Event

Fight for the City: School Desegregation, Race, Resistance, and Class Struggle

Wed, May 4, 2016

6:00 PM–8:00 PM

Room C198

Over the past year, there has been increased attention to—and growing struggle over—public school segregation. In New York City, two school districts—District 13 (Brooklyn) and District 3 (Manhattan)—have been site of heated and contentious rezoning battles. Referred to at times as civil, class, race, or turf wars, these contestations over the lines that dictate public school boundaries have illuminated the ways that racism, fear, and class struggle continue to drive efforts to stymie public school desegregation. Struggles for educational justice have long roots in New York City, yet are largely absent from our history books, newspapers, and public conversation, and often only pictured as having taken place in the South. What changes when we recognize the long history of white resistance to Black and Latino organizing against school segregation and how can this history shift how we understand our present moment? How has the media played a key role in naturalizing white and middle class perspectives and obscured school segregation and inequity in the city? Please join us for an urgent and timely conversation where we will discuss these and other questions Dr. Matthew Delmont (Professor of History, Arizona State University), who will speak about his new book, Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation. Nelson Flores (University of Pennsylvania), Jeanne Theoharis (Brooklyn College, CUNY), Celina Su (Brooklyn College & CUNY Graduate Center), Brian Jones (CUNY Graduate Center), and Ujju Aggarwal (CUNY Graduate Center) will join the conversation.

This event kicks off a new series organized by the Center for the Humanities on schools, policing, cities, and racial justice where we hope to create spaces for co-learning and collaboration among educators, community organizers, artists, researchers, and activists.

This event is presented as part of Narrating Change, Changing Narratives, an interdisciplinary research group that employs public humanities practices and explores narration as a guide for social change. The group is supported by the Mellon Seminar on Public Engagement and Collaborative Research. For more information or to join, email [email protected].

Cosponsored by The Narrating Change, Changing Narratives Mellon Seminar on Public Engagement and Collaborative Research, The Gittell Collective, The Gotham Center, IRADAC, Public Science Project, Africana Studies, and the Critical Psychology Program at The Graduate Center, CUNY.

https://vimeo.com/170838367