Haitian Creole and Education in the US: An Annotated Bibliography

 1. Joseph, C. M. “Haitians in the U.S.: Language, Politics and Education.” In A. Spears & C. Joseph (Eds,) The Haitian Creole Language: History, Structure, Use and Education (pp. 229-248). Lexington Books. 

Carole M. Berotte Joseph’s chapter provides an overview on the role of Haitian Creole in the context of Haitian immigration to the US. According to Joseph, Haitian Creole remains largely an oral language among Haitians in the US. French retains its prestige among immigrants, however. Historically, in the case of monolingual Haitian Creole speakers, it was a struggle for teachers to realize Haitians speak Creole, not French. Indeed, an ongoing stigma attached to Creole and the paucity of instructional materials and Creole-speaking instructors has led to Haitian bilingual programs often being of poor quality. Another obstacle faced by Haitian Creole-speaking students was their classification as simply African-American, which carried assumptions of English-speaking backgrounds. This, unfortunately, led to many Haitian students not receiving the language support they need. Furthermore, fewer bilingual programs in Creole are now available in New York City, Boston or Miami. Ultimately, Joseph’s chapter attests to the unequal status of Creole in both Haiti and the US, where many Creole-speaking students either did not or do not receive ESL services. Lamentably, this contributes to limitations on developing full fluency or literacy in Creole. 

2. Zéphir, F. (1997).  “Haitian Creole Language and Bilingual Education in the United States.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development (Vol. 18, Issue 3), 223-237. 

Flore Zephir, “Haitian Creole Language and Bilingual Education in the United States”

Zephir’s article passionately argues in favor of first language instruction for Haitian students. Citing 1992 research, the author claims Haitian students were the third largest minority group in NYC public schools (Zephir, 1997). Moreover, the school system was guilty of a failure to recognize the linguistic and cultural diversity of Black populations in the US. Haitian students were seen as Blacks and not placed in programs that would have helped by using the Creole language. In fact, Haitians face triple discrimination as Blacks, for coming from the Global South, and for speaking Creole, which is often not seen as a legitimate language (Zephir, 1997). In order to address the issue, Zephir argues that schools must stop assuming Haitian students are African-Americans, Creole must be accepted as a fully legitimate language, and children should receive home language instruction. According to research, the use of the students’ L1 in instruction can lower the affective filter, so that learning can occur. More comprehensible input would be available for students by having teachers with knowledge of the culture and sociolinguistic reality of Creole-speaking students. Thus, according to this author, Haitian Creole speakers continue to face linguistic discrimination that partly mirrors the lower status of Creole in Haiti. Similarly, the loss of the students’ L1 is inferred due to the lack of home language instruction, implying most students probably never develop full literacy in Creole.

3. Cenat, M.L (2011). “Myths and Realities: A History of Haitian Creole Language Programs in New York City.” Journal of Haitian Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 73-91

Cenat’s research interprets the history of Haitian Creole programs in New York City. Beginning with the controversial Bernard Reform of 1979 in Haiti and the struggles of Haitian Creole to gain full inclusion, Cenat then summarizes the debate on Creole genesis (Cenat, 2011). Due to the debate on the relexification hypothesis and the “exceptional” status of Creole languages, some view the tongue as incapable of being a significant instructional tool. This background is relevant for understanding the early struggles of Haitian students in New York. Initially, schools used French with Haitians in their language policies. Later, in the 1980s and 1990s, Haitian Creole increasingly won support through the organizing efforts of activists, teachers, organizations, and academics, like linguist Yves Dejean (Cenat 2011). This led, in 1981, to the Haitian Parent-Teacher Training Project, which worked with Limited English Proficient Haitian students by preparing Haitian educators and engaging in outreach to Haitian parents. Later, in 1993, the Haitian Bilingual Educational Technical Assistance Center (HABETAC) was founded at the City College of New York. Unlike the Haitian Parent-Teacher Training Project, HABETAC supported schools serving Limited English Proficient Haitian students, often targeting Haitian teachers. A number of public schools in the city even offered bilingual programs, although many Haitians believed Haitian students were still not receiving enough programs to accommodate them. This led to a class action lawsuit in 1996, filed against the Board of Education and the New York State Education Department. While the lawsuit was eventually stalled, many Haitian Creole bilingual programs began to disappear by the end of the 1990s. According to Cenat, today only 3 NYC public schools have bilingual Haitian Creole programs. This decline in the number of bilingual programs is accompanied by a restructuring of high schools that has led to several lacking enough Haitian students for a bilingual program. Then, the closure of HABETAC further contributed to the decline of bilingual education for Haitians. Haitian families were now left without a center. Meanwhile, the support for the language rights of Haitian students was revitalized by grassroots groups like Flanbwayan, Kongo and Gran Chimen Sant Kiltirel. The article’s history of Haitian Creole programs illustrates how Haitian Creole continues to face exclusion, discrimination and marginalization in education. The Haitian language occupies a position vis-a-vis English that, once again, mirrors its position with regard to French. Language loss, on the other hand, or at least the failure to develop full literacy, is likely to occur since there is not adequate support for instruction in Creole. 

4.Buxton, C.A., Lee, O., Mahotiere, M. (2008). “The Role of Language in Academic and Social Transition of Haitian Children and Their Parents to Urban U.S. Schools.” Bilingual Research Journal, 31: 47-74.

