwoman was the black woman, she could do anything, she could raise her children by herself, and she could solve all the problems of her family, her nation.  She was supernatural.

This was a memorable night because of the topic and feelings expressed by both panelists.  Michele Wallace was supported by the women’s group.  Members of the AAPRP, especially the brothers, felt the feminist group mainly supported her because she was kind of downgrading black men’s statuses and that’s why her book was so important to them and that they were promoting it. 

John Henry Clarke, of course, on the other hand, being more intellectual and an elder explained the historical and political events that brought us to that point and what was necessary to get us back on course.  In concluding, John Henry Clarke embraced Michele Wallace.  John Henry Clarke did not discredit her view.  He let her know was it was good for her write what she felt; it was good for her to express it and not to be ashamed of what she’d done because she was writing what is real to her. 

I am a revolutionary

As revolutionaries we have to take into account that there are always going to be different views.  Accepting the different views help us to see ourselves better.  Most importantly, we have to embrace one another.  Don’t let our views be a dividing factor.  Male or female, Christians and/or Muslims need to learn that regardless of our differences, which are minor and secondary to our unity.  That is how we are going to prevail.  The program ended beautiful because Michele Wallace walked off with Dr. Clarke.

The feminist movement from Seneca Falls to present has made attempts to counter the black revolutionary.  Matter of fact back in the 1920s, Ida B. Wells Barnett was involved with the feminist movement but when she married, they felt she was not a true feminist anymore.  She and Booker T. Washington would open the way for Marcus Garvey.  Booker T. Washington initially invited Marcus Garvey to this country, even though he did not get a chance to meet Garvey due to the fact Booker T. Washington was found dead before Garvey arrived. 

The story goes on that even so Ida B. Wells Barnett and the others at that time organized the Silent March and the Silent March was partly about that, there was no need to speak.  There was nothing needed to be said, everything had been said, it was just time for action.  It was probably the most interesting parade that has ever taken place in this country – the Silent Parade and you don’t hear very much about it but I think it’s something we need to review in history.  Marcus Garvey’s famous photograph with the general regalia and feathered helmet was taken that day at the parade.

Ohio State prepared me for a higher calling and that calling I didn’t really realize for another decade.  Upon returning to Dallas, I worked at the Dallas Times Herald.  Money was good but I hated the environment, I financed progressive activities but I saw little progress.  Society encouraged us to integrate and forget about the past, forget about who gave us hell all of these years but that wasn’t the purpose of integration.  The purpose of integration was to get a better education and eventually to feel more social freedom. 

Sharing knowledge

In retrospect, I feel we were much better off during segregation and the late ‘60s and ‘70s in Dallas, we had a black economy and black chamber, we were financially in really good shape.  It wasn’t that we wanted really to just integrate so that we can go to the same toilet and drink from the same fountain.  We wanted equal funding for education and public services.  We wanted to integrate so that we didn’t have to go to the back door, or we wouldn’t have to have a lesser school or a lesser college because we couldn’t be admitted to an elite college.  We didn’t want our colleges or our schools to suffer or go out of business but just have the opportunity – if I wanted to go over here to this [school]…  I believe it was Daniel Hale Williams; he had to start his own school for doctors because at the time black doctors couldn’t attend the major universities.  So, integration was needed just to give all of us a chance to have the education that we deserve and if you had the potential to do something you could get the training wherever you felt like you needed to go to get it.

Integration, education, and life have given me insight and a reason to prepare another generation so that they will not allow ourselves to digress to the Mack stage.  Many changes have been made but things are still not like they should be.  In order to be accepted we shouldn’t have to give up our pride and identity.  When I see black women thinking that wearing false hair and nails, having to put on a whole different persona, other than just being proud of their naturalness, this lets me know that things have indeed changed - we are digressing.  You should be able to have your natural hair and get any job you please and no one should make any fuss about it because you are God’s creation so you shouldn’t have to undergo a metamorphosis in order to be accepted.

