Racial and Class Politics of the Detroit Public Schools, 1943-1974 By

The Rise of Educational Consciousness: Racial and Class Politics of the Detroit Public Schools, 1943-1974 By Bianca A. Suárez A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education in the Graduation Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Daniel H. Perlstein, Chair Professor Michael Dumas Professor Carlos Muñoz Jr. Spring 2018 1 Abstract The Rise of Educational Consciousness: Racial and Class Politics of the Detroit Public Schools, 1943-1974 by Bianca A. Suárez Doctor of Philosophy in Education University of California, Berkeley Professor Daniel H. Perlstein, Chair This study examines the development of radical educational consciousness in Detroit, 1943- 1974. This study draws on precepts of critical social theory to analyze archival data, memoir and biography, personal archival collections, extant oral history interviews, and 16 original oral history interviews conducted in Detroit. Utilizing a relational historical ethnography research design, this study asserts the emergence of radical educational consciousness was informed by a critique of capitalist relations of production and experiential knowledge of a geography of spatial racism. This radical analysis directly challenged racialized administrative control over the school system. In Detroit, a radical conception of community control of schools was articulated as a rejection of both racial liberalism and bourgeois cultural nationalism. By the late 1960s, radical educational consciousness conceptualized educational struggle as a front of broader liberation struggle. i Acknowledgements This dissertation is dedicated to my grandmother Maria Blanca Angelica. She walked in dignity despite the daily humiliations racial capitalism imposed on her and the family. I hope I have honored her life, just a bit, in my attempt to excavate that our oppression is not of our own doing. And to the memory of my Uncle Juan and Uncle Julio, may your suffering transcend in the hereafter to joy and light. To my family, that has been a constant source of poor people humor and honest grounding throughout my academic journey. To my mother, Blanca Angelica, thank you for having me and for doing what needed to be done to ensure our survival. I thank you mom for being my own militant educational advocate, for taking us to every community meeting in our hood, for teaching me, radically, not democratically, what is what in this life. To my brother, Zuriel, who has demonstrated to me both the power and the limits of the grip of racial capitalism, I thank you. To my sister, Brianna Julissa, you were my first student and are now my best friend, I thank you for all the ways that you have forced me to live beyond the immediate and look ahead to what might be possible. A heartfelt thank you to my extended family, most importantly to my Uncle Rodolfo, who is the reason I have a Detroit story. And to my familia on the other side of this man-made border, I think of you each day and am immediately grounded in grace of purpose. To my nephew and godson Zuriel Jr. and nephew Zavier, thank you for teaching this Detroit family how to love on one another. A warm embrace to my Tia Juany and my cousins Mirna, Almiin, Indira, and Chacho, and many hugs to my nieces and nephews Aranza, Monserrath, Maximiliano, Herman, and Emiliano. Detroit’s Higgins Elementary School will forever be the reason why I believe education can play a transformative force in society. To Mrs. Overmire who taught me to read when I was 6 years old – a late start but who is counting, Mrs. Connie Kilgo – who noticed my speech impediment and helped me find support, to Mrs. Rosa Craig and Dr. Dorothy Winbush Riley, educators who believed in me so fervently, particularly in my beginning years, your examples of teaching and militant educational consciousness fortified my spirit and this dissertation is an attempt to honor your commitment to learning as a practice of freedom. I have been so blessed to have been surrounded by womxn who have encouraged me to stay the course, prized among them are Monique, Janet Ortega, and Erika Zúñiga who have served as beacons of light and hope, particularly through my own personal health journey that threatened to curtail my academic career. My infinite respect to the radical sistership of Leconte Dill and Kimberly McNair who grounded me early on in my academic trajectory and refused to allow me to surrender. My deepest gratitude for the fierce debates and loving mentorship provided through the Democracy, Citizenship, and Education Working Group at UC Berkeley, and especially the comradeship of Lynette Parker and Connie Wun, two independent thinkers and gifted educators who inspired me to act and speak. To my muxeres, Elizabeth De la Torre, Kelley Baldwin, Becky Tarlau, Wendy Pacheco, dinorah sánchez loza, Teresa Amalia Stone, Arianna Morales, Elisa Huerta, Leah Faw, Angela ii Castaneda, Laura Vergara, Mara Diaz, and Tamara Serrano Chandler who have served as my greatest interlocutors in our ongoing