Race War in High School - Harold Saltzman - Epilogue
Saltzman, Harold. Race War in High School: The Ten-Year Destruction of Franklin K. Lane High School in Brooklyn. New York: Arlington House, 1972.
The Spring, 1970, semester was the most productive and peaceful term Franklin K. Lane High School had enjoyed in four years. In May there was a faculty-student picnic at Long Island's Hecksher State Park, and in spite of an all-day drizzle some 350 students and teachers participated in the outing. Bert Jeffrey, a black industrial arts teacher who was well liked and respected by most of the staff (even though he had crossed union picket lines in the 1968 strike), assumed the new position of coordinator of student affairs. Working closely with the militants as a confidant of sorts and as their link with the administration, Jeffrey was a key factor in keeping things cool all during that spring term.
By April the register was down to 4,274 students, a number that was realistic for the single session. Accordingly, there were far fewer "drop-ins" and it even became possible to resume assembly programs. Even the tone of the school cafeteria the most reliable barometer in the building, was almost bearable—a far cry from the anarchy of previous semesters. Much of the credit for the prevailing peace was directly attributable to the presence of twelve black and Puerto Rican security guards employed by the school board to patrol the halls and regulate entrance to and egress from the building. While the guards had the power to arrest they carried no weapons and wore street clothes, often emulating the mod styles worn by the students themselves. Friendly, personable, most in their early and mid-twenties, they quickly established a rapport with the black youngsters. The guards came to recognize and know by name the students who cut class and who wandered the halls or loitered in the lavatories, stairwells, or cafeteria. They won the respect of the student body and were able to get some of the most troublesome students back into class or at least removed from those areas where they most frequently caused disturbances. The same black student who reacted with hostility to the politest request by a teacher on hall patrol usually acquiesced to the same request when made by a security guard.
During that spring semester Lane was actually a place of teaching and learning. At any given time of the day one could stand at the far end of the main first-floor corridor—the hallway which was usually the most densely congested with aimlessly wandering students—and for minutes not see a soul there during a subject class period. The quiet halls were conducive to a healthy educational atmosphere and inside the classrooms the learning process was taking root. And there seemed to be hope for the future, too. The Lane UFT chapter had gone on record the previous October (see page 130) as favoring the introduction of a special job- and career-oriented program for the school. A faculty committee headed by Seymour Cohen and the chairman of the grade-advisers, Seymour Harr (both UFT chapter activists), met with numerous industrial and business leaders for five months to secure career-oriented jobs for students which would lend themselves to meaningful curriculum revision. If school could somehow be made more "relevant," they thought, by having a direct correlation to the jobs students held after school hours or in alternate weeks—and if more than just a handful of Lane students could participate in such a pilot project—then maybe, just maybe, the school could be saved. Cohen and Harr, with the help of Mary Cohen (no relation), drew up the blueprint for the program in the hope that it could go into operation for the fall semester. Oscar Dombrow, formerly principal of James Monroe High School in the Bronx, had been tapped by Jacob Zack to fill one of the new positions as acting assistant superintendent in charge of Brooklyn high schools. The two Lane teachers, with the support of the school administration, Baumann and the UFT chapter, and the central UFT office, sold Dombrow on the idea. The new assistant superintendent even tacitly agreed to their top-priority recommendation that the new incoming class be kept down to about 800 students, as opposed to the 1,300 that were usually admitted from the feeder junior high schools. Confident that they were on the verge of winning a new life for their school, Cohen and Harr made great strides in interesting private enterprise in the prospect of a partnership with a school that had become the orphan of the academic community in New York.
