Segregation or "thinking black"?: Community activism and the development of black-focused schools in toronto and london, 1968-2008

Teachers College Record

Volumn 115, Issue 11, 2013, Pages

  Johnson, Lauri ^a  

^a BOSTON COLLEGE   (United States)

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EID: 84890714797     PISSN: 01614681     EISSN: 14679620     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (90)

1. While the term Afrocentric is common in the United States, Canadian activists have used Africentric because this spelling bears a closer resemblance to the term African-centered. Some educational researchers have described culture- based schools as "ethnocentric" niche schools, a term which has a pejorative connotation for advocates (see, e.g., Robert Fox, Nina K. Buchanan, Suzanne Eckes, and Letitia Basford, "The Line Between Cultural Education and Religious Education: Do Ethnocentric Charter Schools Have a Prayer?" Review of Research in Education, 36 (2012): 282-305.) In this article, I have used the term Blackfocused as an overarching concept that refers to historical efforts to develop educational programs focused on Black cultural, historical, and political issues and concerns, with an understanding that there may be some differences regarding ideology, curriculum, and terminology between individual programs and across national contexts.
2. See Kristen Rushowy, "Black-Focused School Debate Set," Toronto Star, Nov. 7, 2007; Robert Benzie, "McGuinty Issues Warning on Black-Focused Schools," Toronto Star, February 1, 2008. Scores of articles in opposition to Toronto's Africentric school, including racist cartoons, appeared in the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail in 2007 and 2008. They generally argued that segregating students would not prepare them for life in a multicultural society. For the range of responses to the Africentric school proposal in Toronto's Black community, see Isabelle Ekwa- Ekoko, "Afrocentric Schools within a Multicultural Context: Exploring Different Attitudes Towards the TDSB Proposal within the Black Community" (thesis, Ryerson University, 2008) and Rosina Agyepong, "Black-Focused Schools: What Do African Canadian Parents Say?" (dissertation, University of Toronto, 2010). For the responses of a select group of Black youth to the proposal, see Megan K. Gordan and Dawn Zinga, "'Fear of Stigmitization': Black Canadian Youths' Reaction to the Implementation of a Black-Focused School in Toronto," Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, 131 (2012), http://www.umanitoba.ca/publications/cjeap/pdf_files/gordon_zinga.pdf
3. The current Toronto District School Board (TDSB) school population includes 259,000 students enrolled in almost 600 schools. The TDSB was established on January 1, 1998 as a result of the amalgamation of seven distinct school boards in the Greater Toronto Area. In this article, Black advocacy organizations that developed in Toronto before 1998 will be identified by the school board in which they originated.
4. For example, in several of the largest urban school districts in the United States (i.e., New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Cleveland, and Philadelphia) school board members are appointed by city or state officials, not elected.
5. "Black Schools Wrong Answer," Toronto Star, January 21, 2008.
6. From the author's field notes recorded during the Jan. 29, 2008 Toronto school board meeting as well as the videotape of the meeting by Rogers TV. Louis March notes that supporters of the school engaged in several community forums in the Black community in order to counter this impression. Louis March, interview with author, Toronto, May 3, 2012.
7. Alternative Schools, Toronto District School Board Policy P.062 CUR, Adopted June 27, 2007. Accessed at http://www.tdsb.on.ca/Leadership/ Boardroom/AgendaMinutes.aspx?Type=M&Year=2007&Filename=70627. pdf. See also Toronto District School Board Minutes, Special Meeting, Jan. 29, 2008 for the board vote on the Africentric school.
8. Author's field notes, January 29, 2008.
9. There are currently 37 Alternative School programs listed in the Toronto District School Board. Alternative programs developed over the years include one that focused on First Nation issues and another whose curriculum was designed for LGBTQ students. Accessed at http://www.tdsb.on.ca/Findyour/School/ AlternativeSchools.aspx
10. Author's field notes, January 29, 2008. See also the Discussion Paper on Africentric Alternative School, Toronto District School Board, December 19, 2007. As a series of investigative reports have shown, this dropout rate has remained remarkably constant over the last forty years.
