Don’t you just LOVE how Second Amendment haters phrase the question about assault weapons?

“Why,” they ask with the smug arrogance that makes them so downright annoying, “would anyone need to own an assault rifle?”

They don’t mean it as a question, of course. They figure they are more or less telling people that they don’t need to own assault rifles, or weapons with magazines that would allow crazed maniacs to shoot large numbers of people.

Were I the flippant type— and those of you who know me to be the loving, warm, fuzzy human being that I am realize I’m not— I’d be inclined to answer, “Because I might need to assault something.”

Instead, I’ll just give the Second Amendment haters the history lesson they so desperately need about why, in some instances, Americans might need assault weapons or guns that carry large rounds of ammunition in the magazine for self defense.

That is the primary reason any American would want to own a rifle or a gun: self-defense. Second Amendment haters figure that should rule out assault weapons and firearms with magazines that carry a large number of bullets.

Second Amendment haters are, as a rule, also liberals from what I call the “criminal-philic” element of the American body politic. They don’t believe criminals bent on doing law-abiding citizens harm are criminals bent on doing law-abiding citizens harm.

They believe said criminals are basically just poor, misunderstood little dears in need of love and affection.

Meanwhile, those of us living in the real world would prefer to arm up, and with weapons that have some firepower. Here, then, are some historical instances where, if assault rifles or handguns with high-capacity magazines weren’t used, then they darn well should have been.

1925: Detroit, Mich. Dr. Ossian Sweet, an African American physician, moved with his wife into an all-white neighborhood. Rioting whites tried to drive out the Sweets by hurling bricks at the home.

Sweet had friends and relatives over to help him protect life and limb. They fired into the crowd, killing one white man. The Sweets and several others were eventually tried and acquitted.

I’m not even sure assault rifles were invented in 1925, but the Sweets sure could have used some.

1957: Monroe, N.C. The local Ku Klux Klan decided it would use Monroe’s black community for some night-riding target practice. Robert F. Williams, who had organized Monroe blacks into an NAACP chapter and a rifle club, was having none of it.

Monroe’s blacks fired back, putting the KKK to flight. The Kluxers didn’t have the guts to return.

Second Amendment haters will claim the Sweet and Monroe incidents are ancient history. So I would have them fast forward to 1992, during the Los Angeles riots after several white police officers were acquitted in the beating of Rodney King.

Los Angeles police either could not or would not protect Korean-owned businesses in Koreatown, so these Korean-Americans decided to protect themselves. Did they have assault rifles? Not known. But they darn sure should have.

The above instances show how private citizens had to fend for themselves when police either could not or would not protect them. The case of Kathryn Johnston shows what happens when it’s the COPS that want to do private citizens harm.

The year was 2006. Johnston, 92, was alone in her Atlanta home. She had only a handgun to defend herself.

In burst three of Atlanta’s worst, corrupt cops who fatally shot Johnston and then planted drugs in her home.

This story has a much happier ending if Johnston, instead of a handgun, had an assault rifle, the better to shoot the miscreants at least a couple of dozen times each.

When the Second Amendment haters snidely ask their “Why would anyone need an assault rifle?” question, they assume a couple of things.

They assume their government— or its agents— will always be there to protect them!

They assume their government— or its agents— will never, never, NEVER fail them!

They would be making such assumptions based on what, exactly? No reason Kathryn Johnston’s ghost would agree with, I’m sure. 

“I am not anxious to be the loudest voice or the most popular. But I would like to think that at a crucial moment, I was an effective voice of the voiceless, an effective hope of the hopeless.” —Whitney M. Young, Jr.

Most students of civil rights history know that 2013 marks the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 50th anniversary of the historic 1963 March on Washington. But this year also marks the 50th anniversary of the signature newspaper column of the National Urban League. This very column, “To Be Equal,” was started in 1963 as “the Voice of Black America” by one of the civil rights movement’s most effective, if lesser-known champions, former National Urban League President, Whitney M. Young, Jr.

At the height of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, Whitney Young took the fight for equal opportunity from the pulpits and street corners to the boardrooms and corner offices of corporate America. Forging allies from Wall Street to the Oval Office, Whitney Young’s battle for economic justice and inclusion laid the foundation for an upwardly mobile Black middle class that is still rising today.

