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The 1958 Harlem School Boycott: Parental Activism and the Struggle for Educational Equity in New York City

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Abstract

In this article Jennifer de Forest details the 1958 Harlem school boycott and the resulting court case, In the Matter of Charlene Skipwith. de Forest demonstrates how the Harlem Parents’ Committee mobilized dissent in Harlem and led a boycott that effectively used the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown II, which remanded the desegregation of schools to local courts. de Forest analyzes the transcripts from the case hearings to detail the way the parents and their lawyer established that systemic inequities existed in the city’s schools, and shows how they convincingly linked these inequities to segregation. Lastly, de Forest places the Skipwith case in the context of the long-term movement for educational equity in New York City, and considers its implications for the incipient movement for the community control of New York City’s schools.

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Notes

  1. See, for example, the following special issues on the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education (2004a, b, 2005).

  2. Humphrey (1964, p. 39).

  3. For example, for excellent case histories of desegregation in the South, see Cecelski (1994) and more recently Shircliffe (2006).

  4. For example, on the fortieth anniversary of Brown the Harvard Project on School Desegregation published a collection of narrative accounts from communities across the nation to illustrate the widespread threat to desegregation. However, the farthest north the authors went was Prince George County, Maryland. A handful of excellent educational histories address school desegregation in northern cities and in the west. See San Miguel (2001), Donato (1997) and Homel (1984). See also Formisano (1991).

  5. Glazer and Moynihan (1963, pp. 48–49).

  6. See for example, Link Old Schools to Harlem Unrest (1935). For a survey of Black educational history in New York, see Mabee (1979).

  7. Patterson (2001, p. 5).

  8. Link Old Schools to Harlem Unrest (1935, p. 16).

  9. San Miguel (2001) and Donato (1997).

  10. Donato (1997, p. 58).

  11. Mannes (1959, p. 14).

  12. Ibid.

  13. Donato (1997, p. 66).

  14. CRMD was an acronym for “children with retarded mental development.” SP referred to “special progress,” or advanced, classes.

  15. Swanson (1966, p. 13).

  16. Ravitch (2000, p. 251).

  17. Swanson (1966, pp. 13–14). Swanson divides the integration of New York City’s schools into phases that correspond to superintendents’ tenures: William Jansen (1954–1958), John Theobold (1958–1962), and Calvin Gross (1962–1966).

  18. Ravitch (2000, p. 252).

  19. Swanson (1966, p. 15).

  20. Mannes (1959, p. 13).

  21. Landers (1960, pp. iv–vi).

  22. Mannes (1959, p. 15).

  23. Cutler (2000, p. 177).

  24. Mannes (1959, p. 15).

  25. Superintendent Jansen wholly dismissed the claim that the city’s schools were inequitable. See Jansen (1963, pp. 13–21).

  26. Mannes (1959, p. 15).

  27. Swanson (1966, pp. 15–16).

  28. Swanson (1966, p. 16).

  29. Maslow and Cohen (1961, p. 4).

  30. Mannes (1959, p. 15).

  31. Marshall and Wilkins (1955). The NAACP. Pamphlet. Second Printing; August 1955.

  32. Marshall and Wilkins (1955, p. 8).

  33. Marshall and Wilkins (1955, p. 11).

  34. Marshall and Wilkins (1955, p. 10).

  35. DeRosa (1996, p. 64). DeRosa builds his theory of creative jurisprudence on the work of foundational legal thinker, Harvard Law School Dean, Roscoe Pound.

  36. One family had enrolled their child in catholic school and so was in compliance with the compulsory education law.

  37. New York Times, Dec 13, 1958, clipping located in Justine Wise Polier Papers, Box 21, folder 248a, Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, Cambridge, MA (Justine Wise Polier Papers 1892–1990). Hereafter referred to as JWP.

  38. Swanson (1966, p. 4).

  39. Paul Zuber, In the Matter of Stanley and Bernice Skipwith, the Parents of Child Under 16 Years of Age Alleged to be Neglected Respondent’s Memorandum, JWP, Box 21, folder 247 “Skipwith 1958–1961.”

  40. Paul Zuber, In the Matter of Stanley and Bernice Skipwith.

  41. Ibid.

  42. Ibid.

  43. Transcripts from the Domestic Court of the City of New York, Children’s Court Division: New York School Part, Oct 19, 1958, JWP, Box 21, folder 246 “Skipwith Transcripts,” p. 15. The original transcripts, done by a court reporter, have very little punctuation. I have added commas to make the text more readable.

