Booker T. Washington’s legacy as a leading figure in Black conservatism is unpacked, exploring how his principles of education, entrepreneurship, and self-reliance remain relevant today. Together, they examine the origins of the Department of Education and its lasting impact on America’s schools while advocating for a return to local control and parental choice. In this episode Priscilla Rahn challenges conventional narratives and emphasizes the importance of faith, family, and freedom in the quest for educational reform.
Welcome to Restoring Education in America with Priscilla Ron. She’s a master educator and author, leading the conversation to restore the American mind through wisdom, virtue, and truth.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, hello, everybody. Welcome to Restoring Education in America. I’m your host, Priscilla Ron, and I’m so excited that you’ve decided to join the conversation today. I have a very special guest who exemplifies what it means to be an American today, and I’m going to bring him to the stage. I’m welcoming my friend and my mentor, Congressman, Honorable Lieutenant Colonel Alan West. Hello. How are you?
SPEAKER 03 :
I’m doing very well, Priscilla. It’s great to be with you and a Merry Christmas to you, Darren, and your family.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, Merry Christmas to you. And I’m just always honored when I get to have a conversation with you. We get to talk every so often and you are just an amazing human. You’ve done many things that have been very supportive of my work and my journey. in politics and in education. But I remember the time you went and visited my dad. You were driving through Killeen and my dad was in home hospice and you stopped by and met him and talked to him as fellow former military men. It meant so much to my mom and my dad. So thank you so much for doing that and taking the time.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, the thing is, you know, I finished up at Fort Hood, Texas, and Killeen was an area that I’m very familiar with. But, you know, I don’t get to serve in the military if there weren’t men just like your dad and my dad and my father in law who set the course and set the path for me to come along. So it was an honor to be there with your dad and God rest him and you continue to honor his legacy because you’re a phenomenal young lady.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, thank you. And I’m still I remember one time I I sent you a photo and I said, I don’t know what all these medals are. And you like you need to know what these medals were that your dad got. And I’ve been doing my research and I’m going to do a really nice memorial on all of the medals he served in Vietnam. And so I am a proud daughter, Army brat, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. traveling all over the world with my dad, who served our great nation for almost 30 years. But before we get into the conversation, I want to share a little bit of your bio. Your bio is so impressive, but I want my listeners to know some of the things you’ve done. So Lieutenant Colonel Allen West is the executive director of the American Constitutional Conservative Rights Union and Action Fund. He’s a former member of U.S. Congress, where he served on the Small Business and Armed Services Committees. Lieutenant Colonel West served in several combat zones and served and received the Bronze Star, Meritorious Service Medal, Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, Valorous Unit Award, the Army Master Parachutist Badge, the Army Air Assault Badge and numerous other awards. In 1993, he was named the U.S. Army ROTC Instructor of the Year. Alan is the former executive director of the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas, Texas, and a former director of the Booker T. Washington Initiative for the Texas Public Policy Foundation. In 2020, Colonel West was elected chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, and he’s currently the chairman of the Dallas County Republican Party. Lieutenant Colonel West is a master scuba diver. and the author of three books, Guardian of the Republic, Hold Texas, Hold the Nation, and We Can’t Overcome an American Black Conservative Manifesto. He’s married to Dr. Angela Graham West. They have two daughters, and he’s the proud pop-pop of his grandsons, Jackson and Levi, probably the most important role you have.
SPEAKER 03 :
Absolutely it is. That’s your legacy.
SPEAKER 01 :
A hundred percent. Now, Alan, you have been elected to Congress. You have been elected to GOP offices. What, in your opinion, is the most election that people need to get involved in?