While those of us in the Urban League family have always celebrated the unique role Whitney Young played in the movement, his story has rarely been told to a national audience— until now. On February 18, 2013, America got a rare in-depth look at the extraordinary life of Whitney Young in an hour-long documentary, “The Powerbroker: Whitney Young’s Fight for Civil Rights” on PBS (check your local listing for repeat showings). Years in the making, the film, made possible by Emmy Award executive producer, and Whitney Young’s niece, Bonnie Boswell Hamilton, traces Young’s journey from his segregated childhood in 1920’s rural Kentucky to his national prominence as president of the National Urban League from 1961-71. The film features rare archival footage and interviews with such luminaries as Vernon Jordan; Henry Louis Gates; Dorothy Height; John Hope Franklin; and Ossie Davis.

Although recognized as a major civil rights leader and one of the organizers of the 1963 March on Washington, Whitney Young’s strategy of engaging political and corporate leaders as partners in the struggle for economic justice was met with opposition by many whites and skepticism by more militant blacks.

 Despite these challenges, Whitney Young turned the rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement into jobs and economic opportunity for African Americans. In addition to sitting down with corporate titans, he was a trusted advisor to three presidents— John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon. Johnson used Young’s “Domestic Marshall Plan” as the basis for his “War on Poverty.” And Nixon delivered the eulogy at Young’s 1971 funeral.

Noted Princeton historian and Whitney Young biographer, Nancy Weiss Malkiel once called Young, “the inside man of the black revolution.” In her 1989 book, Whitney M. Young Jr. and the Struggle for Civil Rights, Malkiel wrote that Young “spent most of his adult life in the white world, transcending barriers of race, wealth and social standing to advance the welfare of black Americans. His goal was to gain access for blacks to good jobs, education, housing, health care and social services. His tactics were reason, persuasion and negotiation.” Whitney Young’s story deserves the national exposure PBS is giving it.

Marc H. Morial, former mayor of New Orleans, is president and CEO of the National Urban League.

Somebody please, just grab an assault rifle and shoot me now.

Governor Martin O’Malley doesn’t want me— or you, or anyone— to die that way. He wants to “protect” us. That’s why he and other Maryland Democrats want the state to ban assault rifles and limit the capacity of magazines on other firearms.

All this is in response to the tragedy that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. It’s feel-good legislation intended to hoodwink the public into thinking elected officials are taking effective steps to limit gun violence, when in fact they are doing no such thing.

Truth is, O’Malley and his Democratic minions can’t protect me. If I die of unnatural causes, it won’t be because some nut shot me with an assault rifle.

It will be because some member of the insane clown posse ripping and racing on the state’s streets and highways killed me in a fatal car accident.

The odds that I will run across some nut job with an assault rifle looking to murder scores of people are minimal. Where as, I am on Maryland’s roads, streets and highways almost daily.

I have, on average, one close call per week, courtesy of a member of that insane clown posse. I witness, on average, one or two close calls whenever I drive.

It looks like I’ll get no help from Maryland legislators in protecting me from this insane clown posse. That’s because some of them are MEMBERS of this insane clown posse.

Can you believe that a group of legislators actually want members of that insane clown posse to drive faster? Oh yes. They’ve proposed a bill that would increase the speed limit to 70 miles per hour on some of the state’s highways.

The Lead Foot Legislators, I call them. Members of the posse need to drive slower, not faster. In fact, they don’t need to be driving at all

And when members of the insane clown posse aren’t menacing motorists who drive like they have sense, the downright stupid drivers take up the slack.

True story: a few months back, on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway (BWP), repairs were made on a bridge at the Nursery Road exit.

There were signs clearly posted for any literate, discerning motorist to read. On this particular Saturday morning, the BWP would be shut down at the Nursery Road exit. The sign also urged motorists to get off the BWP at the I-195 exit.

So there I was, returning from the Costco in Anne Arundel County, heading up the BWP to take that I-195 exit. There was a massive backup. I just barely made it off the BWP before I got caught up in it.

Scores of drivers had either failed to read the sign saying the BWP was closed at the Nursery Road exit, or had ignored it completely.