But it didn't take long for the bubble to burst, as soon as it became apparent that this was another in the long line of public relations gimmicks used by the school board to deceive parents, teachers, and whole communities. It started when the Lane chapter learned that local pressures from Ridgewood, Queens—home of Assemblywoman Rosemary Gunning of antibusing fame—had resulted in a secretive and unannounced zoning change for Ridgewood's Grover Cleveland High School. Cleveland, like Lane, had drawn its students from a contiguous zone which included both Brooklyn and Queens. But unlike Lane, the Ridgewood school took only about 30 percent of its student body from the predominantly black Bushwick section of Brooklyn. In the spring of 1970 a core of black militant students engaged in a campaign of violence creating unprecedented turmoil at Grover Cleveland. The civic and political forces of western Queens reacted strongly and with dispatch. The result: no more Bushwick (black) students would be sent across the Brooklyn-Queens border into Cleveland. The school would soon return to its former lily-white status and Ridgewood was to be spared the fate that had befallen Woodhaven and Cypress Hills. But that zoning shift had far-reaching implications for Lane High School. To accommodate the change, Brooklyn students who had been in the Cleveland zone were redistricted into the already overcrowded Bushwick High School. The overutilization rate for Bushwick would rise to 212 percent. Put in other terms, for every seat in Bushwick High School there would now be two students. Instead of opposing this cynical coup, UFT Vice President George Altomare registered no protest and directed his energies to seeking out an annex building to house Bushwick's overflow. Unfortunately, the Bushwick UFT chapter was not moved to action, allowing Altomare instead to lull them into acceptance of the rezoning with promises of speedy relief and special programs.
For Lane the Cleveland shift meant an adjustment in Brooklyn zoning. Since Bushwick High School was picking up a large area that formerly went to Cleveland, Lane was saddled with a part of what had been Bushwick's zone, killing off any chance to keep the incoming class down to the 800 figure.
"But what am I going to do with 500 kids?" Oscar Dombrow pleaded when the chapter leaders pressed him on his pledge to give Lane a reduced incoming class. Not only did the High School Office back away from its promise to give Lane this numerical relief, but its bureaucrats went a step further, twisting the knife to doom Lane to yet another year of turmoil, violence, and racial polarization. In 1969 the graduating class of JHS's 271 and 55 of the Ocean Hill-Brownsville district had been spread out among many different Brooklyn high schools. These were the students who had received special ideological training by the militant blacks in that experimental district and who, consequently, harbored the most antagonistic feelings against "whitey," the "system," and those UFT teachers who were "purposely destroying the minds of black students." Bowing to pressures from the other end of the borough, the High School Office now moved to zone the great majority of Ocean Hill students back into Lane. They proceeded to remove the skip zones that could have given Lane the breathing spell it needed for the 1970-71 school year. Where Lane had received only 128 students from that controversial district in 1969, the number jumped to 450 in 1970. And with that increase came the decline of incoming whites to 19.5 percent. It was the final blow. The patient that seemed on its way to recovery in the spring of 1970 heard the death knell sound as school reopened in September. And with the influx of such large numbers of politicized and academically retarded youngsters went what was probably the last hope of saving Lane High School.
The scene in the fall of 1970 was almost an exact repetition of 1968 and 1969. Disruption, crime, and other acts of violence were rampant. The program for job and career training got buried in the bureaucratic maze of funding and there was a plan afoot to dilute it (by the mayor's Urban Action Task Force) by spreading the pilot project out among several high schools. Instead of saturation for Lane they now began talking about giving the school only a piece of the pie—a piece too small to make any difference if the project ever got off the ground. By January, 1971, there were still no signs that the program would ever be implemented.
[Note: The pilot project is scheduled to begin in September. 1972. for 200 ninth and tenth graders and for 400 junior and senior class students.]
Meanwhile, Lane again became a battleground. Added to the 1,374 incoming ninth and tenth grade class were 691 transfers from other schools—mainly vocational schools—pushing the total number of new students to 2,000. With that swelling enrollment and renewed violence came the untimely 50 percent reduction in the corps of security guards. Instead of the twelve guards who had played such a vital role in holding the school together the previous term, Lane was cut back to six in September, 1970. Of that six only three remained from the original group that had distinguished itself in the spring term. Part of the problem was that the school board had refused to permit a collective bargaining election that would have given the guards union representation, a contract, security, fringe benefits, and a living wage. Instead, the school board had chosen to keep their wages at the near poverty level of $2.87 per hour —under $100 per week—with no job security and without pay during the extended holiday recesses such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Spring vacation, as well as legal holidays. And come the summer months, they joined the ranks of the unemployed. Small wonder that most of them refused to return to Lane. It was a severe loss to the school, leaving a gaping hole in its security as the new term began.
