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Brooklyn CORE (part 4)
Brooklyn CORE was inspired by and looking to build off of the success of New York CORE's campaign against construction at Harlem Hospital in June 1963. According to Dr. Purnell, '...fighting against racial discrimination in the building trades' had become 'the most important civil rights issue in the city'.5 The construction industry in NYC was almost exclusively White. Any construction work Black and Puerto Ricans could get at the time was low paying, menial work. CORE's campaigns exposed how the government and unions kept it that way on purpose. The State of New York's (SUNY) Downstate Medical Center was a twenty million dollar project. SUNY's new medical school and teaching hospital was being built as an addition to Kings County hospital. The site was located in Flatbush, a mostly Black neighborhood. Despite the local population in need of work, but the all White unions were not hiring from Flatbush but Whites who did not even live in state much less the city were hired. Gil Banks, who even though he had been a mechanic in World War II could not get a job at the site, went to the construction site along with Ollie Leeds, Maurice Fredricks and Vinny Young. As part of their investigation, they noticed the lack of Black workers. They also took time to 'case the site', taking note of where the entrances were, how many trucks the site had, etc. Because union locals would not hear them out when they tried to negotiate, Brooklyn CORE went to direct action. As part of CORE's coordinated series of campaigns taking place throughout the city that summer focusing on integrating the building trades, BK CORE demanded 25% of jobs at the site go to Blacks and Puerto Ricans.
Using data supplied by the BOE, BK CORE's investigation revealed that NYC's public schools were not only racially segregated, what existed was essentially two separate school systems. Those schools which were mostly populated by Black and Latino students tended to be at least two grade levels below in reading and math.
To illustrate its point, a mostly White school was picked in which the Bibuld's children would hold a sit-in. The Bibulds, knowing they would be rejected when tried to enroll them, saw it as a countermove to the threat of them being imprisoned and their kids taken away. BK CORE's campaign was framed as the start of a larger fight against the de facto segregation in the NYC public school system. Accompanied by a picket line outside the school, Elaine was refused when she tried to enroll her kids because they lived in a different school district. The children were still allowed to attend the classes as guests. This sit-in went on for several weeks and received a great deal of coverage in the press. The family also received several threatening phone calls and hate mail. Among those phone calls was one by the head of a Ku Klux Klan spin off group. NYPD in response placed a squad car outside of the family's apartment building for a short period of time. It also provided an escort to the subway, on the subway and from the subway to the school each morning and then back home. After going back and forth to Family Court for hearings, the Bibulds and others marched from the court room at its last hearing in late January, 1963, directly over to the BOE's offices. BK CORE held a sit-in there that lasted a week. The publicity allowed them to frame their fight in the context of the larger struggle both in the South and North over segregated schools. Over seventy people participated throughout the sit-in including actor Ossie Davis. The campaign also got support from Congressman Adam Clayton Powell and some of the largest and most influential Black churches in Brooklyn. The BOE finally gave in and allowed the Bibuld children to enroll in PS 130, a school with very similar standards to that of the Bibuld's original school in Crown Heights. The charges against them were dismissed. The campaign lasted four months. Purnell's dissertation implies that this campaign in many ways heavily influenced and laid the groundwork for the larger citywide school boycotts in 1964. The Leeds children also participated in another demonstration for two other students who wanted to attend schools considered better than the ones they were assigned to and were almost all White. Both Elizabeth Weeks and Leonard Morris were not allowed to transfer to the high school of their choice because of the BOE's zoning policies which BK CORE stated were discriminatory. In late June, 1963, BK CORE held a sit-in at the State Commission of Human Rights for several days with as few as five and as many as forty members participating at any given time. The BOE changed its policy to allow Weeks to transfer to the school of her choice but would not let Morris transfer to his, Erasmus H.S.. After a week of sitting in, a picket line around the building was added. After three weeks of sitting in, BK CORE stepped up its campaign and physically blocked the front entrances to the entire building where the BOE were in 110 Livingston street. Twenty adults and ten kids sat on the steps and stretched their bodies out by the doors. An hour later and after some minor scuffles, the demonstration was called off. Two days later, after BK CORE threatened to block all the entrances to the building, the BOE gave in and allowed Morris to transfer to a better school but not Erasmus. SUNY Downstate Medical Center campaignBrooklyn CORE was inspired by and looking to build off of the success of New York CORE's campaign against construction at Harlem Hospital in June 1963. According to Dr. Purnell, '...fighting against racial discrimination in the building trades' had become 'the most important civil rights issue in the city'.5 The construction industry in NYC was almost exclusively White. Any construction work Black and Puerto Ricans could get at the time was low paying, menial work. CORE's campaigns exposed how the government and unions kept it that way on purpose. The State of New York's (SUNY) Downstate Medical Center was a twenty million dollar project. SUNY's new medical school and teaching hospital was being built as an addition to Kings County hospital. The site was located in Flatbush, a mostly Black neighborhood. Despite the local population in need of work, but the all White unions were not hiring from Flatbush but Whites who did not even live in state much less the city were hired. Gil Banks, who even though he had been a mechanic in World War II could not get a job at the site, went to the construction site along with Ollie Leeds, Maurice Fredricks and Vinny Young. As part of their investigation, they noticed the lack of Black workers. They also took time to 'case the site', taking note of where the entrances were, how many trucks the site had, etc. Because union locals would not hear them out when they tried to negotiate, Brooklyn CORE went to direct action. As part of CORE's coordinated series of campaigns taking place throughout the city that summer focusing on integrating the building trades, BK CORE demanded 25% of jobs at the site go to Blacks and Puerto Ricans.