Even though integration has come, I still see women doing things that we shouldn’t be doing.  I have seen women sexually harassed by men on the job.  I’m so happy I am college educated.  I learned to preserve, work hard, and survive on my own.  It was an initiation into adulthood.  I don’t have to take insults from men in order to keep a job.  It made me feel sad that there were woman who were younger than me who were accepting this in their life because maybe they didn’t go to school long enough; maybe they weren’t taught to be proud of themselves or that they were much more valuable than these jobs.  We have to think highly of ourselves in order for other’s to think highly of us.

Carter G. Woodson said there are two types of education: one you get in the classroom, the other one you give yourself.  So I had to go on a journey.  That journey took me to Los Angeles and there it was like a Mecca.  Another serious movement resurfaced after the Civil Rights Movement with music of Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Jimmy Cliff ignited the fires for social equality again.  It seemed to be another movement and Reggae was at the head of it because revolution was put to music.  Lyrics loaded with substance brought about this new energy.  This new surge of energy and a new chapter in the liberation struggle. 

Entrepreneur

In California at the time, we called ourselves Rastas.  Rasta, the way I interpreted it, meant ‘Righteous Man’.  If you had locks, and at that time most of us who had locks were into this new liberation movement.  It wasn’t so much a hairdo, but it was a consciousness.  Rastas came from many different persuasions.  You had Rastas who were Muslims, Rastas who were Christians, Rastas who were Israelites.  We learned how to greet each other like ‘Baruch Elohim Yaweh’.  I learned how to speak Hebrew and the Muslim Family’s ‘As Salamu Alaikum’ and then Black Nationalist… there was the Republic of New Africa, the All African People Revolutionary Party, US and many, many more.  Those were the principle groups that were really strong and the Nation of Islam was seriously strong under Khalid Muhammad at that time, especially in Los Angeles. 

Out there black folks were more independent, there were more entrepreneurs, street merchants, just people who believed in self-sufficiency, just doing for self. It was kind of like what we see now a days in the Mexican Community.  We had people selling food, people selling wares, little storefront in front of storefronts selling incense; black folks were busy and creative.

Children in the arts

Then the Houses of Knowledge – there was this place called the Aquarian Spiritual Center.  This place was the oldest bookstore in Los Angeles at that time.  When I was there, the owner was already ninety or so.  He was ninety, his wife was not far behind, they were still running the bookstore and they were teaching. They had an auditorium on the side of the bookstore where they would give lectures and speakers would come in.  They also were into ‘Blackgnostics’.  They knew how to look at the time you were born, the position of the sun and the moon and able to map up your life.  They had done several people like that; they had done Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Marcus Garvey.  They did famous people and when they talked about it, they talked about it from a Gnostic point of view.  It was really just a place of learning. 

There was the Kawaida Center.  The Kawaida Center was headed by Maulana Karenga and the US Organization.  The Kawaida Center was held lectures every Sunday, so every Sunday from somewhere around 3 o’clock – because they didn’t interfere with church time, so it was from 3 o’clock to maybe 7 o’clock – Maulana Karenga would teach African History.  And you are talking about an interesting [lecture]… I mean interesting… it was so interesting.  The Republic of New Africa had a lecture series always going on.  They mainly told history through videos and visiting lecturers.  Matter of fact, I met Ashra Kwesi there.  Ashra Kwesi made his first journey with Dr. Yosef ben Jocannan [Dr. Ben] and did a lecture series.  I was there when he did his first presentation at the Malcolm X Center on Broadway. 

LA was a place of learning, it was a place of growth and maybe a third renaissance, like in the 20s after Africans were freed and began to really enjoy the freedom that we had gained and began to think poetically, musically, created Jazz and Bebop, dance, that freedom of expression is known as the Harlem Renaissance period.  It was a new explosion of expression but this expression was a little bit different because it was directing us toward Africa, going home and loving who we are.  It was different and I think the earthquake of the late ‘80s kind of disturbed that movement and the removal of Khalid Muhammad from the Nation of Islam because Khalid was a big player in the African Movement.

