Viewing page 31 of 100

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

WEEKSVILLE    BANKS

proposal to use this site for another building and to use P.S. 68's present site for its new building the community immediately expressed its opposition. In a community hearing the Local Committee recommended that the Board erect P.S. 68 on the newly acquired site. The Board resolved to do so. At the October meeting two petitions were received by the Board—one from white citizens asking the Board to build a school for white children on the site and one from Black citizens asking the Board to honor its previous resolution. At another hearing the two factions along with their legal counsel, "agreed that they wanted a building large enough to accommodate all the children of the neighborhood, irrespective of race or color...."17 Construction proceeded but with the building's completion nearing it was discovered that the number 83 appeared on the building rather than the number 68. Stewart brought the matter to the Board who resolved that the number 83 be removed and replaced with 68. According to Stewart, "Repeated efforts were made to nullify that resolution but they failed." But at the May meeting of P.S. 68's Local Committee a majority report was adopted to give P.S. 68 some rooms in the new building (meaning P.S. 83) until a new 68 could be erected on its present site. Stewart, sole Black member, could only file a minority report which was nullified when presented at the next Board meeting.18 When the building was completed and this temporary arrangement implemented the Board considered plans for a permanent arrangement. The community held to its position while some Board members advocated the construction of a new school to house the Black children. The Board's decision, however, was to integrate 83 and 68 into one organization designated as P.S. 83. In 1898 when the City of Brooklyn was consolidated with New York City, P.S. 83 was the only integrated school in Brooklyn.19

history as change

It is not difficult to recognize the plight of any number of Black communities around the nation today in just this small sampling of Weeksville's attempt to determine her own destiny. But recognition as a political strategy is limited at best. An analysis of the dynamics of this struggle as reflected in the Board-community confrontations is the first step toward change. The relationships to be explored are
————
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 Ment, David, School Segregation in Brooklyn, N.Y.—1850-1897, Unpublished Master's Thesis.

293