Part of the problem or part of the solution? Harlem's public schools, 1914--1954
Item
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Title
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Part of the problem or part of the solution? Harlem's public schools, 1914--1954
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:a65c368d599d:11029
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identifier
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11274
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Creator
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Harbison, Thomas F.,
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Contributor
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Thomas Kessner
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Date
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2011
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Education history | Black history | Civil rights | Great Migration | Harlem | New York City | Public Education | Schools
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Abstract
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This dissertation examines how school administrators, teachers, parents, and local activists attempted to improve public schools in Central Harlem between World War I and the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. It reveals that animosity and distrust between parents, teachers, and the school administration, which peaked in New York City during the 1960s with mass boycotts and teacher strikes, had been growing for decades.;During the 1920s, as the Great Migration filled Harlem schools with working-class African Americans from the South, New York City school administrators identified a need for an expanded school program to meet the needs of their students. This included the application of a host of Progressive Era initiatives, including health services, vocational training, and character education. At first, parents and concerned community members tacitly supported this approach.;Yet, by the 1930s, parents and local civil rights activists---including some teachers---diverged from administrators in their understanding of the problems facing African American students. They accused the administration of racial discrimination based on stark inequalities in school conditions exposed by a series of incidents and investigative studies. Organizing in various ad-hoc parent-community groups, these women and men blamed the system's special treatment of black students for exacerbating rather than correcting inequality. Community-school relations further eroded when school administrators dealt with the second wave of the Great Migration beginning during World War II in a manner strikingly similar to the first. By 1954, the administration had established a pattern of adding extra programs to Harlem schools, while doing little to address community concerns about segregation and school inequality.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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History
