The strike that changed New York
Subtitle: blacks, whites, and the Ocean Hill-Brownsville crisis
By: Jerald E. Podair
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2002
Place of publication: New Haven
Language: eng
Number of pages: 273
Subjects: Ocean Hill-Brownsville Demonstration School District (New York, N.Y.); Strikes and lockouts -- Teachers -- New York (State) -- New York; Discrimination in education -- New York (State) -- New York
Description: "On May 9, 1968, junior high school teacher Fred Nauman received a letter that would change the history of New York City. It informed him that he had been fired from his job. Eighteen other educators in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville area of Brooklyn received similar letters that day. The dismissed educators were white. The local school board that fired them was predominantly African-American.

The crisis that the firings provoked became the most racially divisive moment in the city in more than a century, sparking three teachers' strikes and increasingly angry confrontations between black and white New Yorkers at bargaining tables, on picket lines, and in the streets.".

"This book revisits the Ocean Hill-Brownsville crisis - a watershed in modern New York City race relations. Jerald E. Podair connects the conflict with the sociocultural history of the city and explores its influence on city politics, economics, and culture. Podair shows how the crisis became a symbol of the vast perceptual chasm separating black and white New Yorkers.

And the legacy of this critical moment, when blacks and whites spoke past each other like strangers, has ever since played a role in city issues ranging from mayoral elections to budget negotiations, disputes over police violence, and debates on welfare policy. The book is a powerful, sobering tale of racial misunderstanding and fear, a New York story with national implications."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 249-260) and index
Table of contents: title: Two New Yorks : New York City, 1945-1965; title: The rise of community; title: "Black" values, "white" values : race and culture in New York City during the 1960s; title: The Ocean Hill-Brownsville community control experiment; title: The strikes; title: Like strangers : the third strike and beyond; title: Culture war; title: After the crisis : race and memory; title: Ocean Hill-Brownsville, New York, America