Chapter 8 Resources
“The Controversy Over I.S. 201” (1966) (link coming soon)
This article by Preston Wilcox was printed in the Urban Review in 1966. Wilcox, a sociologist and community organizer involved in the I.S. 201 boycott, proposed that a committee of parents and community members be given control over the school. This idea was enacted through the Ford Foundation’s demonstration district experiment in 1967.
“Reconnection for Learning: A Community School System for New York City Schools,” pages i-iv (1967)
This report edited by McGeorge Bundy proposed a plan for a community system in New York City that led to the city’s experiment with decentralization in three districts in 1967. This came after years of activism pushing for community control of New York City public schools. Pages i-iv contain the preface and a summary of the report’s recommendations (please refer to the page numbers on the bottom right of each page, as some pages are scanned out of order).
Nathaniel Curtis Biographical Website
Nathaniel Curtis and Arthur Q. Davis were the architects who built I.S. 201. This online biography of Nathaniel Curtis details many of the firm’s other projects.
“‘A Series Of Blunders And Broken Promises’: IS 201 As A Turning Point” (2016)
Like author Marta Gutman’s introduction to chapter 8, this Gotham Center blog post by Michael Glass examines the conflict at I.S. 201 in the context of the history of integration fights in New York City since 1954. Glass discusses the Harlem Nine’s boycott, the institution of open enrollment, and the 1964 school boycott. He argues that all these struggles shared a commitment to integration as a means for achieving equity in education.
“Barbara Wilson-Brooks’ Harlem Community”
Select “Barbara Wilson-Brooks’ Harlem Community” from the Harlem Education History Project exhibit page. In this exhibit, Nina Wasserman shares the account of an IS 201 student, Barbara Wilson-Brooks, who describes her experience at the school and of her life in Harlem. The exhibit includes oral history clips and a link to Wilson-Brooks complete oral history interview.
“Mae Mallory: Forgotten Black Power Intellectual” (2016)
Ashley Farmer’s article in Black Perspectives tells the story of Mae Mallory, one of the “Harlem Nine,” a group of mothers who brought a lawsuit against the Board of Education for zoning policies that enforced segregated, inferior schools for Black children. They also held a 162-day boycott of three junior high schools. Farmer includes this event alongside Mallory’s long history of militant, radical activism.
In February of 1964, more than 460,000 children participated in a city-wide school boycott to demand an end to New York City’s segregated, inferior schools for Black children. The boycott was the largest civil rights protest in United States history. This lesson plan by Adam Sanchez for Rethinking Schools explores the boycott and the civil rights movement in New York City.
City Wide Committee for Integrated Schools, School Boycott! Flier, 1964. Credit: Queens College Civil Rights Archives.
Video of School Boycott (1964)
This video from a Georgia television station shows a march on the day of the second school boycott in March, 1964. It includes interviews with Malcolm X and Adam Clayton Powell on their thoughts about the protest.
“Reimaginers: The Young Lords” Interview with Johanna Fernández
I.S. 201’s location was on the northern edge of East Harlem, which had a majority Puerto Rican population by the 1950s. Educating Harlem focuses primarily on Black Americans in Harlem, but as chapter 8 demonstrates, Latinx students and families led and participated in educational activism in Harlem and other neighborhoods of the city. To learn more about Puerto Rican student activism, watch this interview with Johanna Fernández as she discusses her book, The Young Lords: a Radical History (2019).
United Bronx Parents, Inc. Records, 1966-1989
United Bronx Parents was founded in 1965 by Evelina López Antonetty to organize parents to advocate for Puerto Rican children in New York City Schools. A portion of her archival collection, held at The Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, is available digitally. While United Bronx Parents mostly worked in the Bronx, it adds to this chapter in providing another example of parents activism in the 1960s and in its significance to the history of Latinx education in New York City.
“Evelina’s Harlem: A Puerto Rican Educational Journey Through Space and Time”
Select “Evelina’s Harlem” from the Harlem Education History Project exhibit page. To learn more Puerto Rican migration and education activism in New York City, this exhibit by Lauren Lefty tells the story of Evelina López Antonetty, founder of United Bronx Parents.
Discussion Questions
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In chapter 8, author Marta Gutman highlights the significance of architectural features such as windows, air conditioning, and the arrangement of classrooms. What do these features say about how the architects or the Board of Education thought about IS 201 students? How did students “turn the architectural logic of the building inside out”? What is the “architectural logic” of your own current or past schools?
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How does this chapter’s discussion of IS 201 compare to other descriptions of education and civil rights activism that you have read? How were community members motivated by both integration and Black autonomy?