This happened within the past week. The Giant supermarket on Route 40 and Rolling Road has a parking lot with arrows designating the aisles as one way. That is done, I suspect, to prevent cars from driving in opposite directions down the same aisle and creating confusion and backups.

On this particular day, several drivers decided that they’d ignore the arrows completely, creating the backups and confusion that drawing the arrows was supposed to prevent.

As I left the parking lot, driving the right way in one lane, a car made a right turn into the lane and headed straight for me. When I gestured to the moron driving the car that the aisle was one way going in my direction, she rolled her eyes at me, as if I were the bad guy.

Our Lead Foot Legislature wants the morons and the members of the insane clown posse speeding even more than they are on our highways. That puts responsible drivers even more at risk.

Far more at risk than of our being gunned down with an assault rifle.

The death of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old honor student at King College Prep High School on Chicago’s South Side is finally receiving the national attention that it deserves. An honor student and majorette in her school’s marching band, Hadiya had recently participated in President Obama’s inaugural parade in the nation’s capital.

After leaving school on January 29, 2013, Hadiya was shot and killed in a park after she and friends sought shelter under a canopy when it began raining. She was killed about a mile from Obama’s Chicago home. Hadiya’s father, Nathaniel Pendleton, summed up his loss this way: “They took the light of my life…She was destined for great things and you stripped that from her.”

First Lady Michelle Obama, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett attended Hadiya’s funeral on Saturday. Her mother, Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton, was a guest of the Obamas at Tuesday’s State of the Union address. The president is scheduled to visit Chicago on Friday where he will deliver a major address on gun violence that is certain to contain a mention of Hadiya. It’s fitting that Obama return to his adopted hometown to make his case against deadly violence.

According to statistics analyzed by the Chicago Reporter, more young people are killed in Chicago than any other city in the nation. More than 530 people under age 21 have been killed since 2008— most of them in black and brown neighborhoods— while hundreds of others have been injured. According to the newspaper, nearly 80 percent of youth homicides occur in 22 black or Latino neighborhoods on the city’s South, Southwest and West sides, even though those communities represent only one-third of Chicago’s population.

Young people are not only the victims of gun violence— they are usually the ones who pull the trigger

“From 2008 through 2012, nearly half of Chicago’s 2,389 homicide victims were killed before their 25th birthday. In 2011, the most recent year for which the data were available, more than 56 percent of individuals who committed murder were also under 25. One-third of Chicago residents are under 25, according to 2011 Census estimates,” the Chicago Reporter states. “And despite various police strategies and community efforts, things are getting worse. Last year, 243 people under 25 were killed in Chicago. That’s an 11 percent increase over 2011 and a 26 percent jump from 2010.”

Chicago homicides are not limited to the youth.

The Reporter also noted, “In 2012, not only did Chicago lead the nation in homicides, it witnessed nearly 100 more murders than New York City, even though the Big Apple has three times as many residents. And Chicago witnessed 215 more murders than Los Angeles—  home to more than a million more people.”

Because of highly publicized mass murders— including shooting deaths at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn.; a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado; Fort Hood, Texas and Virginia Tech— much of the gun debate has centered on reducing or eliminating access to assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

While those are laudable goals, some police chiefs have pointed out that handguns kill far more people than assault weapons.

In its latest report titled, “Black Homicide Victimization in the United States: An Analysis of 2010 Homicide Data,” the Violence Policy Center reported: “For homicides in which the weapon used could be identified, 83 percent of black victims (5,073 out of 6,149) were shot and killed with guns. Of these, 72 percent (3,658 victims) were killed with handguns. There were 617 victims killed with knives or other cutting instruments, 219 victims killed by bodily force, and 162 victims killed by a blunt object.”

Overall, blacks are more than six times more likely to be homicide victims than whites.

Citing FBI crime reports, the Violence Policy Center observed, “…In 2010 there were 6,469 black homicide victims in the United States. The homicide rate among black victims in the United States was 16.32 per 100,000. For that year, the overall national homicide rate was 4.42 per 100,000. For whites, the national homicide rate was 2.66 per 100,000.”

In addition to the need to address handgun violence, President Obama, Congress and law enforcement officials should acknowledge that violence is a serious problem and more often than not, the victim knew or had a relationship with the person who killed them.