Buxton, Lee and Mahotiere use interviews with Haitian educators, parents, and students to comprehend the role of language in the academic and social transition of Haitians to urban schools in the US. Relying on the theoretical constructs of linguistic identity and actor networks, the authors find 3 themes: an affinity for multiple languages, a wish to be multicultural, and a responsibility to help others in their community (Buxton, Lee & Mahotiere, 2008). Drawing on the earlier scholarship and the sociocultural roles of language, the authors claim Haitians understand how language can be used to represent power or the lack thereof. In addition, the low status of Creole in Haiti has shaped how some Haitian parents perceive Creole in their children’s US schooling. Since, in Haiti, these parents likely attended schools in which instruction was entirely in French, they may not seek Creole language support for their children. The authors argue that linguistic identity is central to knowing how individuals balance their integration in US cultural and linguistic forms with the maintenance of their home languages and cultural practices. Significantly, the authors found that all 3 groups (Haitian parents, educators and students) expressed a desire to maintain Haitian Creole and to improve fluency and literacy. The teachers, too, support the L1 of their students. Nonetheless, the majority of the parents and teachers plus many of the interviewed students also claimed to regularly use French and wished to maintain the French language. This suggests French retains its prestige status among Haitians in the US, with one parent expressing that French is important for their child to be able to communicate with relatives in France. One parent, however, saw French as a barrier to education in Haitian schools while Haitian children now contend with the challenge of English in their US schools. Moreover, Haitian parents, teachers and students all expressed a strong belief in the maintenance of Haitian culture, traditions, behaviors and languages whilst simultaneously embracing the multicultural world of South Florida. Creole is even used by the teachers when not necessary in the classroom to strengthen bonds between teacher and students. Last, the sense of responsibility to aid other Haitians entails the maintenance of bilingualism. Consequently, according to this article, Haitian students, parents, and teachers are dedicated to the maintenance of Creole for supporting their community, identity, and participating in a multicultural society. The legacy of French as a prestige language associated with power, has also shaped the linguistic identity of Haitians, since the majority believe it is important to maintain and develop it.

5. Barrière, I., Monreau-Merry, M.M (2012).  “Trilingualism of the Haitian Diaspora in NYC: Current and future challenges.” In O. Garcia, Z. Zakharia & b. Otcu (2012) Bilingual Community Education for American Children: Beyond Heritage Languages in a Global City (pp. 247-258). Multilingual Matters.

Analyzing the trilingualism of the Haitian Diaspora in NYC, the authors describe how English, French and Creole coexist in an unequal manner. Drawing on the history of Haitian Creole and the role of French as the prestige language, the authors contrast its favor with that of Creole. Indeed, Creole, which lacked an official orthography until the 1980s, was not recognized as an official language until 1987 (Barrière & Monreau-Merry, 2012). Haitian immigrant students in the US also continue to suffer from misperceptions of their language. According to the authors, Haitians are still assumed to be Francophones. Due to additional problems such as the lack of Haitian school records and the few Haitian Creole-speaking staff in schools, many students are still placed in the wrong classes. Furthermore, the children of Haitian migrants who reside in poor neighborhoods have become multilingual and multidialectal, acquiring African American Vernacular English as well as West Indian English. This linguistic and dialectal diversity has shaped second-generation Haitian immigrants, who either identify as Black American, Haitian or as immigrants. Another development is the prominence of Haitian students in the French programs in NYC launched since the French Embassy’s 2007 ‘French Goes Public’ initiative. According to the researchers, Haitian students comprise 29% of the study body in these French programs (Barrière & Monreau-Merry, 2012). Learning Creole, on the other hand, is less successful. Indeed, the initiatives taken after the 2010 earthquake and the centers or universities offering classes may not be enough to ensure second and third generation Haitians retain the language. Nonetheless, French appears to receive more support than Haitian Creole in both Haiti and New York, thereby demonstrating another example of the ways in which Creole’s lower prestige in both Haiti and the US continues to shape language policies of schools and districts. The absence of first language instruction may even threaten the language’s persistence for subsequent generations.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the aforementioned sources indicate that Haitian Creole instruction and bilingual programs in the US still experience the effects of the colonial French legacy and unequal status and stigma in the US. While there have been some notable attempts to create bilingual programs and support Haitian students with home-language instruction and ESL services, many are not receiving the services they need. In addition, the stigma attached to Creole in Haiti and the US has meant that some Haitian students will not develop full literacy in their L1. Haitian grassroots organizations and academics, based in the US and Haiti, however, have been pushing for more instruction in Creole since teaching in the first language is demonstrated by research to be most effective. Haitian Creole maintenance, in other ways, seems partly guaranteed by the Haitian population in areas like South Florida defining their culture as partly based in Creole. The global Haitian diaspora may also be suggestive of another reason for the maintenance of Creole due to the need for Haitian families dispersed across multiple countries to communicate. This may be relevant for the analysis of language maintenance across generations for other nationalities or ethnic groups with widespread diasporic communities.

Les marrons du syllabaire

Jean Fouchard's work can be quite frustrating. Sometimes he promises more than he delivers, relies on faulty assumptions or limited sources or his loquacious writing style can become a chore to read. Thinking this case would be different, we read his Les marrons du syllabaire: quelques aspects du problème de l'instruction et de l'éducation des esclaves et affranchis de Saint-Domingue. Too short and consisting of somewhat meandering, brief chapters, the historian endeavored to portray the struggle of our ancestors to attain literacy and education in the hellish slave society known as Saint Domingue. As one probably suspects, the French colonial system was based upon the exploitation of blacks as chattel slaves. Preventing them from challenging that order meant restrictions on the ability of free and enslaved people of color, including prohibitions aimed to restrict literacy and education to whites. Nonetheless, our ancestors, against all odds, did learn how to read and, in some cases, acquire a more than rudimentary education. Since Fouchard wrote this work around the time of the 150th anniversary of Haitian independence, he seeks to celebrate this achievement of our forebears while also, perhaps falsely or inaccurately, portraying free people of color and slaves as always united against the colonial order.