Academic Excellence

During Kwanzaa, even when they had special events at the Mosque, it was not uncommon to see famous people; they came to the Mosque – what we called the Temple back then. I met a lot of celebrities in the black community; Marla Gibbs had a recreation center that taught African Dance and Acting right there in the hood and a Jazz Club. That was the good thing, you had a lot of black entertainers who were active in the black community and who supported us in some way even if it was in the arts or buying our wares. California, like I said, it was like being in a Mecca, being around black people who were proud of their ethnicity, being around different black professionals in so many different areas, black entrepreneurs, artists.

Toward the end of my tenure in Los Angeles, I became associated with Marcus Garvey Schools.  The Marcus Garvey Schools, the way it operated - was still too revolutionary for Dallas, Dallas is still not ready for that.  Marcus Garvey Schools has always been funded with black money and the teachers are non-certified.  Dr. Anyim’s philosophy was that… and I was one of the few college educated teachers that he hired and one of the reasons he told me that he accepted me was because it didn’t seem like I was as Europeanized as some other professionals when they go to college.  Even though Dr. Anyim has a PhD., he was still able to function in a way that he cared about his community and he was able to train teachers to be productive and to love who they are.   

Africa-Care Academy Students

Dr. Anyim was very serious about his mission and because of the way he was, he help mold me into being a more productive worker.  At first I went to the job, I showed up, I wasn’t very punctual, but Dr. Anyim, he would make you sprint to punch in because he was so serious about being on time, being in the classroom, being productive, being ready.  Another thing that I enjoyed about what he did is that he gave us the kind of training that was necessary for us to accomplish his mission. 

The school taught Kiswahili, the teachers had to take Kiswahili.  We had to go to school, he sent us to school at night and we had to report. You made sure you went to school to study your Kiswahili!  Also, we had to take African Studies and we took that from him.  It wasn’t during class time, it wasn’t during school hours and it was set for two nights a week.  So two nights a week the teacher had to go for Kiswahili and African Studies.  It was managed very well because he was very punctual – start on time, end on time – but it was mandatory.  We didn’t get paid extra for it but it was part of what the school was about and we did it.  Every person that I knew that worked there grew to enjoy it because it enhanced them.  It was an enhancement; it made you a better person.   Also in the process of teaching us, because it was the Marcus Garvey Schools, we had to study all the precepts of the UNIA; we had to learn about a lot of the ideas and philosophies of Marcus Garvey.  He really kind of molded us into being Garveyites, so it was a beautiful experience. 

Outdoor Drumming & Dancing

He treated us just like you would expect an employer to treat his employees.  We didn’t have a lot of great benefits of course but the benefit was the work.  When we saw what the children were doing. You have four and five year olds spelling five syllable words, it just made you feel proud and then how we were supported by the community because of the academics.  We weren’t mainstream but because of the academics we got the support we had needed.  People were proud to bring us their children.

Before I moved back here, my mom and I were having this discussion.  She said ‘Well, what are you going to do?’  I said ‘I’m not sure…  I could teach.’  She told me ‘You should start your own school.’  That was the first time I had ever thought about that.  I had never really thought about it until that point. When I came back to the city, I worked for corporate to get myself established.  I had a friend, her name was Imani Akuaku; Imani and I had become friends while she was living in California, and she moved to Texas before I did and started having babies.  Then because she and I had already had experience out in California, we didn’t want to send our children to public school.  [She said]  ‘Where is Akua going to school?’  I said ‘With me!’  So she said ‘I’m going to bring mine.’  And that’s how Africa-Care Academy got started.”

In the beginning

And what year was this?

“It was in 1992.