process of reimagining what it means to be in the university and to be of service to the people. In loving memory of my friend and master educator Jennifer Jones. My forever gratitude to the comradeship of Jose Lumbreras, Michael Castaneda, Brukab Sisay, Peter Kim, and Hugo Guillen. I am grateful for each of you. To my intellectual mentors, Karen Monkman, Victoria Robinson, Tony Mirabelli, and Tom Pedroni. Thank you for encouraging me both intellectually and professionally. To Carlos Muñoz Jr., you offered me an intellectual base and provided a radical example of much needed mentorship, thank you for taking me on as a student. My sincerest gratitude to Daniel H. Perlstein, my faculty mentor who stuck with me to the final fantastic end, the irony is indeed not lost on me. I am glad I returned your phone call all those years ago. Thank you to Darryl “Waistline” Mitchell and Phil Hutchings, seasoned activists and social thinkers who have served consistently as mentors in my deepening understanding of oppression and revolutionary struggle. So many encouraged this work and listened to my musings, among them Suhaer Samad, Alena Hamlin, and Jessica Starks are my Detroit family who have offered me the kind of friendship that transcends and transforms. To each narrator and individual who shared with me their memories and social analysis of the Detroit situation, thank you. To the dignified people of Witt Street, Detroit, 48209 of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, to all the folks who turned our electricity back on when the utility departments turned us off, or siphoned water to us through hoses when our water was shut off. To All Saints Catholic Church. To my extended hood familia: Wilfred Lebron and in loving memory of Alfonso ‘Alfie’ Cruz. To my childhood friends who encouraged me and accepted me, especially Connie Pejuan and Deanna Mitchell, and to their families who fed me. To my community mentor Lisa Luevanos and new fast friend, Amelia Duran. Thank you for grounding me firmly in the every day realities of our city. My soul is filled with infinite gratitude. And a gracious thank you to my partner, Daniel Woo, who may have not been there in the beginning but who has made a valiant effort to support me, both materially and emotionally, to finish. Mil gracias. To the People’s Detroit, that sits on the territorial lands of the Three Fires Confederacy of the Ojibwa, the Odawa, and the Potawatomie. We are who we have been waiting for. 1 Chapter 1 Introduction Motivation June 2016, the State of Michigan Legislature ushered in a series of education reform bills that created the Detroit Public Schools Community District1. This new district replaced the former Detroit Public Schools. The reform bills were designed to “…resolve the debt of Detroit Public Schools (DPS), provide funding for transition to a new community school district and return the school district to a locally elected school board”2. The reform legislation partitioned the district into two fiscal entities in order to facilitate the old district’s ability to pay off accumulated debt and to support the establishment of a new district. In conjunction with state emergency management laws, by June 2016, the Detroit Public Schools was under the fiscal authority of an emergency manager. The state-imposed Emergency Manager Judge Steven Rhodes served as transitional manager of the new district. The new Detroit Public Schools Community District opened Tuesday September 6, 2016, operating 97 schools with approximately 45,000 students enrolled, a fraction of the schools and students originally under the authority of the Detroit Public Schools. The establishment of the Detroit Public Schools Community District occurred in a policy context in which the predominantly Black city of Detroit was under the authority of a regional and state political apparatus dominated by white liberals and white conservatives. The road to the establishment of the new district had been a contentious and violent one. The new district mandated a return to an elected, fully vested with authority, district Board of Education. This key democratic aspect of educational practice and policy setting had been usurped through the previous imposition of state Emergency Management Laws in the education sphere. As a result, the predominantly racialized citizens of Detroit, had been locked in a context of educational disenfranchisement as a condition of their residency in the city and enrollment in the original district. More recent educational literature has examined how the interaction of state education reform legislation has perpetuated a neoliberal logic in education through techniques whereby citizens are disenfranchised as a condition of reform. Importantly, this literature has examined how such reforms are outcomes of particular political economic and geographical intersections, creating a policy milieu in which the interests of corporate and political elites recognize the role of schools as interstitial in the social reproduction of American society.

Load more