Unfortunately, most of this short book does not really address or explain how slaves and free people of color learned to read. Some likely achieved it through clandestine meetings and schools that have not left behind in terms of sources. Others may have learned the rudiments of reading and writing from priests and "kind" masters. A fortunate few, especially those sent to France for education, received the best education available in those times. The most interesting group of literate blacks, however, were those who already knew how to read and write before leaving Africa. This group, the Islamized or Muslim West Africans, included those who could read and write in Arabic and use Arabic to write local languages. Of this group, Fouchard mentions the case of the familiar Tamerlan plus references to Bornoans in Saint Domingue, interviewed by Descourtilz. Not mentioned, sadly, are the Kongo natives and other Africans who sometimes could read and write in Portuguese. Nonetheless, Fouchard was able to hear direct testimony from poet Roussan Camille that his great-grandfather was literate in Arabic. Indeed, his ancestor left an Arabic engraving in Jacmel that, sadly, has not survived. Still, Camille's testimony is an interesting example of how Haitians with African Muslim ancestors were aware of this past, even though the knowledge was lost. One wonders if Camille's ancestor was a "Mandingue" or perhaps Hausa?

Despite its flaws, Fouchard's study truly does warrant a modern, thorough study of the topic. The question of African Muslims in Saint Domingue and possible legacies in 19th century Haiti has not received a proper analysis. The question of education and literacy among free people of color is also interesting. Indeed, one of our ancestor's had a godfather who was able to read and write. Were literate free people of color in 18th century Bainet and Jacmel simply the products of clandestine "schools" or networks? Were they learning to read and write (or at least sign their names) from other free people of color who taught them informally? And what was, truly, the role of education in the vision of Toussaint Louverture and the Saint Dominguan revolutionaries during the Haitian Revolution? Was Romaine la Prophetesse, who appears to have been literate, able to use this to promote his alleged connection with the Virgin Mary?

The N-Word

"Can you lend a nigga a pencil?"

One of the finest moments in The Boondocks is watchable here. Though the "N-word" is just a 'word,' words have power that varies with who uses them. I still detest white usage of the word, but hey, white folks will think we're niggas regardless of saying it out loud. I just wish more folks got angrier about other obvious or visible signs of racial inequities rather than symbolic or verbal forms of racial discrimination.  

White Faces in Majority Black Public Schools?

One topic I have not encountered much academic literature on is the experiences of white students in majority black, 'inner-city' schools. I have met a handful of such people (their rarity is proof of how extensive racial segregation is in the US), and they were a mixed bag in their political orientation and class identity, though most came from lower class backgrounds or working-class roots. Some were Jewish secular leftists, or their descendants, who remained in neighborhoods that 'became' black in the Age of White Flight. Others were working-class whites who were "ethnic" at one point, and remained in the city limits and sent their children to inner-city schools. Others I have encountered are from poor families and rough circumstances, but seem to get by or have gotten through inner-city, often under-performing schools.

What I would love to see in some academic analysis is a discussion of how white students in these types of schools experience race, when do they develop a 'racialized' identity as white, and how their perceptions of black children (and blacks in general) are influenced by their deep and extensive firsthand interactions with predominantly people of color. In addition, I would have to gather some demographic and class data pertaining to how white students experience a gendered form of whiteness in "majority-minority" schools. Perhaps I'll start by questioning some white folks I know, though the ideal candidates would be people who are currently having that experience or recent graduates. Although I know some older whites who could be useful, too, though back in the 1970s the inner-city schools in the two large Midwestern cities I am accustomed to were very different.

Haiti in the Last Years Under Boyer

It's refreshing to read John Candler's account of Haiti in the early 1840s. Unlike Brown and Franklin, with their white supremacist outlook and seemingly pro-slavery stance, ( by the way, Candler's Brief Notices of Hayti can be accessed here), Candler, a Quaker abolitionist who visits Haiti with his wife, offers an optimistic and positive view of the situation on the island. The following are some areas where Candler offers some important commentary or enlightening facts and figures on Haiti in the last years under Boyer.

The "aristocracy of the skin" lived on under independent Haitian governments. For instance, in certain areas of the country, such as Port-au-Prince, mulattoes nearly monopolized the under-funded schools of the city. Candler also describes a Haitian mulattress who speaks ill of blacks and wishes there was a way to compel them to labor. Overall, Candler does not describe too much colorism in Boyer's Haiti (while Jonathan Brown asserts that Boyer's regime did everything it could to prevent an ascendancy of blacks in the government), but it's clear that mulattoes were disproportionately powerful in the regime. On the question of social relations between blacks and mulattoes, there is mention of most mulatto women never marrying black men, since producing children with darker skin than themselves is not generally seen as a positive thing. Yet, while in Jacmel, Candler met a mulatto widow whose husband was a black man, so black-mulatto marriages were far from unheard of. On the other hand, whites still enjoyed special privileges in Haiti. Indeed, despite prohibitions on whites owning property in Haiti and citizenship rights, a white American became the mayor of the town of St. Marc!

On the question of the economy, Candler is more optimistic than most. Haiti, based on exports to the US, was the third largest exporter to the US economy at the time, and tobacco production, coffee, and mahogany/wood were the most important exports.  In defense of independent Haiti, we see that coffee production only went down by perhaps 12 million from its zenith in Saint Domingue, an example of Haitian economic success without slave labor. Based on his relationship with prominent Haitians in the government, such as Inginac, Candler was given official government documents and uses those to arrive at estimates for government revenues over the years. Based on Haiti's small population and the amount or value of exports, Candler comes to the conclusion that the reality of Haitian exports and commerce are actually quite impressive. On the question of Haitian peasants, he is more mixed than most, defending their liberty and autonomy more so than others, yet blaming heathenism, ignorance, the lack of education, and superstition (some of which is encouraged by Catholic priests, according to this Quaker writer) for languishing agriculture:

 