She brought her two and the next thing I know, her friend happened to be Sister Isis [Owner of The Institute of Ancestral Braiding] brought her children, and then from Sister Isis, Brother Bandele [Owner of Pan-African Connection Art Gallery Bookstore & Resource Center] brought his child and those were my first students - from those families. 

When I started in ‘92, I started as a Saturday School and Stephen Meeks’ daughter was a spokesperson for the other children and she said ‘Sister Ibitayo, I don’t mean any disrespect but we go to school Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday is just too much!’  I said ‘Enough said!  I can really overstand because I agree with you!’  And I agreed with her, Saturday was a bit too much so I decided not to do the Saturday School ever again because I just felt like people don’t realize…  I relate to my childhood a lot, especially how I felt about school and I think that’s what makes me a good teacher sometimes because I can relate back to when I was a child.  I probably would have dropped out if you said I had to go to school on Saturday, I had a hard time going to school on Monday thru Friday and I surely would have dropped out if they had the schools that we have today.  So I understood where she was coming from so I decided ‘Let me just try this during the week.’

I went to trying to do this during the week and the children appreciated it more.  My daughter was a first grader; I think one of the Akuakus was a first grader, the rest of them were still very young so it was okay for them because it was like a daycare but an African-Centered daycare.  I remember when I decided to officially start Africa-Care Academy, I informed everyone not to bring anyone under five [years old].  Most of them showed up with five and under, I was like ‘Oh Lord!’ because I had children late in age so I wasn’t like a children person.  I liked children – teaching them – but that really early, early [age], I was like ‘Ya’ll just don’t know me; I’m not really this type of person.’ 

The Future Leaders

See, I had children late; I had to learn how to sing songs to children.  My girlfriend said ‘You have to sing for them!  So the baby knows you’re around!’  I had to learn how to socialize with children, it didn’t come naturally.  I had to learn how to do that and at Marcus Garvey I had first grade and up so this was like ‘Oh no!’  I don’t know any nursery rhymes; I don’t know any kind of little songs.  So I had to make them up.  It turned out okay and what I did was I looked at some books and took some songs like ‘Mighty Marcus Garvey if you ever seen him’ I took that from a poem ‘was a proud black man in the Red, Black and Green. Told black people we’re a mighty race but we need once more a mighty land base.  Let Africa be our shining star!’  So I just came up with stuff like that because I wasn’t a nursery rhyme person. 

Eventually more school age children began to come but that is how it started with the Akuakus and with me moving back to Dallas, meeting Imani with her children cause she had a nice little following, she had four children.  I was able to educate two of them and then they moved away then Sister Isis came.  They were beautiful little children and thank God they were able to come.  Sister Isis, she was the one who bought ‘The Little Red Caboose’, because I didn’t know any of those songs, so she knew a few of those songs and I incorporated them, this got the children moving around, dancing and stuff.

I was able to recruit some good help.  Sister Katanga came to teach art, very esoterically and ingenious in her approach toward art.  The children enjoyed it and enjoyed her instructions.  Another Sister, Sheila Berry, she was my very first assistant.  Sister Sheila was really, really good with children.  She was a genius with getting children to tie their shoes.  She was one teacher who insistent that she was not going to tie any shoes.  I don’t know how she managed to do it.  She scared them to death or whatever, but they knew how to tie their shoe laces.  Then there was Sister Iranema, she was good too. 



Cultured

 This was all at Alsbury Street, we had fun on Alsbury because we had a big garden, we were on about an acre of land, the children had plenty of room and they could throw a football without it going over the fence. There was a carport and some children who had never ridden a bike before could ride because I had children’s toys, tricycles.  They could ride the little tricycles and bicycles.  We even had a goat!  The children would feed the goat and the goat was spoiled because it would get fresh apples and fruit. 

The Akuakus, Imani, the lady that bought her children at first, she gave me the goat.  She had a whole herd of them out in Pleasant Grove, the country part. They had a really big back yard and they had about ten goats back there.  She was married to a brother from Africa and this sister made her own soap and everything.  Do you know, to this day I still have a bar of her soap?  That’s how I remember her, because eventually Imani passed away. 

