March 28, 2001 

      Civil Rights Campaign Evolves
      Into Algebra Crusade
      By David J. Hoff
      Washington 
      When Robert P. Moses worked on civil rights voter-registration drives in 
      the 1960s, the math was simple. The more black citizens who voted, the 
      stronger the voice they had in political affairs. 

      Almost 40 years later, the mathematician has trained his civil rights 
      mission into more complex math: the study of variables and linear 
      equations.

      After starting as a one-man tutoring operation in 1982, Mr. Moses' Algebra 
      Project has grown to reach 100 schools sprinkled in urban centers and in 
      rural areas in the South. The goal is to help minority children, mostly 
      African-Americans, learn algebra so they can be prepared for the 
      higher-level mathematics they need to succeed in some of the most 
      high-demand jobs in today's economy.

      "Your education is tied to the kind of work that society has set aside for 
      you," Mr. Moses, 66, said in an interview here during a tour promoting 
      Radical Equations: Math Literacy and Civil Rights, a book he wrote with 
      journalist Charles E. Cobb Jr.

      Without higher-level math, "the only jobs you can do are dead-end jobs," 
      he argued. "You can't access the jobs that are driving society."

      Homegrown
      The book recounts Mr. Moses' experiences helping poor, black farmers in 
      Mississippi in the early 1960s and explains how that sowed the seeds for 
      creating the Algebra Project almost 20 years later. 

      The project began when Mr. Moses, who had studied the philosophy of 
      mathematics at Harvard University, was tutoring his eldest daughter, 
      Maisha. When she reached 8th grade in 1982, he thought she was ready to 
      learn algebra. But her Cambridge, Mass., middle school didn't offer the 
      subject.

      Mr. Moses had just won a "genius award" recognizing his civil rights work 
      from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Chicago-based 
      philanthropy that gives unsolicited grants to artists, scholars, and 
      community activists. The five-year grant underwrote Mr. Moses' volunteer 
      work as a tutor for Maisha and three of her classmates.

      Mr. Moses stayed at the Martin Luther King Jr. school after his MacArthur 
      funding ended in 1987, and he sought other grants that allowed him to 
      expand the project elsewhere.

      Today, Maisha Moses and two of his other children still work for the 
      Algebra Project, based in Cambridge.

      The goal of the project is to get black middle school students ready to 
      take high school mathematics. It does so through providing teacher 
      professional-development activities, teaching tools, and 
      community-organizing activities.

      "The project has had a lot of success in getting people to accept this as 
      an important goal," said Frank E. Davis, the director of the doctoral 
      program in educational studies at Lesley University in Cambridge, who has 
      evaluated the Algebra Project.

      While the project doesn't offer a specific curriculum, it does help 
      teachers make mathematical principles concrete.

      In one example, Mr. Moses tells teachers to organize a trip as a way to 
      teach equations. Students can calculate how many stops on a subway or bus 
      line they must pass before reaching their destination. After each stop, 
      they can figure out how many remain.

      The process helps teach the concept of subtraction in a way that prepares 
      the children for higher-level mathematics. Instead of reinforcing the view 
      of subtraction as simply "taking away" one number from another, he 
      explained, the trip helps them see how the function expresses one number's 
      position compared with another's.

      "It establishes the pattern of one place compared to another place," Mr. 
      Moses said over tea at a Washington restaurant. "What we're working toward 
      is a picture that they can carry with them."

      Managed Growth
      In his role as the leader of the Algebra Project, Mr. Moses teaches 
      mathematics four days a week at Lanier High School in Jackson, Miss. Over 
      the past five years, he's created enough curriculum materials to cover 
      algebra, geometry, and the rest of the content covered in the first two 
      years of college-preparatory math.

      He remains committed to his program, but he doesn't want the Algebra 
      Project to grow too quickly. He'd rather see it grow and improve in the 
      communities where it already operates and provide a model for others to 
      follow.

      "I don't think it's important that we grow big," he said. "I do think it's 
      important that we grow strong and be able to say: 'If you haven't been 
      able to do this, come look at us.'" 

      The Algebra Project was created by Robert P. Moses with the mission of 
      helping low-income and minority students succeed in math.