Candler is quite disturbed by public nudity of children, the absence of proper medical coverage and religious or moral instruction, and clearly is too focused on the export-oriented model of economic development. However, as a product of his time and eager to see a future of profitable but non-slave British colonies in the Caribbean, individuals such as Candler saw Haiti as an experiment on the possibility of free black labor in the hemisphere. Perhaps this may come into play in his seemingly admirable words on the relatively equal manners or relations between landholders and their workers in Haiti, proving that less hierarchical or unequal power relations in agriculture could still be workable or profitable. Therefore, profitable plantations and small estates tied with an export economy remained essential for proving the beneficial future of non-slave societies in the British West Indies. The following selection from Candler's text is quite illustrative of the profitability of Haiti and the importance of its exports to the United States:

The over-sized military budget and Boyer's agreement to compensate former French planters of Saint-Domingue were a great burden on the Haitian economy, however. The standing army was reduced to about 25,000 in 1840, but it was a constant drain on the budget. Candler urges for a further reduction of the military, since those men's labor could be used in agriculture or industry and therefore remove additional financial burdens on the state (and needless to say, the average Haitian soldier was not well-paid!). Out of a perhaps total population on the island of 850,000 (overwhelmingly on the western side), Candler estimates that nearly 1 out of 15 people were in some shape or form engaged or called up to be engaged in the military or guard of Haiti. 

In addition to problems with the military, Candler does not hesitate to criticize the weakness and incompetence of the courts, the military fueling petty crime and theft, and during an interview with Boyer, who emphasizes the youth of the Haitian nation, is defensive of the progress made in Haiti. Since he did not visit the Spanish-speaking provinces, Candler offers little commentary, but he does speak highly of the increased tobacco production and exports from the area around Santiago and of population increase in that part of the island. Thus, Candler's account of Haiti in 1841 is one that, though largely silent on the Spanish side, does reveal some admiration and appreciation of Haitian progress and abolition. As a Protestant, he is not too positive on Catholics, since some Catholic officials perpetuate superstition among the peasants or overcharge for services such as baptisms, and of course one would not expect Candler to be fond of Vodou. Yet, compared to Jonathan Brown, his account of Haiti is not racist and speaks to an optimism that much of the international abolitionist community believed. Indeed, while traveling in parts of Haiti, Candler, who also met two American abolitionists, comments on the hypocrisy of America and Great Britain for their practices of slavery yet proclaiming themselves the freest countries of humanity. 

Interestingly, like many other European and white travelers in Haiti at the time, we see a mulatto-centered history of Haiti emerge. Black leaders such as Dessalines and Christophe are disparaged, insulted, or seen as nothing but tyrants. Fortunately, unlike Mackenzie and others, Candler has a more nuanced version of that period in Haitian history, and speaks highly of the education system established by Christophe in Cap Haitien. Candler basically sees Haiti as an experiment on the moral necessity of abolition and human progress, in accordance with his Quaker sympathies. The Boyer regime must get it together by prioritizing funding for education (especially for girls) and many other things (infrastructure, reforming civil institutions, etc.), but Candler's account gives no prediction of the 1843 revolution. 

New York City School Desegregation and The Civil Rights Movement

           Education was the primary battlefront for civil rights activism in New York City in the 1960s because of the woefully inadequate state of black and Puerto-Rican majority schools. The schools’ obvious inequality with white schools due to de facto segregation, and the immediate negative impact of overcrowded, inferior schools on the lives of minority children and their parents led to a movement across the city rooted in parent activism, which had limited success. The focus on education as the most visible, successful civil rights campaign in the city stems from its pressing, directly negative impact on the lives of children and their parents over decades. Occurring at a time when the city’s white population was declining due to white flight and increasing numbers of blacks and Puerto Ricans, the battle for integrated public schools faced insurmountable obstacles. Busing children from segregated neighborhood schools to low-income black and Latino neighborhoods, for example, was not an attractive proposal to white parents. Neither busing nor constructing schools in intermediary areas between white and non-white neighborhoods was successful or seriously pursued by the Board of Education. Finally, open enrollment did not improve the overcrowded, impoverished educational facilities available for black and Puerto Rican children in ghettoes, such as Bedford-Stuyvesant and Harlem. Education reform could not solve the fundamental problems of racial and economic oppression, which encompassed housing, unemployment, discriminatory policies, and an unfair economic system.

Racial minorities in New York City during the beginning of white flight in the 1950s quickly engaged themselves in the struggle to integrate public schools. Blacks in New York City, due to housing discrimination, poverty, and white flight, found themselves forced into living in already-existing slums in Harlem, or the neighborhoods such as Bedford-Stuyvesant and Brownsville in Brooklyn, which were rapidly losing their white population during the black influx.[1] The worst schools in New York unsurprisingly served these black and Puerto Rican neighborhoods such as Harlem, or areas in transition that would become predominantly black, such as Bedford-Stuyvesant and Brownsville in the 1950s and 1960s. Naturally, resistance to the unequal school system where black and Puerto Rican children were largely excluded from white schools in white neighborhoods and warehoused in overcrowded schools with inferior teachers, developed among parents, especially women active in the parent-teacher organizations.[2] However, both national and local civil rights organizations also spearheaded the movement, with the Brooklyn chapter of the NAACP, at the forefront in the late 1950s.[3]

Under the auspices of the Brown decision of 1954, supporters of school desegregation in the North used the rationale in that case to establish a legal precedent for desegregation. The Brown decision called for an end to segregated schools using the psychological argument of black inferiority instilled in the psyche of black children and the obvious unequal distribution of resources in separate and supposedly equal schools.[4] New York judge Justine Polier’s decision in favor of a group of Harlem parents boycotting the inferior, segregated Harlem school upheld the Brown decision in 1958, ruling in favor of the parents in the case, In the Matter of Charlene Skipwith.[5] The ramifications of the case were immense, since it defended the rights of parent activists to challenge the educational bureaucracy of New York City, a radical step in giving legal legitimacy to the demands of parents. Moreover, this early instance of a boycott against segregated, inferior Harlem schools, beginning with formal complaints issued to the Board in 1957, also established a precedent for city-wide school boycotts in 1964 and 1965, which drew hundreds of thousands of students out of school.[6] As mentioned previously, the parents involved in this early boycott were women, the “Harlem Nine,” who kept their children out of junior high schools, JHS 136 and 139.[7]