She and I together started the Kwanzaa Parade [in Dallas] because when she was out in California she was the co-founder of the original Kwanzaa Parade.  Imani was a genius to me because of her creativity, her talent and her ability to work with colors and costumes.  When we were out in California, California is really like a kind of wild people place and Imani would take a place and she’d put cloth on the walls.  The way that she would drape those walls it was like you were walking into somebody’s pad from North Africa or the Middle East.  She had that kind of vibe going on.  The way she would robe herself in the beautiful, flaring colors, to me it was romantic – her and her mate – they were like people you would see from a different era but they were here. 

Exploring

They were the one’s that started the Kwanzaa Parade and it was a beautiful thing and because it meant so much in Los Angeles… each group - The Republic of New Africa, US, Nation of Islam, The African Scouts, they had all kind of groups like that and they would parade and I mean SERIOUSLY parade.  The bands, it was so beautiful, seeing the horseman, the car people, motorcycle people, the chariots, they always had something with the elders, senior citizens, the dancers, the African Dancers, the Belly Dancers - LA was like that.  LA was a wild place; it was a place where people were enjoying expressing themselves at that particular time.

I had to come back and share that with Dallas of course.  Because of what I’ve learned through those experiences, what I learned in the classroom, I wanted to share that with children but in a way that would encourage them to go out and learn, explore, travel and get the education in the classroom, and in the street which they give themselves.  I always tell them ‘You have to give yourself an education that means that you have to get out there; you have to explore.’ It may not necessarily mean getting on a boat or a plane and going to a foreign place but what it means is that you have to do something to educate yourself.  I got as much as I can get from the teacher; now I need to go explore.  Take what I got from the teacher and just stretch it to test these theories, find answers to those questions that we didn’t know the answer to long ago.  Now we have the technology to know more, it wasn’t like some of the stuff was just hidden from us, it’s just now we have the technology.

Getting back to Africa-Care Academy, I wanted to open a school primarily to help my child because I couldn’t see myself going to corporate America everyday while my child was being dummified.  I felt like even with the early education I had given her I had invested money in my child.  I wanted my child to become productive not just for the larger American society, which I feel like in a way she is going to be productive – which will be a benefit – but I want her to be a benefit to the struggle.  Sometimes I think I accomplished a little of that but not much.  Then I say ‘Maybe not today but maybe later.’ 

Reconnecting with Africa

Right now I feel like maybe it’s just her time to evolve into her own self.  No matter how much you want your children to be… they still have to become who they are.  I just pray that she will overstand my mission, what I am trying to do, so that she could eventually come back and continue the struggle that our people have been going through for the last 500 years because in started in 1619 and it continues today.  I’m just hoping that she will understand the struggle. 

I feel like when I reflect on those great people who have gone before us - Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and so many more, even Mary McLeod Bethune, I think about how they wanted so much for us, so much for the progeny which is now, now with us, they wanted so much for us and how I want so much for us.  So when I go into the classroom at school I want so much for every child to do good because I feel like their success is my success.  If they are not getting it then there is something I’m doing wrong.  Even if they don’t stay even but only for a little while I want them to leave with some kind of impression, get something more. 

Drumming in the breeze

So that is always my prayer that some kind of way I help them evolve into who they need to be because I feel like life is… I think I heard Farrakhan say once when he was talking about education, ‘Education is not actually putting something in; it’s bringing something out.’  And because a person is born with all the talent God gave them, they’re born with who they are going to be in life, it’s just the exposure that they get that is going to bring out those talents. 

Just like we found that we are born with all the eggs that we are going to produce; as an infant we are born with those.  How productive they become is based on the lifestyle you live. We want to take care of our bodies so we can produce good eggs.  We want to take care of our children so they know that because of the love, because of the attention, because of the education we have provided for them that one day they can turn around and say ‘I love you.’  I tell them [the students] the most vulnerable members of society are the babies and the elders and those in between - our duty is to take care of the babies and the elders. 