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, without a doubt. I mean, I’ve always said the most important election in the United States of America is school board, because that’s how you are preparing the future generations of this country. And when you talk about your incredible book and the title of your podcast, Restoring Education in America, that’s where it starts. I think that the only good benefit that came out of the COVID period was that all of a sudden you had the kids and also the parents locked in the house together and the parents got to see exactly what was going on in some of these classrooms. Because with parents being so busy nowadays, a lot of them don’t go to PTA meetings and Don’t show up for things. And they had kind of lost touch with what their kids were being taught. Maybe they look at the report cards, but they don’t really understand the curriculum. Then they got a chance to understand the curriculum. And for the first time in I don’t know how many decades, you saw people showing up at school board meetings and people did not like that. As a matter of fact, the Biden administration decided to castigate and demonize parents who were concerned about the education of their children and not indoctrination as domestic terrorists. So, again, I think the most important elected position in this country is school board. But sadly, it has been the elected position that has had the least amount of voter participation and turnout.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, it’s really critical to get more people involved in these school board elections. They’re very thankless jobs. Trying to find good people to run is really challenging as well. My first chapter in my book talks about fatherhood. I have so much respect for fathers. We know in the Black community, it is such an important thing we need to target is supporting Black fatherhood because the data doesn’t lie when it comes to the impact of of our families. I grew up in a time where, you know, as a young woman, I was told, oh, you know, graduate from college and get a job, get a career, get a career. I found a clip of you talking to a young lady who said, you know, I think I just want to become a stay-at-home mom or, you know, a homemaker instead of getting a job. And you said, that is a job. It’s the most important job that you can have is being a mother and raising your children. And one of the things I’ve also been learning on my journey is, you know, parents really need to be the first mentors, the first teachers and go back to that because we’ve seen since COVID as parents were waking up and seeing what was going on in their schools, they were shocked and surprised. And now we’re seeing this big influx of parents taking their kids out of public schools and putting them in charters. And talk about your position on school choice and homeschool and in this new movement that we’re seeing.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, look, once again, I think that, you know, from a policy perspective, the Department of Education is not something that’s been around in the history of the United States of America for a long time. It came during the Carter administration and the whole reason why we got a Department of Education was that the teachers unions went to the Jimmy Carter and said that, you know, we want to have this own government entity that can enable us. And that’s why we created the Department of Education back in the late 1970s. And if you look at the budget of the Department of Education, when it was first started, eighteen point one or eighteen point two billion. to compare it to where it is today. Look at the quality of education in the United States of America, the direction it has gone. So that is not something from the federal government perspective, that’s not a constitutional role or duty that’s articulated in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. This is something that is supposed to be local. That’s why we have the school boards. So I think that what you see happening right now is that parents, and I say parents, in the Black community, lots of times you don’t have parents, you have parent. They’re starting to reassert their control over the educational freedom that they have and parental rights that they have. And that’s why you see a lot of people moving toward the homeschooling, the charter schools, things of this nature, to make sure that they are providing their kids the best possible opportunity. And I’ll give you a case in point with my parents. I was writing cursive before I even got to the first grade because my mother, who has a background in education, she wanted me to start out at Miss Hanley’s Day School. And that’s where I went into that. I wasn’t in a pre-K or a K program. I was in Ms. Hanley’s day school. And it set me so far ahead when I got to the first grade because I understood basic math, you know, one plus one and things of this nature. My dad, when you talk about that informal education that you get out of the home, he used to sit down and challenge me to do the baseball statistics, you know, from the Atlanta Braves games. Okay. Hank Aaron, Had to bat four times. He got two hits out of the four times he was at bat. What was his batting average for that game? And he got me involved in understanding numbers and liking numbers. And next thing you know, I’m reading the business section of the Atlanta Journal Constitution with him. My parents also made me sit down and take a story from the Atlanta Journal Constitution. And I had to give them a summary of that story before we had dinner. And that’s a lost concept, parents sitting down with their kids and having dinner together and having conversations. So I think that we’re getting back to a lot of these things in our country. And when you talk about school choice, we’ve always had school choice. my parents decided to send me to a private Catholic school in our neighborhood, Atlanta, the Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School, instead of the two public schools that were there. So they exercised their school choice. What we’re talking about now are policies that support educational freedom and policies that support the ability for parents to make those decisions and those choices for their children, instead of being forced and relegating them to, you know, these failed public schools. So I think that that’s what we have to start talking about, not, you know, just a school choice, but all of these different means by which, and again, competition is a good thing. Now, there are some good public schools that are out there, but I will tell you that here in Dallas County and we have the independent school district concept here in Texas. There are some of those inner city school districts that are failing. As a matter of fact, here in Texas, the Texas Education Association has gone in and taken over the Houston ISD, taken over the Fort Worth ISD, because they are absolutely failing. And you see the corruption with all of these superintendents making these exorbitant salaries and things of this nature, but the kids are making D and C level ratings. So, yes, I think that you’re seeing an incredible trend toward that. They passed a quote unquote school choice legislation here in Texas. It is not far reaching enough, I believe, because it’s only talked about one hundred thousand or so students. And instead of this voucher system that they have talked about, created just allow people to deduct it from their tax filings. you know, especially here in Texas for property tax filings. So again, I think that we need to look at the means by which we promote and advance policies that enable people to have parental choice in education and educational freedom.