11. Louise Brown and Brett Popplewell, "Board Okays Black-Focused School," Toronto Star, January 30, 2008.
12. Charges by parents about the overrepresentation of Black students in special education classes and vocational programs in the Toronto schools date back to the 1970s. Lloyd McKell, interview with author, Toronto, Canada, May 2, 2012.
13. John Murray Gibbon, Canadian Mosaic: Making of a Modern Nation (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1938). This book envisioned that each immigrant group to Canada would retain their distinct ethnic identity yet contribute to the nation as a whole. A feature of Canadian multiculturalism policy in the 1970s, it has frequently been contrasted to the U.S. melting pot (see Reva Joshee and Lauri Johnson, Multicultural Policies in Canada and the United States (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2007.) In 2004 the United Nations declared Toronto one of the most multicultural cities in the world.
14. Rashid Razaq, "Lee Jasper: Black-Only Schools Will Beat Gangs," London Evening Standard (London, UK), September 9, 2008.
15. Louis March, May 3, 2012. Lee Jasper subsequently interviewed Louis March about the African Canadian Heritage Association (ACHA) and published information about the development of Toronto's Africentric school on his London blog. Accessed at: http://theafricanacademy.blogspot.com/
16. See Marcus Cato (interview with Author, London, England, March 7, 2012) and email correspondence with Rosemary Campbell-Stephens (June 11, 2012) who, along with others, submitted proposals to the Department for Education for the establishment of Black-led Free Schools.
17. John Burn-Murdoch, "Over Three Quarters of Free Schools Take Fewer Deprived Pupils than Their State-Funded Equivalents," The Guardian, April 23, 2012. This lack of support for Black-sponsored Free Schools was underscored by Patricia Lamour, one of the designers and promoters of the African Academy proposal, during the 2011 London Schools and Our Children conference. Previously known as the London Schools and the Black Child conference (initiated by Black MP Dianne Abbott in 2000), the conference was renamed in 2011 by London Mayor Boris Johnson whom Lee Jasper claimed had hijacked and "whitewashed" it. See Lester Holloway's blog, accessed at: http://cllrlesterholloway.wordpress. com/2011/11/12/i-dont-give-a-monkeys-boris-tells-black-conference/; also Lee Jasper's blog accessed at: http://leejasper.blogspot.com/2011/11/london-schoolsblack- child-conference.html. For more data about race inequalities in Free Schools, see Eleanor Stokes, Elizabeth Walker, Emma Rees, Fahmida Sultana, Manuel Casertano, and Barbara Nea, Inclusive Schools: The Free Schools Monitoring Project (London: Race on the Agenda, 2012).
18. ESN (aka Educationally Subnormal) schools in London, intended for intellectually disabled students, were disproportionately Black in the late 1960s. See Bernard Coard, How the West Indian Child is Made Educationally Subnormal in the British School System: The Scandal of the Black Child in Schools in Britain (London: New Beacon Books, 1971).
19. Diane Reay and Heidi Mirza, "Uncovering Genealogies of the Margins: Black Supplementary Schooling," British Journal of Sociology of Education 18, no. 4 (1997): 477-499; Heidi Mirza and Diane Reay, "Spaces and Places of Black Educational Desire: Rethinking Black Supplemental Schools as a New Social Movement," Sociology 34, no. 3 (2000): 521-544. For recent historical work on the development of Black supplementary schools in England, see Kevin Myers and Ian Grosvenor, "Exploring Supplementary Education: Margins, Theories and Methods," History of Education 40, no. 4 (2011): 501-520; Jessie Gerrard, "Self Help and Protest: The Emergence of Black Supplementary Schooling in England," Race Ethnicity and Education 16 (2013): 32-58.
20. Nah Dove, Racism and its Effect on the Quality of Education and the Educational Performance of the Black Child (thesis, Institute of Education, University of London, 1990); Nah Dove, "The Emergence of Black Supplementary Schools: Resistance to Racism in the United Kingdom," Urban Education 27 no. 4 (1993): 430-447.