But as trouble flared at Lane the chapter strategy changed. Where publicity had been used to great advantage in the past, Jim Baumann had concluded, heeding Altomare's counsel, that exposing the violence to the public would be counterproductive. Consequently, there were no news releases from the Lane chapter and the new wave of terror went almost unnoticed by the school board and general public. In contrast, at the other end of the city, at George Washington High School in Upper Manhattan, there was a steady stream of publicity about the organized violence that was gripping the school. The activist posture taken by the school's union chapter even convinced the staunchly "liberal" New York Times, which editorialized on the subject of high school violence on October 24, 1970:
The city's high schools are badly in need of reform. Educational concepts and personal attitudes cry out for change. Physically, the schools are dehumanized by intolerable overcrowding that aggravates the disadvantages inherent in their excessive size.
But none of these deficiencies can excuse the plain hoodlumism that has terrorized George Washington High School into shutdown and that in only slightly less virulent form, is turning some other schools into hazard zones for law-abiding students, teachers, and ordinary citizens on the route to and from school.
Part of the problem is that revolutionaries among students and parents regard such turmoil as the ideal breeding ground for their radical designs. Unfortunately, others honestly bent on essential reforms let the radical rhetoric delude them into believing that the violent behavior of a few students is indeed the forward wave of social progress.
It is nothing of the kind. Delinquent adolescents masquerading as Robin Hoods in order to escape punishment, are in reality engaged in the lowest form of intimidation, shakedowns, extortion and violent assault. They avoid being treated as youthful criminals by spreading rumors of racist persecution and by denouncing legitimate arrests as police brutality.
The crisis at George Washington High must not obscure the need for pedagogical reform and better educational leadership. But the exploits of a small band of hoodlums should not be mistakenly tolerated as a form of routine youthful alienation. They are a matter for effective law-enforcement. The majority of students have the right to full assurance that they can attend school without fear of coercion and violence.
Lane High School was certainly more than a mere "hazard zone" in a Times editorial. In spite of the renewed warfare, a decree from Police Inspector Edward Joyce of the 12th Division, Brooklyn, removed four of the seven policemen assigned to the troubled school as of November 20. Joyce had met with Selub the week before with the idea of removing all seven policemen. The principal had told the inspector of the mounting tensions in the building but Joyce was under pressure to get more of the 2,000 cops in his command out on the street. The seven patrolmen at Lane, he thought, could easily be redeployed to meet the demands from City Hall.
But the inspector was soon to get his first taste of student violence—as only Lane's cadres knew how to supply it. At Baumann's insistence Selub arranged a special meeting in his Office, bringing together the school administration, himself, Todaro, and Mary Cohen; Joyce, Captain Cerrone of the 75th precinct, and several lower-ranking officers; Baumann and his UFT chapter committee, Ed Johnson, Ed Grice, John Sowa, and Betty Ann McDonough; Vice President Altomare, UFT District 19 Representative Richard Procida, UFT Brooklyn Borough Representative Maurice Sussman; and representing the school board, Assistant Superintendent Oscar Dombrow. At issue were two points. First, there was the matter of the breach of the January 10, 1969, agreement signed by Altomare, myself, and District Superintendent Elizabeth O'Daly calling for the assignment of the seven policemen inside the building until such time as the principal and chapter chairman agreed on a timetable for phasing them out. While both Selub and Baumann agreed on the necessity of maintaining the police, the principal had violated the 1969 accord when he failed to bring the UFT chairman in on his discussions with the inspector. In all fairness to Joyce, he had no knowledge of the written agreement when he issued his order, and was surprised to learn of its existence when copies were distributed to the parties by Baumann as the meeting convened on November 20. Nor was Joyce aware that the agreement was the result of the behind the scenes play between Nathan Brown and the mayor's own School Task Force.
