Inland Empire's Black students face barriers

Community Foundation report highlights equity gaps but notes progress

Nestled in Moreno Valley is the Garvey/allen STEAM Academy, which aims to help historically disenfranchised students achieve academic success.

The predominantly Black charter school's opening in 2019 followed a decadeslong climb in the Inland Empire's Black population.

Tiffany Gilmore, Garvey/ Allen's superintendent and founder, said Inland schools may not have been prepared for the influx, which happened in part because of the region's lower cost of living. Today, she said, Black students continue to face barriers, including a lack of cultural representation in the classroom. Also, funding disparities have pushed parents to enroll their children in private or charter schools or move to neighborhoods with better schools, she said.

“All of those things are really real, especially for Black and brown families who want their kids to be able to enjoy, and have, the stateof-the-art facilities and the best teachers and books and technology,” Gilmore said.

Gilmore's observations

are echoed in a new report that concludes that, while the Inland Empire has offered benefits to Black residents, many racial disparities persist, creating a need for solutions that residents like Gilmore are working toward.

The Black Equity Fund Report, commissioned by the Inland Empire Community Foundation and compiled by Mapping Black California, shows achievements

and gaps in equity for Black residents in the Inland region.

“The goal of this report was to make this data, both good and bad, more widely accessible to all in the region,” said Candice Mays, project director of Mapping Black California, a data-reporting project of the Riverside-based Black Voice News. “We wanted to centralized information to make it more broadly accessible.”

In Riverside County, the number of Black residents increased from 5.4% in 1990 to an estimated 7.5% in 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Meanwhile, San Bernardino County's Black population rose from 8.1% to an estimated 9.3% during that same period.

Some inequalities have improved over time, and the report says that cul

PHOTOS BY TERRY PIERSON — STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Garvey/allen STEAM Academy founder and Superintendent Tiffany Gilmore stands in front of a wall of Black history leaders that include Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., President Barack Obama and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Gilmore sees the educational struggles of her students at the Moreno Valley campus, shown Tuesday.

Garvey/allen STEAM Academy teacher Brielle Jackson, right, questions her students to get responses from her Black and Latino students in the Malcom X classroom.