Dr. Umar Johnson is attempting to raise $5 million by Aug. 21 in hopes of purchasing Lawrenceville, Va., HBCU St. Paul’s College, and convert it into a boarding school for African-American men.
Johnson, a certified school psychologist, child therapist, and author of Psycho-Academic Holocaust: The Special Education & ADHD Wars Against Black Boys, believes that a residential educational facility would be the secret weapon young Black men need to overcome “educational racism.”
If he raises enough money for the purchase, St. Paul’s College will become the Frederick Douglass and Marcus Garvey RBG International Leadership Academy for Black Boys.
The college has been up sale since April after financial woes forced it to close its doors for good in 2013. At the time the sale was announced, the school’s 11th president, President Millard “Pete” Stith Jr., said he was hopeful another college or university would purchase the property and allow it to remain as an educational institution.
In a post on BlackNews.com, Johnson wrote that the location of the university is ideal because it is “located in a rural section of southern Virginia” and “reclusive enough and sizable enough to be the perfect psycho-academic training camp for the current generation of Black boys.”
The institution would focus on giving the young men the real-world experiences that they will need when they enter the challenging labor market.
Instead of following the traditional curriculum, the educational programs at the school will be based on a global business model that will prepare the students for “self-employment and entrepreneurship, not merely acceptance into college.”
Johnson says that this approach to education is key to young Black men’s success because although many students are earning degrees, they are still struggling to secure jobs in their fields.
Johnson believes the boys who attend this school will see a much brighter outcome.
“Our children have to be taught how to make a living anywhere in this world regardless of the circumstances of the political economy in which they live,” he wrote. “The FDMG Academy will teach our children to be masters of agricultural/agronomical science, economic/financial Science, political/military science, nutritional/dietary science, family/community science and African-centered spiritual/cosmological Science.”
In addition to giving the students a more positive job outlook, Johnson also hopes that the planned academy will help fight back against what he slammed as “educational racism.”
“Politically-speaking, keeping Black boys from having a gambler’s chance at a decent life in this country seems to have become a fetish of the American social order,” he said. “As states scramble to find more dollars to incarcerate young Black males, a quiet but very powerful sense of hopelessness is settling in amongst the Black boy population in America.”
Johnson says if the Black community wants to “reverse the special education, ADHD, psychotropic drug, juvenile incarceration and premature extermination wars against Black boys, then we will have to build schools that are uniquely designed to teach Black boys…how to avoid the trappings of a racist criminal justice system.”
In addition to his best-selling book, Johnson is also known for sparking controversy.
Earlier this year, he claimed in a YouTube video that many Black boys are “growing into gay men” because their mothers prevent them from seeing their fathers.
He has also bashed media proprietor Oprah Winfrey for catering to a white audience and accused rap star Jay Z of embracing white supremacy.
No information has been released about how much money has been raised so far.
While it is possible to make a donation at DrUmarJohnsonSchool.com, there is very little information about the next steps.