SPEAKER 01 :
If you’re just tuning in, my guest today is former Congressman and Lieutenant Colonel Allen West. We’re talking about education. There was so much to unpack in what you were talking about. In 2020, the Heritage Foundation published an article correcting Carter’s mistake. Removing Cabinet Status from the U.S. Department of Education. And I actually was reading this from your amazing book. By the way, everybody go to Amazon. Go to Amazon. There’s so many nuggets in this book. This is from We Can Overcome an American Black Conservative Manifesto. And You do talk about Carter’s administration. This was new information for me. You mentioned when Carter was running for president in 1976, his campaign promised the National Education Association he would form the Department of Education. Based on that promise in 1976, the NEA gave its first presidential endorsement ever, according to the Washington Post. During the Democratic National Convention that year, 180 delegates were from the NEA, more than from any other group of any kind. They endorsed Carter and were a major force in getting delegates to the Iowa caucus. Is it fair to say that the Department of Education is a creature of the NEA? That’s true, said NEA Executive Director Terry Herndon in a 1980 Washington Post interview. There’d be no department without the NEA. And I am a former member of the NEA, not just member. I was a leader. I was the treasurer. I was the secretary. I was on the political action committee where we gave thousands of dollars to Democrat candidates. And this was during a time where I… didn’t really understand the machine. And two years ago, I walked away from the teachers union because I was, I realized that the things I was supporting were actually hurting our children. And this is my message to teachers and leaders who are watching and listening to this show that you need to walk away from the NEA and stop giving money to them because almost 95% of of the money they get from teachers goes only to Democrat candidates. And they’re the ones who kept our schools shut when we were going through COVID. There are plenty other options for teachers who want to get out of the union but still have legal representation. But to segue, you, in your dedication of this book, Booker T. Washington, And Henry O. Flipper, you gave us a blueprint and a roadmap to show how we can overcome. And you have an entire chapter dedicated to Booker T. Washington, who, in my research, partnered with a gentleman named Rosenwald to build 5,500 schools across the South to help educate young Black children. Why did you dedicate a whole entire chapter to Booker T. Washington?
SPEAKER 03 :
I mean, Booker T. Washington is the father of Black conservatism. He is the guy that I consider my philosophical mentor, without a doubt. And I see him as one of the greatest educators and orators that this country has ever produced. And it’s sad that we don’t elevate his policies and his thought processes even more. And again, coming back to the title of your podcast here, Restoring Education in America, we should go back to his three-point purpose for education, which was education, entrepreneurship, and self-reliance. It was not just about the book learning, as we say down south. It was also about learning skills and learning how to be a productive member of society. And that’s what Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute was all about. It wasn’t just about them going in and reading books. They built their own campus. And if you have never been down to Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama, educators should go. If you’re a true American educator, you should go down there. You should study this man and study what he did and study his principles and read his book, Up From Slavery, because you talk about full of nuggets. I mean, it’s just rich with all of those things that can help us get our system of education back on track here in the United States of America.
