1st Edition

Why They Couldn't Wait A Critique of the Black-Jewish Conflict Over Community Control in Ocean-Hill Brownsville, 1967-1971

By Jane Anna Gordon Copyright 2001
    192 Pages 4 Color Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Examining the infamous conflict between a predominantly black community and a predominantly Jewish teachers' union, Gordon takes a new look at this historically rich and racially diverse community.

    Contents Preface, with Acknowledgements Introduction: The Need for Public Education in a Democratic Society Chapter 1 Who Should Run the Schools?: Decentralization and Community Control Chapter 2 Black Power: Failures of Integration and the Mobilization of a Community Chapter 3 White Power: The Construction of Jews as the Voice of Reason Chapter 4 When Some Workers Don't Look Toward the Left: The Battle with the United Federation of Teachers Conclusion: A Question of Whose Children Benefit from Whose Labor Endnotes

    Biography

    Jane Anna Gordon is a William Penn doctoral fellow in Political Theory at the University of Pennsylvania. She formerly worked as a researcher at the Institute for Elementary and Secondary Education at Brown University. She is a licensed secondary school teacher.

    "WHY THEY COULDN'T WAIT sympathetically chronicles a complex chapter in the struggle for racial equality. It serves as an important corrective to the mostly hostile mainstream accounts, and usefully recalls that many (if still too few) Jews joined in solidarity with the beleaguered Oceanhill-Brownsville commuity." -- Norman G. Finkelstein, author of THE HOLOCAUST INDUSTRY