The session will feature a 53-minute documentary film screening of The Intolerable Burden by filmmaker, researcher, and producer Constance Curry, based on her book Silver Rights. Immediately following will be an interactive panel discussion with significant audience participation on dismantling the school to prison pipeline. The film begins in the autumn of 1965, where sharecroppers Mae Bertha and Matthew Carter enroll the youngest eight of their thirteen children in the public schools of Drew, Mississippi. Their decision to send the children to the formerly all white schools was in response to a "freedom of choice" plan. The plan was designed by the Drew school board to place the district in compliance with the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, essential since without compliance, the district would no longer be eligible for financial support from the Federal government. Given the prevailing attitudes, Blacks were not expected to choose white schools. This proved true for all but the Carters. The Intolerable Burden places the Carter's commitment to obtaining a quality education in context, by examining the conditions of segregation prior to 1965, the hardships the family faced during desegregation, and the massive white resistance, which led to resegregation. In the epilogue, the film poses the dilemma of "education vs. incarceration" - a particular threat to youth of color.
Civil Rights icon Miss Curry was the first white woman appointed to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's (SNCC) executive board. From 1964 to 1975, she worked as a field representative for the American Friends Services Committee. She worked in Mississippi helping the Carter family and others in the desegregation efforts. Miss Curry has authored several other books including Mississippi Harmony: Memoirs of a Freedom Fighter and Aaron Henry: The Fire Ever Burning. She is also the editor of Deep in Our Hearts: Nine White Women in the Freedom Movement.
Dr. March Lamont Hill, urban anthropologist and hip hop intellectual of Temple University will also serve on our panel. Dr. Hill’s scholarly work focuses on the intersections between globalization, popular culture, public/counter-public pedagogy, and youth identities. He is interested in locating various sites of possibility for identity work, resistance, and knowledge production within and outside of formal schooling contexts. Particular areas of inquiry include hip-hop culture, street fiction, and African American bookstores. His other research examines the responses of urban youth to the conditions of neo-liberalism, particularly privatization, zero-tolerance policies, ghetto surveillance, and domestic militarization.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is committed to challenging the "school to prison pipeline," a disturbing national trend wherein children are funneled out of public schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Many of these children have learning disabilities or histories of poverty, abuse or neglect, and would benefit from additional educational and counseling services. Instead, they are isolated, punished and pushed out. "Zero-tolerance" policies criminalize minor infractions of school rules, while high-stakes testing programs encourage educators to push out low-performing students to improve their schools' overall test scores. Students of color are especially vulnerable to push-out trends and the discriminatory application of discipline.
The ACLU believes that children should be educated, not incarcerated. We are working to challenge numerous policies and practices within public school systems and the juvenile justice system that contribute to the school to prison pipeline. This session parallels the United States Social Forums themes of raising consciousness and awareness of current struggles of oppressed children of color related to educational attainment, while specifically providing successful strategies to dismantling the school to prison pipeline. The session will be conducted in English with various English handouts.
The largest challenges within the School To Prison Pipeline phenomenon are the overwhelming racial disparities in the excessive discipline of children of color, and the inappropriate application of the zero tolerance policy. The strategies we will articulate in support of equal educational attainment for all American children are public and parental education, legislative advocacy, litigation, and community organizing.
The following URLs have more information on collaborative work to be discussed in this session:
http://www.aclu.org/racialjustice/
http://www.aclu.org/crimjustice/juv/schooltoprisonpipeline.html
http://www.acluga.org/schooltoprison.html
http://www.frif.com/new2003/into.html
http://www.temple.edu/education/faculty/hill_m.html