This weeks Readings “Power, Protests, and the Public Schools: Jewish and African American struggles in New York City” by Melissa Weiner explains in depth the history of how school in New York City were segregated against jewish and African American citizens as well as how these methods of segregation were enforced by the governance, fought by the parents and communities, and eventually changed due to the massive backlash by these minorities. these examples provide interesting context and examples we can use for our research projects as it shows how these disenfranchising systems came into place and how they were eventually overthrown.
in the case of the jewish community, most of their subjugation and mistreatment was at the hands of the Gary plan which was initiated in the early 1900’s and basically aimed to train jewish and other disenfranchised minorities into disposable interchangeable workers only useful because of their easily trainable skill with zero upwards mobility. the plan also noticeably tried to americanize students and subdue the culture of their (usually immigrant) parents and in some cases tried to teach jewish children the new testament. the plan was eventually discontinued when the jewish community started making it into a major political issue and refusing to vote for any mayoral candidate who wouldn’t promise to change the system.
African American students were also treated terribly in school systems a little later in the century, as their school were often very rundown placed with heavily overcrowded classes and poor teachers. The Harlem 9 tried to increase the amount of experienced and qualified teachers as well as the budget of the schools, as at the time, budget per black student was less than a third of the budget per white student, but the battle for these changes was long fought and took many years to bear significant results.
comparing the 2 disenfranchised groups, it is interesting how much more quickly and effectively the jewish rallied and were heard by those in governance and got the changes they desired compared to their African American counterparts. perhaps it is because the jews, although often treated as if they are second class citizens and shouldn’t be considered such, are still white and harder to distinguish and alienate than the African Americans. these examples will probably prove useful for us in our projects and when we attempt to find a positive change for schools in New York City.
As discussed in your post, both Jews and African Americans experienced similar struggles under the policies designed by the New York education system at the time. By putting protests performed by Jews and African Americans together, Melissa Weiner, the author of the article, shows us a vivid picture of minorities struggling to enter the mainstream of the U.S.
In my opinion, a major difference between the two protests is that, for Jews, it was a fight for their culture and religion. For African Americans, the fight was for equal education and thus equal identity. And this led to different reactions from the society and goverment. As you mentioned in your response, “African Americans were worse off than Jews”; and I agree. The reasons are that Jews were accepted, in some degree, by the mainstream of the society at the time; and importantly, Jews were not protesting against zoning. This made it much easier for the government to come up another policy without closely involving other districts, neighbourhoods, and ethnic groups.
For me, I found it very interesting that the society was trying to “americanize” everyone at the time. The Gary Plan was originally designed to americanize the children with immigrant parents (p.35 and also mentioned in Asimina’s post). From the reading, I saw that the society was cruel. Trying to “americanize” immigrants is the same as saying that immigrants were not good enough and should be “trained” to be part of the mainstream. In this logic, the Gary Plan inevitably degraded the Jews.
Sophie, I think you make a great point here, that Jewish families in the early 1900s were not protesting zoning. Whatever changes they were demanding would not impact other schools and families. And yet they were not actually all that successful. While the Gary plan was officially ended, most of the structures put in place (and the more vocationally-oriented high schools) remained in place for years after their protests, even under a new mayor. But the African American protests were challenging not just differentiated curriculum, but racial subjugation, and while the African American protesters gained an open enrollment compromise, they were part of a much larger movement trying to change racial inequality across the nation, which in the end perhaps proved more difficult to achieve.