The second issue concerned the soundness of removing the police at this particular juncture. Even if Joyce had the authority to arbitrarily terminate that 1969 agreement by removing the police detail—which we all granted he did have—there remained the question of the Police Department's responsibility to protect students from criminal activity on school premises. Selub, Dombrow, and the UFT spokesmen (primarily Baumann and Altomare) appealed to the inspector, but he was steadfast. Then, as the discussion proceeded, that all too familiar rumbling came from the student cafeteria in the basement below the principal's first-floor office. There was the smell of burning paper, the chanting of "Power to the People," and the crash of tables and benches being overturned. For what seemed an eternity, but was probably not more than twenty minutes, the meeting continued even while all the signs of an emerging riot stared the participants in the face. Ben Rosenwald, an acting assistant principal, had made several incursions into the meeting, first brandishing a three-foot-long iron bar that had been hurled through a window, shattering a large pane of glass in the student cafeteria and sending hundred of students scurrying for cover; and again, minutes later, bearing news of a white boy having been beaten into unconsciousness by a band of blacks; and finally, a third interruption to whisper to Selub what everyone in the room had known for twenty minutes—that a riot was breaking out in the cafeteria! Only when John Sowa commented, "Gentlemen, I think we're fiddling while Rome is burning," did the meeting adjourn. The riot had been brewing all week and it was about to spread from the cafeteria to other parts of the building. Now the police inspector would see for himself. And how he saw!
The genesis of the November 20 disruption was easily traced to the emergence of a new school club, the Third World Student Union, composed mainly of younger black youths who were bent on continuing in the footsteps of the original militants— most of whom were no longer in the school. The Third World group became an immediate source of friction. Selub had given them special permission—which he later withdrew—to meet in the school cafeteria during the home room period. All the evidence seemed to point to the fact that the Third World was behind the mounting tension. On November 23, three days after the big outburst, a teacher aide wrote Baumann a letter describing what she had witnessed during the course of performing her duties in the cafeteria:
I am a school aide here at Lane. I assist in the distribution of free lunch tokens in the student cafeteria during the official period. During that time I have observed the meetings of the 60 (estimated) youngsters who participate in the Third World Students Club. When the official period ends the faculty advisor leaves, but about half the club members remain in the cafeteria for the 4th period.
When trouble has erupted in the cafeteria, such as the rampage of last Friday, it usually begins at the tables occupied by the students who remained from the Third World Club meetings.
Although Selub had specifically ordered the faculty adviser not to meet with the club during the home room period, its members defied the principal and continued to gather in the cafeteria. Now it was November 20 and what a day they had picked to do their thing! Unaware that some of the highest-ranking police officers in Brooklyn were at that very moment conferring in the principal's office, the Third World group swung into action. Marching their cadres up to the first floor they picked up supporters with each pass. Behind the red, green, and black liberation flag the procession advanced, chanting in unison the now familiar "Power to the People" ditty, shouting obscenities at teachers who stood by dumbfounded, watching in shocked disbelief.
Joyce, realizing that the small contingent of men left in the school was inadequate to curb the rapidly developing riot, sent out an SOS for reinforcements. Within fifteen minutes a squad of thirty riot police was in the building. Cerrone took charge, deploying the men at key points to prevent the mob's free access to all parts of the building and to force them to leave by the single exit adjacent to the principal's office. Without physically interfering with the demonstrators the police formed a human barricade that channeled the students out of the building and into the street where they soon dispersed. Sensing the disruption hundreds of other students seized upon the opportunity to get out of school early, and left. By 12:30 P.M. the building was 90 percent empty.
Edward Joyce, red-faced but smiling as the meeting reconvened in Selub's office, observed: "Well, when I pull a boner I sure pull a boner." The matter of the seven policemen at Lane was resolved—and would be for some time if Ed Joyce had anything to say about it. The Third World students had accomplished what the professional judgment of the entire high school division (administration and union) had been unable to do—convince the Police Department that seven cops was not an excessive number to protect almost 5,000 students from the everyday crime and frequent political disruption at Lane.
The November 20 explosion did not go unnoticed in the local community. On November 28 the Long Island Press carried a news story headlined "PRINCIPAL BLAMED FOR OUTBREAK OF VIOLENCE AT LANE."
