September 21

Broadcast Date: 
Sep 21 2008

In this two-hour special, Beyond the Pale re-visits 1968's epic struggle over local control of schools in Ocean Hill-Brownsville and its echoes in today's conflicts over mayoral control.

Episode segments
  • Ocean Hill-Brownsville: The failure of integration
    Education, Jewish

    Alan Levine, in 1968, was an attorney with the New York Civil Liberties Union;

    Annette Rubinstein, in 1968, was an education actvitist in the Harlem community. (She passed away in 2007);  

    John O'Neill, in 1968, was the United Federation of Teacher's Vice President for Junion High Schools;                                                                       

    Jitu Weusi, activist and educator, in 1968 was a teacher in intermediate school 271 in Oceanhill Brownsville;    

    Wayne Barrett, Village Voice staff writer, in 1968 was a grade school teacher in Oceanhill Brownsville;


    Al Vann, former NYS Assembly member and now City Council Member, in 1968 was the head of the radical African American Teachers Association.
    Esther Kaplan

    In this first segment of Beyond the Pale's Ocean Hill-Brownsville special, we examine the origins of the struggle for community control in the failure to achieve the integration of New York City's public schools.

  • Ocean Hill-Brownsville: The Conflict Begins
    Education, Jewish

    Alan Levine, in 1968, was an attorney with the New York Civil Liberties Union;

    Annette Rubinstein, in 1968, was an education actvitist in the Harlem community. (She passed away in 2007);  

    John O'Neill, in 1968, was the United Federation of Teacher's Vice President for Junion High Schools;                                                                 

    Jitu Weusi, activist and educator, in 1968 was a teacher in intermediate school 271 in Oceanhill Brownsville;  

    Wayne Barrett, Village Voice staff writer, in 1968 was a grade school teacher in Oceanhill Brownsville;

    Al Vann, former NYS Assembly member and now City Council Member, in 1968 was the head of the radical African American Teachers Association.
    Esther Kaplan

    An attempt by the Ocean Hill-Brownsville Community School Board to transfer out and replace several teachers they believed were undermining their educational goals triggered the conflict, which was further inflamed by the distribution of anti-Semitic flyers by the UFT and the reading of a provocative poem by Jitu Weusi on WBAI.  The ensuing teacher's strike, the worst in New York's history, closed most of the City's schools and divided the Left.

  • Ocean Hill-Brownsville: Its Legacies
    Education, Jewish

    Annette Rubinstein, in 1968, was an education actvitist in the Harlem community. (She passed away in 2007);  

    Wayne Barrett, Village Voice staff writer, in 1968 was a grade school teacher in Oceanhill Brownsville;

    Al Vann, former NYS Assembly member and now City Council Member, in 1968 was the head of the radical African American Teachers Association.
    Esther Kaplan

    The end of the strike marked the end of true community control and its replacement by the now discredited system of decentralization.  New York City's schools remained among the most segregated in the country, although by the early 1990s, close to 50% of administrators and teachers were people of color. 

  • Ocean Hill-Brownsville: its Impact on the Black-Jewish alliance.
    Education, Jewish

    Alan Levine, in 1968, was an attorney with the New York Civil Liberties Union;

    John O'Neill, in 1968, was the United Federation of Teacher's Vice President for Junion High Schools;                                                                    

    Wayne Barrett, Village Voice staff writer, in 1968 was a grade school teacher in Oceanhill Brownsville

     
    Esther Kaplan

    For many, the Ocean-Hill Brownsville conflict over community control of the schools was a watershed event, that marked the unravelling of the alliance of liberal Jews and African Americans that until then had been a staple of New York City politics.

  • Ocean Hill-Brownsville: Contemporary Echoes
    Education, Jewish

    Edwin Mayorga is a member of the New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCORE), a local collective of current and former pubic school educators committed to fighting for social justice in our school system and soceity at large by organizing and mobilizing teachers, develoing curriclum and working with community, parent and student organizations.

    Donna Nevel is a community psychologist and popular educator and the parent of two children in NYC's public schools.  She is a member of the collective of the Center for Immigrant Families, a popular education based community organization in uptown Manhattan for low income immigrant women of color and community members.
    Esther Kaplan and Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    In this final segment of our special on Ocean Hill-Brownsville,  two educators and activists reflect on the reverberations of that 1968 struggle in contemporary efforts to improve NYC's public schools and the push back against mayoral control.