The Strike that Changed New York
| The Strike that Changed New York: Blacks, Whites, and the Ocean Hill-Brownsville Crisis | |
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| Author(s) | Jearld E. Podair |
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| Publisher | Yale University Press |
| Publication date | 2002-12-15 |
| Pages | 288 |
| ISBN | 0300109407 |
Jody Noll
The study of labor within the United States has frequently examined private sector labor relations between workers and management. As private sector industrialized labor permeated the country during the first half of the twentieth century, historians have viewed this field as fundamental to understanding the social, economic, and political structures during this period. However, while industrialized labor and unionism played an important role in the formation of a modern America, the post war era also saw a rise in public sector employees who demanded increased autonomy within their profession. John F. Kennedy’s signing of Executive Order 10988 in 1962 provided the right for federal employees to collective bargain, and also paved the way for an increase of public sector unionism at state and local levels. This increased unionization drastically changed the relationship between public sector workers and the state, thus creating new arenas of labor conflict. The importance of public sector unionism on the changing political culture within the United States during the 1960s and 1970s cannot be overstated; nevertheless, public sector unionism has remained an often ignored subject. Recent years, however, has seen an increase of scholarship on this burgeoning field. In his book, Collison Course, historian Joseph McCartin analyzes the air traffic controllers strike during the early 1980s and argues that this strike, and Reagan response’s to it, marked the end of liberal labor policies. In doing so, McCartin places public sector unionism at the heart the country’s shift towards neoliberalism. In his book, The Strike that Changed New York, Jerald Podair adds to the historiography of public sector unionism, while also illustrating the racial and class dynamics that grew out of the public sector.
By examining the Ocean Hill–Brownsville strike in New York City in 1968, Podair contends that the strike had far reaching consequences that reshaped the political and social structures within the city. Stating that, “the Ocean Hill-Brownsville controversy showed black and white New Yorkers to be profoundly at odds over the very shape and definition of human relations in the city,” Podair asserts that the labor strife in 1968 came from a racial divide between whites and blacks. (5) Stemming from opposing definitions of equality, whites and African Americans used education as a forum to voice their differing views on the subject. Podair sees the battles over education as a turning point in the political and racial discourse between whites and African Americans within the city. He states that, “it was about how blacks and whites, with markedly different ideas about equality, pluralism, and being “middle-class” meant, fought for their visions of a fair and just city, and what their different languages meant for the politics and culture of the city in the 1970s and beyond.” (8) While Podair views the Ocean Hill-Brownsville crisis as essential to understanding this shift, he points out that it did not create this gulf in discourse. Nevertheless, the crisis sharpened the racial divide, forcing New Yorkers to reformulate their own political identity, which became an identity based on race and not political ideology.
For Podair, the labor strife that occurred during the Ocean Hill-Brownsville crises centered on racially distinct definitions of community and community based politics. As the labor force and economy changed within New York City in the post war era, from industrial to white collar, African American’s were excluded from the prosperity that permeated white New York. During the 1960s African American’s within New York City increased their demands for inclusion in the post war boom that benefited many whites. At the heart of this demand was education, of which African American’s saw an unequal system that benefited whites and hindered their own education. The unequal system created a demand by African Americans for forced integration through busing. Vehemently opposing the issue of forced busing, whites used community organizing as a vehicle to stop forced integration. For the white citizens who opposed busing, the idea of community and community based politics focused on the exclusion of African Americans. Podair writes that, “this impulse was conservative in nature, a reflection of PAT-ers’ definition of “community” as a stable, safe haven from a hostile outside world.” (28) In the face of this opposition, however, African American leaders shifted the meaning of community and community politics to meet their own needs. In doing so, they created a community based approach to cope with the inequality within education. Here, African Americans demanded a say over the education their children received, thus conflicting with white teachers’ ideas of education.
As African American leaders increasingly viewed community based control as a means to address a broken education system, they sought a place implement their ideas. They found it in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville are of New York City. Gaining support from local government, African American in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville took control of the educational board within the community. They believed that in order to address the economic and social disparity within the city, black students needed black teachers who understood the issues their students faced in a racialized society. Podair argues that this not only stemmed from ideas about race, but over issues of class as well. White, often Jewish teachers, in Ocean Hill-Brownsville sought to impart a white middle class ethos on their African American students. While Podair never directly states it, the move to convey a white middle class culture on black students was steeped in ideas of racial superiority. By pushing their own ideas on what constituted a proper culture, white teachers de-legitimized black culture viewing it as inferior to their own. However, by calling for black teachers to teach black students, the community based education board in Ocean Hill-Brownsville, also sought to strip away autonomy from the majority white teacher’s union, the United Federation of Teachers. Illustrating this, the board canceled the contracts of nineteen white teachers who they viewed as union agitators. The result became a city wide teacher strike that pitted white teachers against the African American community of Ocean Hill-Brownsville. The strike allowed white liberal Jews to move away from their previously and long held alliance with African Americans, and pushed them towards a political identity that became based on their race, and not their ideology. These Jews, through their whiteness, now found a commonality with Irish Catholics, a group many Jews previously viewed as too conservative to form any type of political coalition. It is through this changing alliance that Podair views the true significance of the strike. By shifting alliances, and basing their political identity on their race, Jews now assisted in the creation of a more conservative power structure that continues to dominate politics within New York City.
While Podair has written an important work on the formation and consequences of the Ocean-Hill Brownsville teacher strike, he could have developed a more detailed analysis on the middle class ideology of white teachers. He appears content on viewing class through the realm of race, but in doing so, Podair struggles to explain what this middle class ethos meant for white teachers, and how it shaped their own struggles as educators. Even a modicum of discussion on this topic would have enhanced his analysis and perhaps sharpened his argument. This critique notwithstanding, Podair’s analysis of the strike illustrates the important influence public sector unionism and labor strife can have on the political and social landscape. Historians of labor, modern US, and race would certainly find his work useful.