Standing at the feet of Giants

Sometimes I think about my methods of educating and when I was younger, a few years younger, I think I was harder as a teacher.  Harder in terms of tolerating misbehaving, children just not being cooperative, but as I’ve matured I’ve tried to treat young men a little bit more like family because I don’t want to cause young men to hate black women because they are too hard.  But also to understand that there are black women who are firm, black women who are not going to be prissy, but they will love them and respect them and expect the same in return. 

As I was evolving as a teacher and a mom I wanted to always make sure I didn’t punish the child unnecessarily or wrongfully punish a child; I wanted to give the children the respect I wanted as a child.  I felt like it’s important to try get to understand children’s feelings, that’s why I’ve never been in favor of calling them ‘kids’, deeming them.  That’s why I started the Kwanzaa Parade because I felt like our children needed to feel like they are cherished and that we exalt them in that way.  That we want to demonstrate our power and creativity so we can encourage them to grow up, to live and do great things.  That was really the main purpose behind the Kwanzaa Parade. 

With the school – to educate them in way that they could be proud of their origin and want to come back and be beneficial to our struggle here in North America and reconnect with our African Brothers and Sisters over on the continent of Africa.  Even transplant themselves back to the Mother Land.  And get the most out of our education regardless of whether it’s a Black Institution or an integrating institution, wherever, but get the most of it and they go and feel firm and grounded and confident in any situation because of knowing their ethnicity, they know they have a past that goes way beyond the slave years.  From the beginning, our civilization that we started in Africa with the Pyramids, it’s still glorified today.  So they can go back to the Mother Land and see it for themselves and know that they are the proud builders of such greatness.  I always tell them ‘You are the same people!  You just changed clothes and you speak a different language now but you are the same people.’  Just like they say ‘As it was in the beginning so shall it be the end.’

Sister Whaley & Sister Ibitayo

That is why I feel proud at the end of the school day to say something in Kiswahili or Yoruba to let them know to go forth, to do what you have to and conquer because you are a great people.  Do the best you can.  Always do your best, regardless of what the job is.  We were talking about that the other day in school, almost any job I had I could go back to because I always did my best, I always did a great job regardless of who I worked for.  I take that into working for myself, it’s important for me to iron my clothes, to never be wrinkled, to shine my shoes, it’s important to me, it’s the mentality that I have because when I step onto the campus I’m Sister Ibitayo.  I come to do a job and I really want to do my best at it.  There have been difficulties but I still have to stay focused.

The government sometimes seems like it doesn’t intend for me to grow but I have to keep pushing because I know it is necessary.  It’s still a child [Africa-Care Academy] but I want it to be an adult real soon.  I want Africa-Care Academy to evolve; it may involve having a new leader, lead by another generation but it is important that it does.  With life you never know what a child is going to be all you can do is your best and cultivate that child because you just never know - the one that you thought didn’t seem to do much may turn out to be the one pull everybody up.  I’ve seen some phenomenal things happen.

Now I just try to motivate, there was a time when I thought I was smart, but as I’ve gotten older I think I’m okay.  I think as time goes on I think it’s important for an educator to continue to be educated.  That is one of the important things about being an educator is that you continue your education, learning is a continuous process.  As time changes you just have to keep growing.  In the classroom with the grade levels that I still have I am continuously learning through self education so that I can continue to give my students more and more…”

Africa-Care Academy today

Sister Ibitayo pushes her students to learn beyond what they would normally learn in a public school environment.  The coursework may seem tough at times, however, children are adaptable and they learn, absorb and ultimately process information very quickly.  Children have the ability to learn far more than we can even begin to imagine.  Cultivating that ideal, as she does, helps them soar beyond our most grandiose expectations.

