Educating Harlem
A Century of Schooling and Resistance in a Black Community

Chapter 4 Resources

Materials accompanying "Cinema for Social Change: The Human Relations Film Series of the Harlem Committee of the Teachers Union, 1936–1950" by Lisa Rabin and Craig Kridel

Photograph of Alice Keliher (1954)

Alice Keliher was a teacher and education scholar who was involved in a wide range of national and New York City projects to improve education and day care. Working with the Public Education Association, she founded the Commission on Human Relations and its Human Relations Film Series, which used films to engage students in learning about social issues. This photograph is part of a collection from the Los Angeles Examiner newspaper.

The Owl (1936-1943)

Many issues of Wadleigh High School’s yearbook, The Owl, are available digitally. They contain students’ creative writing and art, as well as photographs of students and staff. These provide an example of student life in the time period covered by chapter 4.

Senior song music sheet

Wadleigh Senior Song from The Owl, Wadleigh High School Yearbook, 1943. Credit: Wadleigh High School.

An Equal Chance, Don’t Be a Sucker, The Negro Soldier, and The Brotherhood of Man

Many of the films from the human relations programs discussed in chapter 4 are available online through the The Internet Archive digital library.

Discussion Questions

  1. Educating Harlem co-editor Ernest Morrell studies critical media literacy, which he defines as “the consumption, production, and distribution of print and new media texts by, with, and on behalf of marginalized populations in the interests of naming, exposing, and destabilizing power relations; and promoting individual freedom and expression” (2007). How does this chapter relate to that concept?

  2. In chapter 4, authors Craig Kridel and Lisa Rabin write, “Teachers often saw film as a way to recognize and interrogate oppression and racism, topics on which the traditional curriculum was silent or even racist itself.” In what ways are the curricula you have encountered silent or racist? What films or books, or teaching practices, could recognize and interrogate oppression and racism?