"After nearly a year of quiet and educational progress in which our association [Cypress Hills-Woodhaven Community Association] was a major contributing factor Lane is again a troubled school," declared Michael R. Long, cochairman of the association, following an in-depth study of the situation. "Our executive board found that Selub permitted hate to be preached within his school despite repeated warnings of his staff that a dangerous situation existed in the school and was bound to erupt at a given time, and displayed a complete lack of leadership in allowing 'The Third World Movement' to function with the resultant senseless attack upon students."
The Third World had set the tone for the remainder of the semester and as school recessed for the Christmas vacation on December 23, teachers and students looked back on yet another semester of chaos and terror at Lane High School. What new horrors 1971 would bring, nobody could safely predict.
On December 16 Harvey B. Scribner,[Note: Dr. Scribner came to New York by way of rural Vermont and Teaneck, New Jersey, where as schools superintendent his educational policies came under heavy fire.] the new chancellor of the now decentralized city school system, addressed the UFT's Delegate Assembly. (The chancellor post replaced the superintendent of schools as the number-one administrative job.)
The next day I seized upon the occasion of his speech to advise Dr. Scribner of the breakdown at Lane. The letter follows in its entirety:
Dear Dr. Scribner:
Like the rest of the UFT delegates who came to hear you speak I listened with great interest, yesterday, hoping that you would address yourself to the critical problem facing high schools such as my own Franklin K. Lane. (Lane sits squarely on the Brooklyn-Queens borderline, between the communities of Cypress Hills and Woodhaven.)
Since your speech did little more than mention the problem of high school violence I must assume that your subordinates in the office of High Schools have not kept you apprised of the "guerrilla warfare" that is raging at Franklin K. Lane and certain other high schools. Or, perhaps, the High School office is not getting the information from their administrators in the field
Whichever the case must tell you in all frankness that the situation here at Lane High School is approaching anarchy. Consider, if you will, these facts:
In many sections of the building it has become almost impossible to conduct a lesson due to the constant disruption in the halls. Bands of students roam the halls banging on classroom doors and committing acts of vandalism
Dice games and smoking cigarettes in the student cafeteria and hallways have become usual occurrences.
Fires are set in student lockers. Classroom and office windows are smashed.
Last week a total of 27 thick glass stairwell dividers were shattered.
Bulletin boards are doused with highly flammable fluid and set ablaze.
Trays of food and other refuse litter the hallways and stairwells.
Fire extinguishers are torn from the walls, released, flooding the halls with foam.
Many teachers conduct classes with doors locked and shades drawn.
Increasing numbers of students are attempting to draw teachers into physical confrontations. Teachers, fearful of their own safety, are rendered helpless to enforce disciplines of the most fundamental nature. Faculty demoralization is setting in rapidly.
Frightened students refuse to enter the cafeteria or a lavatory.
The deans can provide alarming statistics on the incidence of muggings, extortions, and brutal assaults against helpless and innocent youngsters.
There is strong evidence to indicate that much of the violence is organized from within the school by administratively sanctioned "clubs"—which are given direction by extremist elements in outlying areas from where Lane draws a large part of its student body.
Yes, you are correct in stating to the UFT Delegates that student violence is only an emanation of deeper educational shortcomings which need reform. We heartily agree. But unless something is done at Lane, quickly, I fear that there will be nothing left to reform!
I am reminded of a letter sent to Mayor Lindsay some time ago by a parent of a Lane student—pleading that steps be initiated to end the reign of terror. Her words echo a frightening reminder:
"This letter may label me a frantic mother," she concluded, "but please don't let me become a bereaved one."
Chancellor Scribner—we at Lane need help and we need leadership. Don't turn your back on us as the High School Office has done so many times in recent years. There isn't much time left.
There was no reply from the Chancellor's office, only a defensive response from Oscar Dombrow charging that Lane's problems could be solved if only the teachers would be more cooperative. Not that it really mattered! Bernard Donovan, Nathan Brown, Irving Anker, now Harvey Scribner! The names and the faces had changed, but one thing had remained constant during these years of strife at Franklin K. Lane High School—the crowd at 110 Livingston just didn't give a damn!
For Lane this really was the end.
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