Similar Struggle, Different Time

Although decades apart, two different groups of people had a similar struggle in the fight to education against the New York Board of Education. In 1917, a school plan known as the Gary Plan , implemented requirements in schooling, for Jews. In 1954, African American schools also had rules implemented regulating education. Power, Protests, and the Public Schools : Jewish and African American Struggles in New York, Weiner speaks about the struggles of Jews in 1915 and African Americans in these systems.

From the outside –or even looking at the situation from the current time period–one could say that African Americans are worse off than Jews and that Jews, in fact, hold all the power in their communities that they are apart of. Going back a few decades, however, the two groups become comparable in power, or lack thereof. This is especially the case when it comes to economic and political power; they have no voice in total. In their respective time periods, both groups were considered the minority in all aspects, and had no control over anything. This trend continued over into their schooling, having no input into its implementation and little to no ability to effectively critique and change it. In both cases, the minority groups were put into extremely overpopulated schools seeming to lack the best interest of the students. African Americans were unable to receive adequate academic educations attended schools with inadequate resources; those that tried to integrate into schools once finally given open enrollment were unable to get their children to those schools.

Under the Gary Plan four decades earlier, Jews weren’t even given academic educations, but were only offered vocational education. Many times this didn’t even prove to be true as older children lacked classroom time overseeing the younger children in these understaffed schools. School days were unreasonably lengthen, which did not allow Jews time to practice their religion of Judaism. On top of that, they were forced to take part in Christianity,

When parents in both cases appealed to the Board, it seemed that little to no improvements were made. In the early 1900s, there were even times when the Board completed decided to not even review cases or to hear out the parents at all. The minorities seemed to be stuck in a situation that was not improving.

I believe Weiner speaking about both situations in the schools–although decades apart–made the cases and issues within them more prominent. Although two different groups of people, both were minorities and inferior in the towns and situations in which these riots took place. They had little to no voice in the situations and, definitely, had no power. Comparing these two groups that from the outside would look like they have little in common shows how inferiority can impact the lives of thee inferior negatively if they are not able to stand up for themselves.