“I feel like how our children are educated it retards us, we have to go through slow rank of graduating from grade to grade, which takes us twelve years.  When you look back at the great Kings of Africa most of them started ruling when they were twelve or thirteen years of age.  Menelik, these people started ruling when they were twelve years old.  Even Haile Selassie, he was given first governor over a certain providence at the age of twelve or something like that.  So it’s the kind of educational processing that really dummifies us because it takes too long to become mature and it doesn’t go with nature.  By nature, we become adults when we reach puberty – but it [the educational process] doesn’t go with nature.

Cultivating greatness

 I was reading some of the works that the early Black Psychologist wrote about children and they said that between the ages of one and seven is when we have the greatest brain span and that is why it is important that we educate our children as much as possible between the ages of zero and seven.  Black children, it’s different for white children, the brain development is different and that’s why black children need to be educated in a way that caters to their growth so that after seven then… because if you have given them as much as you can from zero to when they reach seven years of age then black children need to start building upon those things. 

Leaders of tomorrow

We have some fifth graders who are doing Chemistry, Biology, and Geometry and [they] really understand the process.  One of the reasons I say we are just going to do ours this way is because so many black children are failing high school especially in Chemistry and Math but when the process changed around… look at how many black children who got an early start with Math and Science how well they progress in school. Black children need that early start.  It just helps even the playing field when they get to high school. 

That’s what I recognized when I went to college, the playing field wasn’t balanced.  Some of the things that I learned in high school were so remedial compared to my white counterparts.  They knew about Freud and they knew certain things in Biology.  We had Biology but it was a choice where you choose to take it and some classes shouldn’t be a choice, we need them.  We need it because even if you are just a parent and that’s it at least having a good understanding of Science will help you administer cough medicines, help you take better care of your children.  Even if you are a housewife, just having a good understanding of Math and Science will just help you do the right things.

Founder/President

That’s why I felt like, if the teacher was there and the teacher was really comfortable in teaching a subject, then I’m going to push them to teach that subject.  So that’s mainly how Africa-Care Academy is run, I did things a little bit different than Dr. Anyim because Dallas is a different place from California.  I felt like it’s important to have teachers that do have degrees because in California we did take the Iowa Test but here, according to the law, you can’t administer the Iowa Test of Basic Skills [ITBS Test] without having a college degree.  I wanted teachers to be able to prepare the students for that experience so having a college degree is mandatory.  Fortunately, I have had teachers that are more degreed than I am but the respect was there because of the self education I’ve been able to give myself.  I’ve been able to learn other subjects and know what to expect from them and when I didn’t, I’ve never been afraid to ask somebody...

It has been very hard, sometimes when I look at my other classmates, friends and peers and look at where they are; most of them are retiring or retired.  It makes me kind of sad because I’m still working, I don’t have any plans to retire soon - which I can’t.  So I wonder what’s in store for me. [One day] someone will step forward and take the reigns and will be the PERFECT person.  That’s very important to me.”

Sister Ibitayo has held down Africa-Care Academy, operating almost purely off tuition, for the last twenty years in a time when most businesses fail within the first five years.  She works hard, harder than most people I know, to ensure the students at her school excel academically AND culturally.  During our tenure there, Sister Ibitayo was not only my children’s principal and teacher [as well as my employer] but she also helped raise both me AND my children.  Although, I have to admit I was the hardest student of us all thus I am still learning.  I might be by far her greatest challenge.  She is like a mother to me… a best friend… a confidant… an advisor… she is as much, if not more, responsible for my children’s greatness as their father and I am.  Now that is something for you to ponder while beginning your travels off the grid...

Be Strong…  Stay Strong…  Live Strong…  Love Strong…  Asuecion

To find out more about enrolling your child, volunteering or making a donation, please visit or call:

Africa-Care Academy

724 W. 10^th Street

Dallas, Texas 75208

214-941-1511

Africa-Care Academy is a 501©3 Organization