4 min listen
S1 E2: Power to the People
FromSchool Colors
ratings:
Length:
54 minutes
Released:
Sep 27, 2019
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
In the late 1960s, the Central Brooklyn neighborhood of Ocean Hill-Brownsville was at the center of a bold experiment in community control of public schools. But as Black and Puerto Rican parents in Ocean Hill-Brownsville tried to exercise power over their schools, they collided headfirst with the teachers’ union — leading to the longest teachers’ strike in American history, 51 years ago this fall.What started as a local pilot project turned into one of the most divisive racial confrontations ever witnessed in New York City. Ocean Hill-Brownsville made the national news for months, shattered political coalitions and created new ones, and fundamentally shaped the city we live in today.But as the strike shut down schools citywide, Ocean Hill-Brownsville mobilized to keep their schools open — and prove to the world that Black people could educate their own children and run their own institutions successfully. In the process, they inspired a particular brand of defiant, independent, and intensely proud Black activism that would define political life in Central Brooklyn for generations.CREDITSProducers / Hosts: Mark Winston Griffith and Max FreedmanEditing & Sound Design: Elyse BlennerhassettMusic: avery r. young, Chris Zabriskie, Blue Dot SessionsFeatured in this episode: Monifa Edwards, Jay Eskin, Sufia De Silva, Father John Powis, Dolores Torres, John Lindsay, Al Shanker, Steve Brier, Rev. C. Herbert Oliver, Rhody McCoy, Sandra Feldman, Fred Nauman, Cleaster Cotton, Leslie Campbell, Charlie Isaacs, Rafiq Kalam Id-Din, Paul Chandler.
Released:
Sep 27, 2019
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (25)
Trailer: Bedford-Stuyvesant is one of the most iconic historically Black neighborhoods in the United States. Community School District 16 covers about half of Bed-Stuy. And almost every school in District 16 is hemorrhaging kids. Something is wrong. But today’s crisis is just the latest chapter in a story that goes back 200 years. Black people have been fighting for self-determination through their schools for as long as there have been Black children here in Central Brooklyn. This is School Colors: a new podcast from Brooklyn Deep about how race, class, and power shape American cities and schools. by School Colors