“For homicides in which the victim to offender relationship could be identified, 70 percent of black victims (2,146 out of 3,058) were murdered by someone they knew. Nine hundred twelve victims were killed by strangers,” the Violence Policy Center report stated.

If this country is serious about curbing murders, it must focus on tragic deaths, such as the murder of Hadiya Pendleton and 20 young kids in Newtown, Conn. But it must also deal with handguns and the murder of people who have or have had a relationship with their killer. Otherwise, all the tough talk on reducing violence is empty rhetoric.

George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine, is editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service (NNPA.)  Curry can be reached through his website: www.georgecurry.com.

The environmentalist movement has come full circle. Earth Day, which began as a college-based protest activity is now seeking to create green environments for grade school students.

April 15, 2013, marks the 43rd anniversary of Earth Day. Senator Gaylord Nelson, an environmental and conservation activist from the state of Wisconsin played a leading role in organizing the first Earth Day held on April 22, 1970. Over 20 million American participated. This year 1 billion people from over 175 countries are expected to be a part of the world’s largest civic observation.

Following a series of environmental disasters Sen. Nelson conceived of the event as way to muster popular demand for policies to protect the earth’s natural resources. “I am convinced we need to bring an overwhelming insistence of the new generation that we stem the tide of environmental disaster is to present them the facts clearly and dramatically.”

“To marshal such an effort,” said Nelson, “I am proposing a national teach-in on the crisis of the environment to be held next spring on every university campus across the Nation. The crisis is so imminent, in my opinion every university should set aside one day in the school year-the same day across the Nation-for the teach-in.”

Sen. Nelson’s idea worked. Earth Day is widely credited with launching a modern environmental revolution known as the Green Movement, which sparked the passage of the landmark, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act and many other groundbreaking environmental laws.

Now the movement is focusing increased attention on creating green environments for our schools. The Earth Day Network (EDN) was formed to promote green economic policies at home and abroad “to inform and energize populations so they will act to secure a healthy future for themselves and their children.

The organization believes Green schools are, “the most effective agents for enacting  positive environmental and educational change in schools and communities. School greening is quickly becoming more than a trend; rather, it is now the method of choice for providing healthy, comfortable and productive learning environments while saving

energy, resources and money.”

With research gathered from state and federal agencies the EDN reports the following health and academic benefits of Green schools:

•Test scores and learning ability improves on average three to five percent— equating to an annual earning increase of $532 per student

•Students with the most daylight progress 20 percent faster on math and 26 percent on reading tests

•Asthma incidence decreases by 25 percent

•Teacher Retention increases by an average of three percent

•Teachers experience a seven percent decrease in sick days

•Seventy-five percent of senior executives believe green schools improve a school’s ability to attract and retain teachers

“A green school improves the health and energy-efficiency of the school facility, ensures science-based environmental and civic education in the classroom, implements healthy food choices into the cafeteria, promotes alternative means of transportation, and expands recreational choices and opportunities for all students.

The benefits of green schools are now well established and range from significant reductions in greenhouse gases to impressive energy cost savings, improved student test scores and higher teacher and student retention, as well as very impressive improvements in children’s health.

Studies have demonstrated that green schools greatly reduce student sick days, significantly improve the health of students with diabetes, asthma and other respiratory illnesses, reduce social inequity, enhance student motivation in both the short and long term, and provide an educationally rich setting.

Despite what many people think, green schools cost on average, less than two percent  more to build than a traditional school, yet the payback often occurs within only a few years due to the energy savings alone. A green school typically utilizes 33 percent less energy and 32 percent less water— enough savings to hire two additional full-time teachers.

Ultimately greening America’s schools presents an extraordinary cost-effective opportunity to improve the health and educational settings for all students, increasing school equality and academic parity while reducing long-term health and operational costs.”

Jayne Matthews Hopson, an education writer and the mother of a college-aged son who believes education matters because “only the educated are free.” To contact Jayne Matthews, email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to Jayne’s attention.    

 Hey, it looks like I’m only going to have “Super Bowl musings” about the Baltimore Ravens every 12 seasons, so here goes.

