Most histories about the integration of Boston’s schools in the 1970s focus on the tension between the city’s Black and white residents—but there’s another narrative that goes beyond black and white. This is the little-known story of how Latino and Asian activists took on the education system, and won.
LueRachelle Brim-Atkins grew up in Naples, Texas, where strict segregation was a part of everyday life. Years later she moved to Seattle, Washington. There, she spoke with her friend, Jacquelyn Howard, about her early life, and how her family’s legacy led her to becoming an educator.
Diane Hayes Powers tells her daughter Destiny McLurkin about growing up in segregated Seattle and how her experiences during school desegregation inspired her to advocate for young people in her community.
When the Chicago Board of Education voted to close 50 elementary schools, the majority of students affected were Black, who were being bused to new schools in sometimes rival gang territories. Community organizer Jeanette Taylor and teacher Angela Ross talked about the impact of the school closures on their community.
Chris Horan tells his daughter Katie Wetsell about his recollections of school desegregation as a white student in McGehee, Arkansas in the 1960s. The two reflect on what they have learned through his experiences and stories, and how that informs how they move through the world today.=
National director of Education Innovation and Research for the NAACP Dr. Ivory Toldson and executive director of the Education and Civil Rights Initiative Dr. Adrienne Dixson speak with professor of education leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University, Sonya Douglass about the state of educational equity in America nearly seventy years after Brown vs Board of Education.
Director and co-producer of the ground breaking Netflix Documentary DISCLOSURE Sam Feder and director of the Transgender Media Lab and Transgender Media Portal Laura Horak speak with activist, author and media strategist Raquel Willis about the history and effects of transgender representation in media.
The War on Disco explores the culture war that erupted over the rise of Disco music. The hostility came to a head on July 12, 1979, when a riot led by rock fans broke out at “Disco Demolition Night” during a baseball game in Chicago.
Louis Jordan grew up on a farm in Americus, Georgia during the late 1950's. He spoke with his son, Andrew about the racial tensions and unrest that marked his childhood and how desegregating his high school helped shape the man he would become.
In the summer of 1974, Suzanne Lee was a first-year teacher living in Boston’s Chinatown and Howard Wong was an 11-year-old middle schooler. They remembered when the notice for desegregation first came, and how it eventually led to a Chinese student boycott of Boston schools.
Judy Stoia first met Patricia Kelly when Pat knocked on her door and asked if she was interested in selling her home. It was 1976, and many whites were fleeing Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood because of school desegregation. Now, nearly 50 years later, they remember that tumultuous time…
In 1961, identical twin sisters Sheila Malone-Conway and Sharon Malone were part of a group of students in Memphis, Tennessee, who integrated previously all-white schools. Known as the “Memphis 13,” these African American students were all enrolled as first graders. From Nashville, Tennessee, Sheila Malone-Conway and Sharon Malone talked about their experience.