Soon groups such as the Brooklyn NAACP chapter, under the presidency of Milton A. Galamison in Bedford-Stuyvesant, demanded the construction of new schools in nearly all-black neighborhoods, in addition to pushing for open enrollment at white schools.[8] As pastor of Siloam Presbyterian Church, one of the largest congregations in the predominantly black neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Galamison had the connections and clout within the community to facilitate the grassroots organizers and parents, especially since the congregation during this period numbered in the thousands.[9]  Working with other New York branches of the NAACP, as chair of the Education Committee of the New York branch, as well as leftist white allies, such as Annie Stein, the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants with a past as a member of the Communist Party, Galamison helped establish the Parents’ Workshop, which laid the foundation for subsequent waves of the desegregation struggle.[10]

Ella Baker’s role, however, preceded that of Galamison, since her involvement had begun as president of the New York City NAACP branch in 1952, leading to the city branch becoming involved in fighting for education improvements for black and Puerto Ricans. Baker also served as a member of the Intergroup Committee chaired by Kenneth Clark, the psychologist whose work was cited in Brown that demonstrated segregation’s negative effects on black youth.[11] Moreover, the Parents’ Workshop, a group of mostly women who became involved in school desegregation from their participation in PTAs, always served as the vast majority of participants.[12] Using momentum from Brown, the national civil rights movement in the South, and, to a limited degree, pro-labor and employment demonstrations in support of procuring black employment, the NAACP and other civil rights groups did address issues of poverty and class. For example, the Brooklyn NAACP chapter organized protests against police brutality in addition to voter registration drives, clearly connecting the movement in New York with the police violence of segregationists in the South.[13]

Unfortunately, the national leadership of the NAACP and other mainstream civil rights organizations remained reluctant to engage in the school desegregation effort in New York with the same amount of effort and will as local activists. Occurring during the height of McCarthyism, many NAACP chapters also purged Communists from the group in order to avoid the damning accusation of anti-Americanism.[14] This weakened the organization’s ties to leftist and sympathetic white allies, including the left-leaning Teachers Union, which supported the integrationist struggle before being replaced by the Union of Federated Teachers. Thus, the movement within New York City suffered from severe differences of opinion of activists on the ground, and the national leadership, as represented by Roy Wilkins. Galamison and Wilkins clashed over the methodology of struggle, and Galamison, whose conception of liberation theology was anti-capitalist, saw no problem in cooperating with leftist whites.[15] Indeed, progressive whites, often secular Jews like Annie Stein, were more cooperative and supportive, as were sympathetic unions to integrate schools, such as Junior High School 258 in 1955. This particular instance, a Bedford-Stuyvesant school that opened with a 98% African American student body aroused white and black fury. The Board deliberately built a school in an area where it was inevitably to be a black school instead of building it according to a pro-integration zoning pattern, at the intersection of black and white neighborhoods in Brooklyn.[16]

Of course, one cannot overlook the successes of the New York civil rights movement in dismantling former barriers to integration. As Kenneth Clark, the prominent black psychologist whose study was cited in favor of school desegregation in Brown v. Board, noted, the schools black children attended were the most overcrowded and poorly resourced.[17] He also claimed that the high school zones had been gerrymandered purposely to exclude large numbers of black students from attending the best academic high schools, which would be more difficult to maintain in the present since public schools provide passes.[18] However, residential housing segregation persists, as does the income gap, further perpetuating black and Latino under-performance. Many whites, as well as the Board of Education in the 1950s and 1960s, clung to the notion of the neighborhood school. Why would whites want to send their children to schools in high-crime, impoverished communities? Even Stokely Carmichael agreed that one could not realistically expect whites to want to send their children to schools in 1960s Harlem![19]

The neighborhood concept of sending one’s children to a school within the neighborhood, usually lacking racial diversity, appealed to parents for the simple reason of keeping their children nearby rather than busing them to distant and sometimes dangerous areas.[20] White racism and assumptions of inferiority also limited white receptiveness to black and Puerto Rican children in white schools. White parents protested, launched boycotts, and treated black students who did transfer to white schools poorly, similar to the situation black students integrating schools in the South experienced. Black students allowed to enroll at white schools in Ridgewood, Queens, in 1959 for example, endured large protests by white parents outside of the school, in addition to often hostile school environments where black students were kept in separate classes in future cases.[21] Needless to say, by 1964, after years of open enrollment and promises by the Board to build new schools exclusively on the fringe areas of white and minority communities, the number of segregated schools increased since 1960, especially since the Board continued to build new schools in black and Latino areas where they were inevitably black and Latino only.[22]

Thus, the resistance of white parents, and their influence over the Board, severely limited the chances for successful education reform. Working-class and middle-class white groups that stayed in New York often chose to send their children to private schools. The inability to find common ground between lower-class whites and blacks on the issue of education perpetuated racial tension without improving educational facilities for black and Puerto Ricans. Blacks and the burgeoning Puerto Rican population at the time continued to face employment discrimination, overpriced housing or slum conditions, and racial injustice everywhere. Indeed, the Board adopted racist assumptions to blame black academic under-performance on blacks and Puerto Ricans, claiming in a letter to Galamison racist beliefs and assumptions such as: indifference of parents, use of children as pawns in contests with the welfare system, absence of an academic tradition and interest in minority families, and emotional rejection and neglect by mothers of unwanted children.[23] These generalizations and stereotypes of black parents, and black women in particular, evince the emergence of the welfare dependency and the welfare queen stereotype of black women as poor mothers trying to cheat the system. Regardless of the visibility and participation of thousands of black parents, mostly women, their value of education and promoting improved education remained questioned, due to racist underlying assumptions that influenced white perceptions of racial minorities. Even when an estimated 464, 361 students, about 45% of total enrollment, did not attend classes to participate in the February 3, 1964 boycott for the Board to establish a timetable for real school desegregation, racist assumptions of black cultural inferiority continued to shape white perceptions of blacks as solely responsible for black under-performance.[24]