21. Data sources from Toronto included surveying forty years of published school board minutes (1968-2008), Black history curriculum guides, school district reports and memos on the status of African Canadian students, and board member correspondence in the TDSB archives; newspaper articles, editorial essays, and photographs in the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail and community ethnic newspapers such as Share; and deputations from parents and community members videotaped by the TDSB before and during the January 29, 2008 school board meeting. Sources accessed in London included newspaper clippings and journal articles from mainstream media such as The London Times Educational Supplement and the Guardian; antiracist newsletters and journals, such as Race Today; and ethnic community newspapers like the West Indian World. Notes, correspondence, petitions, flyers, meeting minutes, photographs, and sample curriculum developed by activist groups were researched at the George Padmore Institute (GPI), the Black Cultural Archives (BCA), and the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA). Oral history interviews were conducted with 10 activists in Toronto and 7 activists in London who were involved in advocacy efforts and the development of early Black educational programs and supplementary schools in the 1970s and 1980s. Key informants were initially identified from the archival records. Through a snowball sampling procedure, others were subsequently located and interviewed who were also involved in advocacy efforts.
22. Katherine McKittrick and Clyde Woods, eds., Black Geographies and the Politics of Place (Toronto: Between the Lines Press, 2007).
23. On the 2006 Canadian census, "visible minorities" are defined by Statistics Canada as "persons, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour." In 2006, the top five visible minority groups in Ontario included South Asians (794,170), Chinese (576,980), Black (474,765), Filipino (203,220), and Latin American (147,135). This designation remains a controversial term amongst many racial and ethnic groups in Canada.
24. Carl James, David Este, Wanda Thomas Bernard, Akua Benjamin, Bethan Lloyd, and Tana Turner, Race & Well-Being: The Lives, Hopes, and Activism of African Canadians (Halifax & Winnepeg: Fernwood Publishing, 2010).
25. Thando Hyman-Aman, interview with author, Toronto, May 3, 2012.
26. J. David Hulchanski, The Three Cities within Toronto: Income Polarization among Toronto's Neighborhoods, 1970-2005 (Toronto: Centre for Urban and Community Studies, 2010). Accessed at: http://www.urbancentre.utoronto.ca/ pdfs/curp/tnrn/Three-Cities-Within-Toronto-2010-Final.pdf
27. Daniel G. Hill, "Black History in Early Toronto," Polyphony 6 (1984): 28- 30; Carl James, et al., Race & Well-Being, 2010, p. 45.
28. Carl James et al., Race & Well-Being, 49.
29. Frances Henry, The Caribbean Diaspora in Toronto: Learning to Live with Racism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994).
30. Keren Braithwaite, interview with author, Toronto, Canada, February 2, 2012; Amoaba Gooden, "Community Organizing by African Caribbean People in Toronto, Ontario," Journal of Black Studies 38 no. 3 (2008): 413-426; Tim McCaskell, Race to Equity: Disrupting Educational Inequality (Toronto: Between the Lines Press, 2005); Oscar Brathwaite, interview with author, Toronto, Canada, May 4, 2012.
31. Minutes of the Board of Education, Toronto Board of Education, Thursday, April 13, 1978, 355-356.
32. Louis March, May 3, 2012.
33. Ibid. Over forty years later, ACHA continues to provide an Africancentered Saturday program that involves cultural classes and field trips inspired by Black history. It now involves the third generation of African Canadian students and their parents.
34. Keren Brathwaite, February 2, 2012.
35. Vernon Farrell, interview with Author, Toronto, Canada, May 4, 2012.
36. Minutes of the Board of Education, Toronto Board of Education, Thursday, November 23, 1978, 1099-1118.
37. George Sefa Dei, interview with Author, Toronto, Canada, May 1, 2012.
38. Oscar Brathwaite, May 4, 2012; Lloyd McKell, May 2, 2012.
39. Minutes of the Board of Education, Toronto Board of Education, Thursday, March 6, 1986, 147-151; "The Education of Black Students in Toronto Schools," Toronto Board of Education, 1988.
40. Minutes of the Board of Education, Toronto Board of Education, Thursday, June 30, 1988, 539.
41. Stephen Lewis, Consultative Report on Race Relations (Toronto: Ontario Ministry of Citizenship, 1992).
42. George Sefa Dei, May 1, 2012.
43. John G. Dennison, "Toward a New Beginning" (Toronto: Four Level Government/African Canadian Community Working Group, 1992).
44. "Black-Focused Schools Proposal Sparks Debate: Southern-Style Segregation Feared under Ontario Task Force Concept," Winnipeg Free Press, December 21, 1992, A3; "Black-Focused School Plan Raises Spectre of Segregation," Vancouver Sun, December 21, 1992, B9.
