Black leaders regroup to address widening poverty among African American children: Two decades ago, 22 black leaders gathered for a retreat on farmland in rural Tennessee once owned by writer Alex Haley. The reason for the gathering, which included historian John Hope Franklin and civil rights matriarch Dorothy Height, was to address growing rates of poverty among black children.
The idea for the Harlem Children's Zone was born there. So was the Freedom School initiative, which has provided summer and after-school enrichment programs for 80,000 children.
But a larger issue has overshadowed those successes: Rates of black childhood poverty keep growing.