Still, one can easily understand why civil rights leaders and parents focused on education as a leading campaign in New York City. Galamison, the public profile of the school integration movement, utilized his status as a Presbyterian pastor and progressive Christian values to buttress his argument for improving educational facilities for all children. Indeed, one quotation from his correspondence with the Board of Education states, “I repeat this Board of Education has a moral and legal obligation to equalize the schools of this City by September 1959 and to find the necessary funds for the job.”[25] Like southern civil rights leaders, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Galamison used morally righteous rhetoric for integrated schools. Furthermore, to deprive white children of an integrated school environment damaged whites as well as blacks, since white children matured in a world where racial segregation and white supremacy appeared morally legitimate.[26] Moreover, working-class and poor women activists engaged in the struggle through their parent organizations and the Parents' Workshop for Equality, established in 1960, saw education as a visible, direct example of racial discrimination that negatively impacted their children. The effects of sending their children off to overcrowded schools with poor facilities, sometimes leading to school days below the standard amount of time white students experienced, clearly revealed the negative impact of the status quo in education.[27]

In addition, education likely appeared as a more winnable campaign for the parents of black and Puerto-Rican children, especially more pertinent to parents of students attending ghetto schools. Demands for open enrollment and the construction of schools in the intermediary regions between minority and white neighborhoods seemed like a relatively easier goal than overhauling the current system, redistributing wealth and resources, eradicating capitalism, or miraculously curing the white populace of its racism. However, as Bayard Rustin, a New York-based civil rights organizer on the national level, realized after the first school boycott on February 4, 1964, social and economic conditions were more pressing as blacks faced an increasing problem with unemployment and a growing urban underclass that undermined public school education.[28] Public schools, as a result of increasingly ghettoized communities with fewer resources, did not significantly improve after some of the demands of integrationists were met. Though parents and activists possessed a reasonable rationale for demanding integration, especially since white schools had the better facilities, experienced teachers, and therefore better tools for academic success, black and Latino students still could not either enter these schools, or if they did succeed in getting transfers, often left due to white resistance and maltreatment.[29] In fact, white resistance in New York took a similar form to white resistance in the South, via protests to the Board of Education, white flight to suburbs, increasing enrollment of white children to private schools, racist language used at demonstrations at integrated schools, and even the storming of a Queens school to force two transferred students out![30]

The collapse of the fragile coalition of civil rights organizations that orchestrated the February 3, 1964 school boycott after the Board of Education failed to keep its promises for school integration also revealed the enormous disunity and disagreement within the pro-integrationist camp.[31] The expected opposition to the planned second boycott on March 16 of white groups also included the national chapters of the NAACP and CORE, which had previously supported the first boycott that Bayard Rustin had organized.[32] Thirteen chapters of the NAACP in New York withdrew from the City-Wide Committee for Integrated Schools, the coalition built from the Parents’ Workshop and Harlem Parents Committee, as well as the NAPRR, a Puerto-Rican civil rights group, disagreeing with Galamison’s authoritarian, unilateral decision making and the tactics.[33] Some of those who disagreed with Galamison, especially whites and some black nationalists, argued that the focus should be on improving existing black schools instead of mass transfers of children.[34] Whites, including the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, the Jewish-led UFT, and New York liberals were either too attached to the neighborhood school concept and racist beliefs to support full, immediate integration.[35]

The UFT, however, initially offered limited support to the first boycott, but refused to recognize the shortcomings of teachers. Their plan for city-wide integration, released prior to the first boycott in February, called for reductions in class size in difficult schools, additional counselors, remedial psychological services, supervisors and teachers. This rightly seemed too little, too late for black parents who had been demanding improved educational facilities since the late 1950s.[36] The UFT did not acknowledge that minority children often did not receive a full day of instruction, had the least experienced teachers or that 70% of math teachers in black and Puerto Rican schools were unlicensed, which seemed to blame disadvantaged children for their own predicament without acknowledging the role of teachers in ensuring a proper school environment.[37]

Black organizations, on the other hand, such as national leadership of CORE and the NAACP, were less committed to direct action-based, mass movements, preferring negotiation, as mentioned previously. Black nationalist leader Malcolm X, however, supported Galamison’s plan for a second boycott, which also received support from Adam Clayton Powell, the powerful Harlem Congressman.[38] X respected Galamison, inviting him to speak at the Audubon on April 5, 1964, and again on the day he would be assassinated in February 1965.[39] Perhaps Galamison won Malcolm’s favor, as well as that of some other black nationalists because the demands for the second boycott embraced more nationalistic aims, such as textbooks with black history, the appointment of a Puerto Rican to the Board, additional black principals and teachers, besides the older demands for a comprehensive city-wide plan for desegregation, and the cessation of school construction in segregated neighborhoods.[40]

The gradual infiltration of black nationalist ideology and the ascent of Black Power, already showing signs of its presence in some of the demands of the March 16 boycott, which withdrew an estimated 267, 459 children from schools, a surprisingly large number since many national civil rights groups, local black and Puerto Rican groups opposed it.[41] As the mid-1960s passed, SNCC and CORE were expelling whites, and placing blacks at the leadership of a struggle for self-determination rose in ideological prominence.[42] Accepting that the power to fully integrate New York City public schools was somewhat beyond the power of the Board of Education, the idea of improving majority-minority schools via community control developed as a logical outcome of black self-determination. Supporters of the shift to community control rather than integration also noticed that many of their white allies were more supportive of integration in the South rather than the North; Jewish allies especially, though disproportionately more supportive of civil rights for blacks than other whites, saw the pace of integration in New York as proceeding too rapidly.[43]