45. Royal Commission on Learning, For the Love of Learning. Accessed at http:// www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/general/abcs/rcom/full/index.html
46. Tim McCaskell, Race to Equity, 216-217.
47. Virginia Galt, "Program Teaches Students to Overcome," The Globe and Mail, 1996, A12; Andrew Duffy, "Trustees Approve Programs for Blacks, Gays," The Toronto Star, August 25, 1995, A6.
48. R. D. Gidney, From Hope to Harris: The Reshaping of Ontario's Schools (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999).
49. Louis March, May 3, 2012.
50. Vernon Farrell, May 4, 2012.
51. Oscar Brathwaite, May 4, 2012.
52. Tim McCaskell, Race to Equity, 255-272. See also Tara Goldstein, "Support for the Adoption of the Anti-Racism and Equity for All Policy," October 27, 1998. Dozens of letters discussing support for the more inclusive version of this policy can be found in journalist and activist Michelle Landsburg's papers located in the City of Toronto Archives.
53. Louise Brown, "First Africentric School to Open Tuesday," Toronto Star, September 3, 2009. On November 17, 2011, the TDSB approved the development of an Africentric high school by a vote of 14-6. Although the proposed school received strong support from then TDSB Director Chris Spence, parents and students of Oakwood Collegiate came out in opposition when it was leaked that the district was considering their high school building as a site for the new program. The Africentric high school, termed the Leonard Braithwaite program, opened in September, 2012 at Winston Churchill Collegiate with just six students. Kristin Rushowy, "Africentric High School Wins Board's Blessing," Toronto Star, Nov. 17, 2011; Kate Hammer, "Toronto's Africentric High School Has Modest Start," Globe and Mail, September 20, 2012.
54. Tim Brighouse and Leisha Fullick, Education in the Global City: Essays From London (London: Institute of Education, 2007).
55. Lord Kitchner, the Calypso artist, was on the S.S. Windrush maiden voyage and became an important figure to West Indian immigrants in London in the 1950s. He moved back to Trinidad in 1962. See Sam Walker and Alvin Elcock, The Windrush Legacy: Memories of Britain's Post-war Caribbean Immigrants (Lambeth: Black Cultural Archives, 1998).
56. "Driburg Tells the Jamaicans Britain is No Paradise," South London Press, June 25, 1948.
57. "Colored Folk Get a Cold Welcome," The Windrush Legacy, 12.
58. Ibid., 14-15.
59. "Haringey Education Committee Flyer," April 12, 1969, George Padmore Institute, GB2904 BEM/3/1/1/4.
60. James Baldwin's talk at the West Indian Student Centre in 1968 was filmed by Horace Ove, a Trinidadian filmmaker who had emigrated to London to attend art school. He produced it as a low-budget independent film entitled Baldwin's Nigger (1969). The film can be accessed at http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=ryuAW_gnjYQ; Stokely Carmichael's visit to London in July 1967 helped launch the Black Power movement in London.
61. Ansel Wong, interview with author, Paddington Arts Center, London, England, July 30, 2011.
62. The Huntleys were involved in the development of the Marcus Garvey Supplementary School in Shepard's Bush, and opened the Peter Moses Supplementary School in November, 1986. "Draft Report to Council on the Peter Moses School," LMA/4463/D/10, London Metropolitan Archives.
63. George Padmore Institute, GB2904 BEM/3/1/1/4.
64. "Excursion to Great Yarmouth," "Black Community School Invites You to a Public Lecture by CLR James," Supplementary Schools, LMA/4463/D/10, London Metropolitan Archives.
65. Roxy Harris, interview with author, George Padmore Institute, London, England, June 15, 2009.
66. Nanny of the Maroons was an Asante woman and leader of a community of escaped slaves who outwitted the British army in Jamaica in the eighteenth century. She is a Jamaican national hero. Remi Harris, interview with author. March 5, 2012.
67. Remi Harris notes that Nanny of the Maroons also appeared as a character in their People's War Carnival Band, complete with guns hidden under her dress as part of her outfit. Remi Harris, March 5, 2012.
68. Ansel Wong, July 30, 2011.
69. "AHFIWE: Journal of the Ahfiwe School and Abeng," Wong/2, Black Cultural Archives, Lambeth.
