The complex story of a dynamic educator, Dr. Charlie
Mae Knight, a woman and an African American, is
interwoven with the Civil Rights Movement, women's
history, and the foundations of educating children of
color and children of poverty in the United States.
Dr Knight's own impoverished childhood forged her
determination to use education to escape the poverty
and racism of the Deep South of the U.S. at mid-20th
Century. She quickly learned that while she obtained
an education, it was still limited in too many
communities by the politics of poverty and
racism--even in the West. Using her extraordinary
personal charisma she tapped into the
emerging financial capital of Silicon Valley of the
1960's to develop the social capital of the families
in her community of East Palo Alto. In a highly
politicized climate charged with greed, hostility and
envy, Knight pursued the American dream for her
community, often at the cost of social isolation,
personal tragedy, and attempts to publicly discredit
her in the mainstream media.
Mae Knight, a woman and an African American, is
interwoven with the Civil Rights Movement, women's
history, and the foundations of educating children of
color and children of poverty in the United States.
Dr Knight's own impoverished childhood forged her
determination to use education to escape the poverty
and racism of the Deep South of the U.S. at mid-20th
Century. She quickly learned that while she obtained
an education, it was still limited in too many
communities by the politics of poverty and
racism--even in the West. Using her extraordinary
personal charisma she tapped into the
emerging financial capital of Silicon Valley of the
1960's to develop the social capital of the families
in her community of East Palo Alto. In a highly
politicized climate charged with greed, hostility and
envy, Knight pursued the American dream for her
community, often at the cost of social isolation,
personal tragedy, and attempts to publicly discredit
her in the mainstream media.