Galamison, who after the fallout from the second boycott, and along with the rise of Black Power, was no longer the leader of an integrationist movement after the dissolution of the coalition, publicly supported community control despite his distaste for what he initially perceived as a black separatist movement.[44] Even Galamison had been forced to acknowledge that Black power, defined as empowerment of blacks to control institutions within black communities appeared to be the most rational course of action, since years of pressuring the Board of Education to integrate schools through the system and through boycotts failed, and white control of institutions in black neighborhoods resembled colonialism, thereby fostering black consciousness and nationalist sentiments. Community control advocates like Robert “Sonny” Carson appealed to this kind of colonial relationship to court the favor of blacks during school demonstrations in 1967.[45]

Unfortunately, the community control movement also faced the similar dilemma of naiveté regarding education reform and race. Though it seemed rational and the best response to white resistance, the decentralization of New York City schools and the community control movement, supported by Mayor Lindsay in 1968, also fell short of fundamentally changing the balance of power within New York.[46] Black officials and leaders within black communities served on governing boards of schools, but that did not mean they best represented the interest of black children or their parents. Indeed, many further aggravated the problem between blacks and teachers, represented by the UFT and its leader Albert Shanker, a liberal Jewish union leader who had been in good relations with Bayard Rustin, A. Phillip Randolph and Martin Luther King.[47] The UFT, somewhat supportive of the integration movement led by Galamison earlier in the 1960s, became staunch opponents of the community control movement for violating what it considered labor rights the UFT saw as inviolable, such as involuntary transfers.[48]

Moreover, the chances for an alliance between teachers and the community control advocates became untenable in the late 1960s because of conservative trade unionism that focused on improving wages and working conditions, leading to Galamison and other activists painting teachers as part of the system that oppressed black children.[49] Forced into a hostile environment with the mostly white and Jewish-led teacher’s union immobilized the community control advocates in the late 1960s, culminating in the 1968 Ocean Hill-Brownsville UFT strike.[50] The immediate cause of the strike was the involuntary transfer of 10 teachers by the Ocean Hill-Brownsville community board, led by Rhody McCoy. From their point of view, transferring those white teachers unsympathetic to community control of education was necessary to protect the principle of community control. The UFT, on the other hand, saw this step by the Ocean Hill-Brownsville board as abrogating the integrity of the contract and civil service procedures established under the Board of Education with the union. This led to the community control advocates pushing to keep the public schools open during the UFT’s citywide strike, which began in May 1968. Ethnic tensions between Jews and African-Americans in New York flared as some community control supporters used anti-Semitic rhetoric to attack the UFT while the UFT responded by exaggerating the extent of anti-Semitism in the press to delegitimize the community control movement.[51] In truth, even UFT members loyal to the union hinted that the degree of anti-Semitism claimed by UFT leadership to have existed was exaggerated to discredit the community control movement.[52] The UFT likely planted anti-Semitic notices in the mailboxes of Jewish members to further discredit the movement, showing the depths to which the union would go to portray the community control movement as anti-Semitic.[53]

Their strike in September 1968, however, succeeded when a special trial found that McCoy and the governing board had failed to provide evidence against the involuntarily transferred teachers, thereby framing the issue as a labor-management dispute.[54] The governing board was eventually suspended on September 14 after failing to reinstate the dismissed teachers, revealing the weaknesses of the community control movement to positively change inner-city schools.[55] The teachers’ union won public favor against what they framed as extremists attempting to take over other schools in New York, which succeeded in swaying the public perception of the community control movement as anti-Semitic.

Interestingly, black and Puerto Rican support for community control was mixed, with some supporting the UFT in the struggle, as shown by the newspaper, El Tiempo. Even within Ocean Hill-Brownsville, the black neighborhood in Brooklyn that instigated the confrontation between the community control movement and the UFT, 24% of parents were unhappy with the governing board, nearly 47% had a negative view of the governing board and only 2% supported allowing black militants or local politicians to have the greatest say in running the district’s schools.[56] Thus, even within black and Puerto Rican New York, the black nationalists demanding community control lacked complete support, despite the rise of Black Power politics.

The community control movement, however, survived as decentralization was further implemented in 1969, but called for borough-wide elections and limited the number of community school districts to 33 with no fewer than 20,000 elementary and junior high school students.[57] Of course, conditions scarcely improved under community control, where corrupt local officials on the school boards abused their control of school budgets. Community control was initially designed to ensure local control over key policy decisions in personnel, budget, curriculum, and public policy, but the possibility for mismanagement, corruption, and the absence of participatory ways for parents to influence local school matters remained present.[58] Indeed, by 1976, even Kenneth Clark, one of the earliest proponents of decentralization, openly admitted that decentralization “had failed to improve education and so far had resulted primarily in power grabs and struggles over jobs and control of finances.”[59] A Puerto Rican example, Luis Fuentes in District 1 is one of many examples of community control misusing school funds and appointing unqualified individuals in schools under community control during the 1970s. Fuentes used the community control system to essentially appropriate funds for friends instead of using his position to improve the district’s mostly Puerto Rican student body on the Lower East Side.  [60] Even as early as 1970, Clark, as a member of the State Board of Regents, noted that fiscal irregularities already discernible existed on a wider basis.[61]

Clearly, decentralization did not result in significant improvement in the education of poor black and Puerto Rican New York. Indeed, in some cases, tensions with teachers or corruption within contributed to a further decline. Unemployment, massive white flight, dreadful crime, and government mismanagement and corruption flourished, regardless of who ran the schools in black and Puerto Rican New York. The black nationalist outlook that guided the community control movement was also misinformed, thinking that adopting the ethnic politics of other groups or controlling institutions within already impoverished communities would somehow allow them to transcend the broader system of unequal access to the distribution of resources, and broader manifestations of social inequality was rather naïve. Likewise, education reform without a total reform of society will likely result in superficial change that ignores the systemic causes of urban poverty and racism that will continue to exist while policymakers argue over the ramifications of their proposed school reform.