70. Ansel Wong, July 30, 2011. The uneasy relationship between Black youth in many London neighborhoods and the police continues today.
71. Roxy Harris, June 15, 2009. See also "Day Conference-Black Supplementary Schools," George Padmore Institute, BPM 4/2/1/2.
72. John Benyon, Scarman and After: Essays Reflecting on Lord Scarman's Report, the Riots and Their Aftermath (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1984).
73. Anthony Rampton, West Indian Children in Our Schools: Interim Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Education of Children from Ethnic Minority Groups (London: HMSO, 1981). See also Sarah Olowe, Against the Tide: Black Experience in the ILEA (London: The Inner London Educational Authority, 1990).
74. Afro-Caribbean Education Resource Center, Resources for Anti-racist Education, Black Cultural Archives, Garrison/2/2/8.
75. "Minutes of the Ethnic Minorities Section of the Equal Opportunities Sub- Committee of the Inner London Education Authority," January 17, 1984; July 4, 1984; September 18, 1984; October 23, 1984; December 4, 1984; February 12, 1985; March 26, 1985; June 25, 1985; September 3, 1985; December 3, 1985; January 7, 1986; February 11, 1986, London Metropolitan Archives, ILEA/ EO/09.
76. Jessie Gerrard, "Self Help and Protest," 48-49; See also Roxy Harris, June 15, 2009.
77. Gus John, interview with author, Institute of Education, London, June 17, 2009.
78. Gus John, June 17, 2009; Interview with Gerry German, June 18, 2009. Rosemary Campbell-Stephens, June 11, 2012. Britain's Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove proposed to remove Black Britons Mary Seacole and Olaudah Equiano from the national curriculum to make room for "traditional historical figures like Oliver Cromwell and Winston Churchill." Operation Black Vote sponsored a petition against this move that garnered over 30,000 signatures within days (http://www.obv.org.uk/).
79. "Anti-Racist Curriculum Implementation at Lord Dufferin Public School 1987-88"; "Black Cultural Heritage Program," Toronto Board of Education.
80. Some longtime board employees, such as Lloyd McKell, began as staff in the Department of School Community Relations in the mid-1970s and then continued to serve as a bridge between Black activists and school trustees over the course of the next thirty years. McKell promoted the notion of a Black-focused school from inside the TDSB in his role as Executive Officer for Student and Community Equity. See Lloyd McKell, May 2, 2012.
81. Hulchanski, "The Three Cities within Toronto," 11.
82. Oscar Brathwaite, May 4, 2012.
83. Barry Troyna, "The Local Management of Schools and Racial Equality," in Ethnic Relations in Schooling: Policy and Practice for the 1990s, eds. Sally Tomlinson and Maurice Craft (London: Athlone Press, 1995), 140-154. Troyna argued that local authorities play a critical role in supporting (or hindering) antiracist policies and practices.
84. As cited by the National Association of Black Supplementary Schools. Accessed at http://www.nabss.org.uk/#/london/4529353385
85. Quoted in Mirza and Reay, "Spaces and Places of Black Educational Desire," 536.
86. For an explanation of "diasporic sensibility," see Amoaba Gooden, "Community Organizing by African Caribbean people in Toronto Ontario," 2008. Her definition incorporates those community organizations that served Black people regardless of place of origin.
87. Gus John, June 17, 2009.
88. Thando Hyman-Aman, May 3, 2012.
89. For historical perspectives on African American school leaders who were also community activists see Lauri Johnson, "A Generation of Women Activists: African American Female Educators in Harlem, 1930-1950," Journal of African American History 89 (2004): 223-240; Adah L. Ward Randolph, "'It Is Better to Light a Candle than to Curse the Darkness': Ethel Thompson Overby and Democratic Schooling in Richmond, Virginia, 1910-1958," Educational Studies 48 (2012): 220-243. For a discussion of African Canadian teachers as activists see Annette Henry, "African Canadian Women Teachers' Activism: Recreating Communities of Caring and Resistance," Journal of Negro Education 61 (1992): 392-404.
90. Cited in Anthony Bogues, "The African Diaspora Today: Flows and Motions," Radical History Review 103 (Winter 2009): 215-219.