SPEAKER 01 :
Alan, we have seen an influx of more conversations around diversity, equity, inclusion. During the 60s, my dad lived through the civil rights era. And from your opinion, what’s the problem with DEI?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you’re talking to a bit of a dinosaur here as well. I’ll be turning Medicare age here in February of next year. I was born in a Blacks-only hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. But how is it that a kid born in a Blacks-only hospital 65 years ago You know, can grow up and become a lieutenant colonel United States army when his dad was just a corporal and a segregated army serving in World War 2 can be a member of the United States House of Representatives to represent the highest per capita income zip code in the country at that time, which was Palm Beach Island to grow up and become the chairman of the largest state Republican party in the country. The Republican part of Texas. It has nothing to do with DEI. It has nothing to do with cultural Marxism. It has everything to do with, again, education, entrepreneurship, and self-reliance. It has everything to do with the equality of opportunity, not the equality of outcomes. That’s what DEI is. It’s the equality of outcomes. It’s someone else determining your buy and your leave and what you can go do. And it is someone else telling you that merit is not important. What is important is that we meet quotas based upon these embraced demographics that the left has been very good at creating to really separate and divide us. And so I want us to get back to understanding merit. I want us to get back to understanding achievement. I want us to get back to understanding opportunity. And the education unlocks the doors to all of that, not indoctrination, but education. So you look around and you have all these kids that are graduating with this massive debt from college with degrees in women’s studies. Okay, what are you going to do with that? I guess you’re going to make coffee at Starbucks. And we need to get back to having kids that are, if you’re going to go to college, you come out with a degree that leads on to you being able to do something that again, you’re a contributing member to society. But what’s wrong with the trade schools? Things of that nature. So I think the DEI is really a newer cultural Marxist version of affirmative action. And I will tell you, I think that it is really the ultimate ideal of racism to tell someone that because of your skin color, you cannot achieve the standard. And so we have to adjust the standard and lower the standard so that you can achieve. My dad has a saying, which is still in my home. And it says, you find out what the standard is and you exceed it. And that’s what we need to be teaching our kids, not this whole thing about having someone adjust the outcomes for you.
SPEAKER 01 :
That reminds me of a time I was at a coffee shop and there was this young lady, she had her laptop open and someone introduced me to her and I said, so what are you working on? And she said, I’m applying for jobs. She had a PhD in women’s studies and she was looking for a job and she was having a really difficult time. And so I asked her, well, what kind of jobs can you get in women’s studies outside of academia. And she said, I don’t know. So she was looking for jobs specifically in academia because there were no like actual jobs that required a PhD in women’s studies. And I was thinking, wow, how much did that cost you? You’re in your early thirties and you’re sitting here at a coffee shop trying to apply for a job. And I thought, what a waste of time. But OK, so, Alan, what do you say to people? But but, you know, our skin color, you know, there’s racism, systemic racism, and we can’t pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. You know, these are the arguments within our own community that we hear against those of us who are conservatives. You and I don’t look at the world through a race lens, right? I have race fatigue, quite honestly, but I still have to talk about this because it’s still an issue in conversations when it comes to policy and when it comes to education. We can’t get all of these people with master’s degrees and PhDs to stop talking about race and looking at things through a lens of race. I have a book on my bookshelf called Grading for Equity that Denver Public Schools gave me and said, we’re going to start giving 50 percent to students who don’t turn in any work, you know, because giving them a zero is going to traumatize them. And of course, those books are targeted to city schools and who who’s in the city schools. It’s black and brown kids. So, you know, what do you say to people who argue with you about this issue?
SPEAKER 03 :
I would say to them, pick up Booker T. Washington’s book Up From Slavery and explain to me how a young man who was born into slavery, that all of a sudden found himself free, who basically walked from present day West Virginia over to Hampton, Virginia, for one reason. He wanted to get a better education. And then when he was given the task of opening the first institution of higher learning for blacks in the South, he didn’t say, I can’t do it. He didn’t say, I’m not qualified. I’m black. I need this crutch, whatever. He said, OK. And look at what we have today. We have Tuskegee University. We have the institute that gave us George Washington Carver. We have the institute that gave us the Tuskegee Airmen. We have a man who was born into slavery who hosted a president at his university. We have a man who was born into slavery who was the first black man to sit in the White House and have a meal with a U.S. president. And now you’re going to sit around and telling me today that something is still holding you back? And of course, this whole thing about systemic racism. Well, then why are you a member of the party that is the party of systemic racism? the party of systemic racism, that first and foremost, it was physical enslavement. Now it is an economic or mental enslavement that is telling you that you can’t achieve because of your skin color. So again, I just think it’s an empty victimization argument. And sadly, Booker T. Washington had a quote that talked about people in our community that will continue to perpetuate that victim mentality because why? It’s beneficial to them. because they get money off of it they they you know ibrahim kindy kindy or whatever that guy’s name is you know going around and telling young black men and young black women that they’re victims and everything’s against them this whole lady came with this 1619 project and and what does it do it gives them the opportunity to go out and give lectures and everything like that it’s lucrative for them Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, the race hustlers. It’s a lucrative business for them to keep people on what I call the 21st century economic plantation. And they’re the new overseers that are on that plantation. So I just tell people, you know, break away. Like you said, walk away from it. Get out there and enjoy freedom and liberty because that’s what this country is all about. But if you want to be made a victim, someone is always going to make you a victim.