One must accept the movement’s successes, however, which include integrated public schools today, though they are overwhelmingly black and Hispanic overall at 32% and 40.3% of total enrollment respectively.[62] Nevertheless, blacks and Hispanic students still struggle in largely under-performing high schools, with few making it to the highly ranked specialized public high schools of Stuyvesant or Bronx Science due to entrance exams. The battle for the integration of New York City public schools succeeded to a certain extent in integrating the public school system, yet the issue of poverty and integration of the specialized high schools that are much better than the majority of New York’s public high schools persists. Nevertheless, the focus on school desegregation, necessitated by clearly inferior schools for racial minorities and parent activism to improve the prospects for their children, did have limited success.

Bibliography

Back, Adina. “Blacks, Jews and the Struggle to Integrate Brooklyn's Junior High School 258: A Cold War Story.” Journal of American Ethnic History. Vol. 20, No. 2 (Winter, 2001), pp. 38-6.9

Dodson, Dan W. “Public Education in New York City in the Decade Ahead.”

Journal of Educational Sociology, Vol. 34, No. 6 (Feb., 1961), pp. 274-287.

De Forest, Jennifer. “The 1958 Harlem School Boycott: Parental Activism and the Struggle for Educational Equity in New York City.” The Urban Review, Volume 40, No. 1 (2008), pp. 21-41.

Edgell, Derek. The Movement for Community Control of New York City's Schools, 1966-1970: Class Wars. Lewiston, N.Y.: E. Mellen Press, 1998.

Galamison, Milton A. Milton A. Galamison Papers, 1954-1964. State Historical Society, Maidson, WI.

 Gittel, Marilyn. “Community Control of Education. Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science , Vol. 29, No. 1, Urban Riots: Violence and Social Change (1968), pp. 60-71

Ransby, Barbara. Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

Ritterband, Paul. Ethnic power and the public schools: the New York City school strike of 1968. Sociology of Education, Volume 40, No. 2. (1974)), pp. 251-267.

Schiff, Martin. “The Educational Failure of Community Control in Inner-City New York.” The Phi Delta Kappan , Vol. 57, No. 6 (Feb., 1976), pp. 375-378

Taylor, Clarence. Knocking at our own door: Milton A. Galamison and the Struggle to Integrate New York City Schools. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.

Taylor, Clarence. Civil Rights in New York City from World War II to the Giuliani era. New York: Fordham University Press, 2011.

Theoharis, Jeanne, and Komozi Woodard. Freedom North: Black Freedom Struggles Outside the South, 1940-1980. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

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[1] . Dan W. Dodson, “Public Education in New York City in the Decade Ahead,” Journal of Educational Sociology 34, no. 6 (Feb. 1961): 275.

[2] Clarence Taylor, Knocking at Our Own Door: Milton A. Galamison and the Struggle to Integrate New York City Schools (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 59.

 59.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Jennifer de Forest, “The 1958 Harlem School Boycott: Parental Activism and the Struggle For Educational Equity in New York City,” The Urban Review 40, no. 1 (2008): 22.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid 29.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Galamison Papers

[9] Taylor, Knocking 35.

[10] Ibid 91.

[11] Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 148-150.

[12] Taylor, Knocking 63.

[13] Galamison Papers

[14] Ibid.

[15] Taylor, Knocking 36.

[16] Adina Back, “Blacks, Jews, and the Struggle to Integrate Brooklyn's Junior High School 258: A Cold War Story,” Journal of American Ethnic History 20, no. 2 (Winter, 2001): 39.

[17] Ibid 42.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Derek Edgell, The Movement For Community Control of New York City's Schools, 1966-1970: Class Wars(New York: Mellen Press, 1998), 36.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Galamison Papers.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid.

[24]Taylor, Knocking 141.

[25]Galamison papers

[26]Ibid.

[27]Ibid.

[28]Taylor, Knocking 155.

[29]Ibid 168.

[30]Ibid.

[31]Ibid 151.

[32]Ibid 123.

[33]Ibid 149.

[34]Ibid 147.

[35]Ibid

[36]Ibid 125.

[37]Ibid 126.

[38]Ibid 158-159.

[39]Ibid.

[40]Ibid 160.

[41]Ibid 161.

[42]Edgell, Movement 9.

[43]Ibid 7.

[44]Taylor, Knocking 179.

[45]Edgell, Movement 75.

[46]Ibid 31.

[47]Ibid 27.

[48]Ritterband, Paul. Ethnic power and the public schools: the New York City school strike of 1968. Sociology of Education, Volume 40, No. 2. (1974): 252.

[49]Taylor, Knocking 188.

[50]Ibid.

[51]Edgell, Movement 260

[52]Ibid.

[53]Ibid.

[54]Taylor, Knocking 197.

[55]Ibid 201.

[56]Edgell, Movement 292.

[57]Taylor, Knocking 205.

[58]Schiff, Martin. “The Educational Failure of Community Control in Inner-City New York.” The Phi Delta Kappan , Vol. 57, No. 6 (Feb., 1976): 376.

[59]Ibid.

[60]Ibid.

[61]Ibid.

[62]Fernanda Santos, “Black at Stuyvesant High,” New York Times, February 25, 2012.http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/education/black-at-stuyvesant-high-one-girls-experience.html?_r=2(accessed March 15, 2012).