1. When did I realize that the Ravens had a shot at winning the Super Bowl?

I’ll ‘fess up right now: I was down on this team much of the year. They were in too many close games against teams that weren’t that good. There were times when the defense seemed downright porous. However, fourth and 29 convinced me that the Ravens had a shot.

Remember that game against the San Diego Chargers when the Ravens were down three late in the game and faced a fourth down with 29 yards to go deep in their own territory?

That’s when Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco tossed a short pass to running back Ray Rice, who then weaved and swerved his way through the Chargers defense for a first down.

The Ravens went on to tie the game and then win it in overtime. Mind you, earlier in the same game, they ran for a first down of fourth and inches but didn’t make it.

What kind of team, I asked, can’t make a fourth and inches but converts a fourth down and 29 yards?

That’s when it occurred to me: I had no idea what the Ravens were going to do next. That’s because the RAVENS had no idea what the Ravens were going to do next. And if they didn’t know, then how would their opponents know?

So it was fourth and 29 that convinced me the Ravens might go to the Super Bowl. When Flacco heaved a 70-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Jacoby Jones in the playoff game against the Denver Broncos that tied the score, that’s when I KNEW the Ravens were Super Bowl bound.

The Ravens won that game in overtime, and then beat the New England Patriots the following week.

2. Did the Ravens have Ali magic working for them?

I didn’t know it until recently, but former world heavyweight champ Muhammad Ali is a Ravens fan. Recently there were rumors circulating that Ali was near death, rumors that Ali’s daughter May May put to rest.

The champ wasn’t near death, she said. He was at his Arizona home wearing his Ravens jersey, watching the Super Bowl.

Did some of Ali’s magic rub off on the Ravens? This is the guy renowned for pulling off two of the greatest upsets in boxing history, indeed in the entire world of sports.

On February 25, 1964, Ali stunned and “shook up the world” when he beat Sonny Liston and relieved him of the heavyweight title.

Ten years later— after Ali had been exiled from boxing for three years, after he had suffered defeats against the late, great champ Joe Frazier and Ken Norton— Ali faced then-heavyweight champ George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire. Foreman had demolished both Frazier and Norton, and many felt he would do the same to Ali.

The only one not getting that memo was Ali, who smacked Foreman around for seven rounds before knocking him out in the eighth.

The Ravens pulled off two stunning upsets of the Broncos and the Patriots, then somehow held on to win the Super Bowl against the San Francisco 49ers, much as Ali had held on to win against a rallying Frazier in the Thrilla in Manila.

3. The Ravens only had to hold on because after they went up 28-6, half the lights in the New Orleans Superdome went out. Coincidence? I think not.

Hey, everybody’s entitled to at least one nutty conspiracy theory in his or her life, and here’s mine: National Football League honchos were the ones responsible for the power outage.

There have been 46 previous Super Bowls; none had a power outage. That NFL brass detests Baltimore is no secret. My theory is that they were the ones that pulled the plug on the power to stop the Ravens momentum and hope that it switched to the 49ers.

Yes, I realize that this is just some cockamamie conspiracy theory, but I still want to know where NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was when the lights went out!

One hundred and fifty years ago, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. It was a flawed document that freed enslaved people in Confederate areas that he did not control. At the same time, it was a progressive document because it initiated discussion about the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteen “FREEDOM” Amendments.

One hundred years later, in 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. riveted the nation with his “I Have A Dream” speech during the August 28 March on Washington. Many will remember that he said, “I have a dream that one day people will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Somehow people forget that in the same speech he said, “We have come to the nation’s capital to cash a check that has been marked insufficient funds.” If people said “cash the check” as often as they said “I have a dream,” we’d move more quickly forward in closing the economic gaps that African Americans experience.

We’ve been doing this 50-year thing for the past couple years, and we’ll be doing it for another few. The “Greensboro Four” North Carolina A&T State University Students (with the help of Bennett College students, often ignored) sat in at Woolworth counters on February 1, 1960, more than 50 years ago.

The March on Washington happened 50 years ago. The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, and beyond that the 1960s will resonate for the next few years with commemorations and anniversaries.