SPEAKER 01 :
I have started saying that I grew up in privilege. And my privilege was I had a father and a mother who were married at the time of my birth. My father didn’t have affirmative action and DEI when he was in the army.
SPEAKER 03 :
No, he certainly didn’t. No way, yeah.
SPEAKER 01 :
That didn’t fly. I mean, he had to earn his ranking and he rose to be as high as a CW4. At that time, that was the highest rank that he could have earned. And my mother being Korean, you know, I didn’t have a chance to be a victim. I mean, between having a tiger mom.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s your mom. You are not going to be a victim in your mom’s house. What is your mom is a fifth degree black belt? Yeah.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay. Shameless plug. She wrote her memoir. She’s a Korean War survivor, but she is a grandmaster. She’s like an eighth or ninth degree black belt. No way. Inducted into the Korean Martial Arts Masters Hall of Fame. So, yes. between the two of them, I had to earn it. And I am so grateful that my father didn’t raise me to look at things through the erase lens. I don’t remember my dad ever talking about white people or white people are bad or anything like that. They were full of faith. And I know that you’re a Christian and how important of a role does your faith play in how you approach being a father and now a grandfather?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you know, my dad also had a saying. He said, never let your color decide what you can and cannot do. And when I think about the Bible, the Bible in Romans chapter eight, I want to say it’s around verses 30, 31, something like that. that we’re more than conquerors. We’re victors through our Christian faith and our faith and belief in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So why would you want someone to tell you you’re a victim? And I think that’s the whole thing about education because education puts you on the path to being a victor. But when you have that lack of education, it puts you on the path to being a victim. And that’s why I think that the whole strategic perspective is when you want to take away and undermine the Judeo-Christian faith heritage of this nation, when you want to take away the ability of individual rights, freedoms, and liberties, what you’re trying to do is make people dependent upon, I always say, government with a little G and not seeing God with a big G. And that’s what we have to get back to. And it does start in the home. You know, I always go back to Joshua 24 and 15, where Joshua says to the children of Israel in his farewell address, Choose for yourselves today whom ye shall serve, be it the gods of the Amorites or the gods from across the river of Bethesda, for me and my house will serve the Lord. And so I’ve already started to sit down and share my Bible devotions with my grandson. The oldest is four, the youngest is two. But it was so touching to me that as I sat down with my two year old Levi, I mean, he was quiet. He was at peace because it’s something about the Lord’s word that does that, even if you are as an infant. And as it says, I mean, Paul talks about us seeing our christian walk as as being his infants to be independent upon the lord to starting off with that milk but we have to continue to have that milk so i think it’s important that you know my christian faith helps me to be that example and in my household i’m not perfect i’m just as screwed up and you know all have sinned before and fallen short of the grace of god but i know where my blessings come from and i know that as i turn my family over to him He will put a hedge of protection around them. And that’s what I pray for daily.
SPEAKER 01 :
Amen. Well, Alan, I’m looking at the time and we have to land our plane. And I’m so excited that we had this conversation. We’ll have to have another one, obviously, soon. But to my listeners, thank you so much for tuning in and catch me next time. And remember, educating the mind without the heart is no education. So seek wisdom, cultivate virtue and speak truth.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thanks for tuning in to Restoring Education in America with Priscilla Ron. Visit PriscillaRon.com to connect or learn how you can sponsor future episodes to keep this message of faith, freedom, and education on the air.