  44. Ibid.

  45. Ibid.

  46. Mannes (1959, p. 17).

  47. Mannes (1959, p. 16).

  48. Mannes (1959, p. 17).

  49. For an empirical study that documents parental concern with curricula and instruction in urban schools, see Thompson (2003).

  50. JWP, Box 21, folder 246 “Skipwith Transcripts,” p. 21.

  51. “Skipwith Transcripts,” p. 21.

  52. “Skipwith Transcripts,” p. 34.

  53. Zuber would successfully argue that school authorities had gerrymandered school zones in a later case, Taylor v. Board of Education of New Rochelle, N.Y., 191 F. Supp. 181.

  54. See “Report on the Harlem Project,” Justine Wise Polier Chairman. JWP, Box 35, folder 436.

  55. de Forest (2006).

  56. “Skipwith Transcripts,” pp. 9–15.

  57. “Skipwith Transcripts,” p. 93.

  58. “Skipwith Transcripts,” p. 41.

  59. “Skipwith Transcripts,” p. 46.

  60. Fischer et al. (1996, p. 174).

  61. “Skipwith Transcripts,” p. 107.

  62. Minutes, “Domestic Court of New York Children’s Court Division: New York School Part, Hearing by Hon. Justine Wise Polier, First Bronx Children’s Court, Nov 14, 1958, 36. JWP, Box 21, folder 246.

  63. Minutes, “Domestic Court of New York Children’s Court Division,” p. 27.

  64. Minutes, “Domestic Court of New York Children’s Court Division,” p. 48.

  65. Minutes, “Domestic Court of New York Children’s Court Division,” pp. 72–75.

  66. Minutes, “Domestic Court of New York Children’s Court Division,” p. 79. For a discussion of stigma and the way it continues influences student learning and the student–teacher relationship, see Zirkel (2005).

  67. Ibid.

  68. Markowitz and Rosner (1996, p. 58).

  69. Markowitz and Rosner (1996, p. 24).

  70. “Finkler—Direct Testimony,” Afternoon Session, Nov 14, 1958, p. 147. JWP, Box 20, folder 245.

  71. “Finkler—Direct Testimony,” p. 144.

  72. Homel (1984, p. 110).

  73. Mannes (1959, p. 16).

  74. Mannes (1959, p. 19).

  75. “Finkler—Direct Testimony,” p. 155.

  76. Justine Polier, In the Matter of Charlene Skipwith and Another. Domestic Relations Court of the City of New York, Children’s Court Division. 14 Misc. 2d 325; 180 N.Y.S. 2d 852.

  77. Columbia Oral History of Justine Wise Polier, nd, interviewer unknown, JWP, Box 1, Folder “OH”, 191.

  78. Sara Slack, “School Board Appeal Enrages Baptists,” New York Age, undated newspaper clipping available in JWP, Box 20, folder 249.

  79. Ibid.

  80. Mannes (1959, p. 19).

  81. Ibid.

  82. Ravitch (2000, p. 258).

  83. For a discussion of Jansen’s struggle with the Board of Education see Jansen (1963, pp. 123–128).

  84. Cartoon by Feelings (1959). Feelings’ incisive work regularly appeared on the editorial page of the New York Age, and he became a prominent illustrator of children’s books. He died in 2003, and unfortunately his son denied permission to reprint the cartoon discussed here.

  85. Slack (1959).

  86. Stone (1959).

  87. Swanson (1966, p. 20).

  88. Swanson (1966, p. 19).

  89. New York Teacher News, Jan 24, 1959, p. 1.

  90. Patterson (2001, p. xxix).

  91. Podair (2002, p. 22).

  92. Ibid, p. 16.

  93. San Miguel, for example, shows that in the first half of the twentieth century Mexican–American students in Houston were frequently misdiagnosed as “subnormal” in elementary school, and disproportionately tracked into vocational education in secondary schools. See San Miguel (2001, pp. 29–33). For data on the overrepresentation of minority children in special education, see Oswald et al. (2002, p. 6). See also from the same collection, Osher et al. (2002).

  94. For the history of New York City’s community control movement see Podair (2002).

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  1. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Jennifer de Forest

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de Forest, J. The 1958 Harlem School Boycott: Parental Activism and the Struggle for Educational Equity in New York City. Urban Rev 40, 21–41 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-007-0075-5

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