by Toni Cook, interviewed by Nanette Asimov

About the author: Toni Cook, president of the Oakland, California, Board of Education, works at the San Francisco Housing Authority. She is interviewed by Nanette Asimov, a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Toni Cook never expected to be at the center of a national uproar, but she’s not intimidated by it. On December 18, 1996, Cook, president of the Oakland Board of Education, inspired her colleagues to pass a resolution recognizing black English—known as ebonics, from ebony and phonics—as the primary language of the school district’s majority African-American population. That decision propelled the wiry 53-year-old woman into a national debate about language, race, and the education of African-American children. Jesse Jackson came out against the resolution, then shifted to enthusiastic support of...