These celebrations are important historical moments, but who remembers? The median age of the population in the United States is about 37 years old. Many of these folks remember the civil rights moment through twice and thrice told tales. Those who are under the median age see the civil rights movement as something like a fable, something they have heard about but doesn’t really matter to them. Many of these young people see themselves as “post-racial.” They hang out with their peers, race notwithstanding. They have never experienced discrimination. Even when they experience it, they are slow to realize it. They are post-racial, whatever that means.

There has been a rich history and legacy of struggle and protest that has been swallowed by the notion of post-racialism in the first decades of this century. It is laudable that President Obama used both a Bible of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and that of President Abraham Lincoln, connecting the 150-year-old dots. President Obama’s choice in using both Bibles in this anniversary year is a testament to his sensitivity and ability to juggle the tightrope he must manage as both president of the United States and the first African American President of our nation.

Most folks 50 and older get it. What about those who are both younger than our nation’s median age and unschooled in the nuances of history? Is our conversation about race in America stuck in some kind of time warp, where we are unable to speak across the   generations because we have extremely different memories, recollections and knowledge about what happened 50 years ago?

We do our nation a disservice when we duck and dodge our racially tinged history. We have to grace and embrace the past in order to move forward with our future.

Somehow this is a message that needs to be transmitted to young people, especially in this 150th year after emancipation, this 50th year after the March on Washington, this season of embracing and celebrating our history.

Julianne Malveaux is a Washington, D.C.-based economist and writer. She is President Emerita of Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, N.C.

“Much of the concern about cell phones and instant messaging and Twitter has been focused on how children who incessantly use the technology are affected by it, writes Julie Scelfo. “But parents’ use of such technology— and its effect on their offspring— is now becoming an equal source of concern to some child-development researchers.”

New York Times lifestyle writer Julie Scelfo shares some insights and findings in a thought provoking article on the emotional and academic consequences of our society’s widespread use of personal communication devices and social media tools. Here is an excerpt from her article. 

Sherry Turkle, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Initiative on Technology and Self, has been studying how parental use of technology affects children and young adults. After five years and 300 interviews, she has found that feelings of hurt, jealousy and competition are widespread.

In her studies, Dr. Turkle said, “Over and over, kids raised the same three examples of feeling hurt and not wanting to show it when their mom or dad would be on their devices instead of paying attention to them: at meals, during pickup after either school or an extracurricular activity, and during sports events.

Dr. Turkle said that she recognizes the pressure adults feel to make themselves constantly available for work, but added that she believes there is a greater force compelling them to keep checking the screen.

“There’s something that’s so engrossing about the kind of interactions people do with screens that they wall out the world,” she said. “I’ve talked to children who try to get their parents to stop texting while driving and they get resistance, ‘Oh, just one, just one more quick one, honey.’ It’s like ‘one more drink.’ ”

Not all child-development experts think smart phone and laptop use by parents is necessarily a bad thing, of course. Parents have always had to divide their attention, and researchers point out that there’s a difference between quantity and quality when it comes to conversations between parents and children.

“It sort of comes back to quality time, and distracted time is not high-quality time, whether parents are checking the newspaper or their BlackBerry,” said Frederick J. Zimmerman, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Public Health who has studied how television can distract parents.

He also noted that smart phones and laptops may enable some parents to spend more time at home, which may, in turn, result in more, rather than less, quality time overall.

There is little research on how parents’ constant use of such technology affects children, but experts say there is no question that engaged parenting— talking and explaining things to children, and responding to their questions— remains the bedrock of early childhood learning.

Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley’s landmark 1995 book, “Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children,” shows that parents who supply a language-rich environment for their children help them develop a wide vocabulary, and that helps them learn to read.

The book connects language use at home with socioeconomic status. According to its findings, children in higher socioeconomic homes hear an average of 2,153 words an hour, whereas those in working-class households hear only about 1,251; children in the study whose parents were on welfare heard an average of 616 words an hour.

Dr. Hart, who is now professor emeritus at the University of Kansas Life Span Institute, said that more research is needed to find out whether the constant use of smart phones and other technology is interfering with parent-child communications. But she expressed hope that more parents would consider how their use of electronic devices might be limiting their ability to meet their children’s needs.

Jayne Matthews Hopson, an education writer and the mother of a college aged son works believes education matters because “only the educated are free.”