BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION: May 17, 1954

Steven A. Levine

Coordinator for Educational Programs

Sixty years ago today in Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court overturned the "separate but equal" doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), declaring in a 9-0 decision that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.  After the decision, Mayor Robert F. Wagner saw the need to act in New York City stating in a 1955 speech to the United Parents Association that

"We cannot oppose only segregation in the South . . . The studies and analyses of schools in the areas where our Negro and Puerto Rican children live reveal the inequality of physical properties and teaching personnel.  That is not true democracy in education and it is not the American way.  It is certainly not the New York City way."

Wagner spoke these words in earnest and in great contrast to the racist venom of leaders in the South, but segregation was real and difficult to confront in New York City. Racism had deep roots in New York and Mississippi and  desegregation faced resistance in both places.

Sadly, progress that occurred in past decades is being reversed.  A recent report by the UCLA Civil Rights Project found that "New York has the most segregated schools in the country: in 2009, black and Latino students in the state had the highest concentration in intensely-segregated public schools (less than 10% white enrollment), the lowest exposure to white students, and the most uneven distribution with white students across schools.
 Heavily impacting these state rankings is New York City, home to the largest and one of the most segregated public school systems in the nation."

History books describe Brown v. Board of Education as a turning point in history. Joel Motley, the son of NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorney Judge Constance Baker Motley also stressed this in an Archives video. They are correct, but the battles for school desegregation have not only been lost, but forgotten.  Moreover, recent Supreme Court decisions have weakened municipalities' abilities to even address the issue.  And when was the last time any of our political leaders mentioned the issue of school segregation?  In Washington and Albany, policies have favored charter schools, despite the UCLA study showing that charter schools are among the most segregated schools in New York City and in the nation.

Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, New York 1911 and Tazreen Fashions Fire, Bangladesh 2012: When will we ever learn?

Steven A. Levine 
Coordinator for Educational Programs

Triangle Shirtwaist Fire New York 1911

            When we shop for clothing, price is often paramount in our considerations and we too often neglect to ask who makes our clothing and what are their wages and work conditions, until these conditions become deadly and appear on the front pages of our newspapers.  I could be referring to last month’s factory fire in Bangladesh, but the “high cost of low prices” has a long history and the parallels between the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in New York and the fire  at the Tazreen Fashions factory in Bangladesh are eerily similar.  (To learn more about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, check out the memorial created by State Senator Serphin Maltese, who lost family members in the fire. For more information on the Tazreen Fashions factory fire go to “Fatal Fire in Bangladesh Highlights the Dangers Facing Garment Workers” “Garment Workers Stage Angry Protest After Bangladesh Fire” and “Horrific Fire Revealed a Gap in Safety for Global Brands.”)

            Both factories paid low wages to a predominantly female work force. In the early 20^th century, New York was the center of the garment industry and Bangladesh today exports $18 billion in clothing, second only to China.  Triangle sold blouses to the major department stores; Tazreen produced clothing for Wal-Mart and other global retailers.  The New York Times coverage of the two fires sadly makes clear that workers in both factories had similar deaths because of unsafe conditions.

Witnesses described a desperate scene, as workers leapt from the upper floors of the factory, trying to land on nearby rooftops and escape the smoke and flames. Others suffocated inside the factory building, as the blaze apparently rendered stairwells impassable.  .  .  “These international, Western brands have a lot of responsibility for these fire issues,” said Ms. Akter, the executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity. “In this factory, there was a pile of fabrics and yarn stored on the ground floor that caught fire. Workers couldn’t evacuate through the stairs. What does this say about compliance?

The New York Times, November 26, 2012, “Garment Workers Stage Angry Protest After Bangladesh Fire”

Most of the victims were suffocated or burned to death within the building but some who fought their way to the windows and leaped met death as surely, but perhaps more quickly, on the pavements below.  . . .  The one little fire escape was never resorted to by any of the doomed victims.  Some of them escaped by running down the stairs, but in a moment or two this avenue was cut off by flame.  The girls rushed to the window and looked down at Greene Street, 100 feet below them.  Then one poor, little creature jumped.  There was a plate glass protection over part of the sidewalk, but she crashed through it, wrecking it and breaking her body into a thousand pieces.  Then they all began to drop . . .

The New York Times, March, 26, 1911, “141 MEN AND GIRLS DIE IN WAIST FACTORY FIRE; TRAPPED HIGH UP IN WASHINGTON PLACE BUILDING; STREET STREWN WITH BODIES; PILES OF DEAD INSIDE.”

            The Triangle Shirtwaist fire led to the creation of the Factory Investigating Commission led by Senator Robert F. Wagner (Chair), Assemblyman Alfred E. Smith (Vice- Chair), along with a reinvigorated movement to protect workers and improve factory conditions and the enactment of 25 New York State laws to implement the Commission’s recommendations.

  

            After the deadly fire in Bangladesh, thousands of protesters took to the streets to demand justice.  The horrific fire there, like the one a century earlier, makes clear that workers cannot achieve justice without the right to organize unions and employers and the global corporations whom they sell to must respect the rights and lives of their workers above that of their profits now stained by the deaths of 112 workers. As we shop for clothing, we must also think about the consequences of our consumption.

Mayor Wagner Campaigns for George McGovern, 1972

Standing on a sidewalk of New York are (L-R) Professor Richard Wade; Mayor Robert F. Wagner; Mrs. Matilda Krim; Senator George McGovern; and Arthur Krim, the head Of United Artists.

Steven A. Levine

Coordinator for Educational Programs

“George McGovern is a man of tender and responsive conscience . . . of strong loyalties, high principles and fierce convictions. He has shown that he does not flinch or flag in the face of either opposition or of even the most prohibitive odds. “ Mayor Robert F. Wagner, New York State Chairman of the McGovern presidential campaign, at the opening of the Buffalo, NY Democratic Headquarters, 1972.

(Click here to read Mayor Wagner's complete speech.)

Senator George McGovern lost in a landslide to President Richard Nixon in 1972, but this son of a Methodist minister, decorated World War II pilot, and historian should be remembered for his commitment to peace, civil rights, social justice and opposition to the Vietnam War.  He was a hero and a patriot.  (Click here to read his New York Times obituary.)

Birth Control Politics: 1958 and 2012

Steven A. Levine
Coordinator for Educational Programs


            The New York Times article "Outcry Grows Fiercer After Funding Cut by Cancer Group" highlights the continuing controversy over birth control and abortion politics after the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation announced it had cut funds to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screenings.  Birth control had already become a major issue in national politics when the Obama Administration mandated that birth control must be available free of cost in all health plans.  This rule included no exemption for religious employers opposed to birth control if they served a large number of people of different faiths, such as Catholic hospitals and universities.  (See The New York Times "Ruling on Contraception Draws Battle Lines at Catholic Colleges")

            In the late 1950s, Mayor Robert F. Wagner faced a similar controversy in New York's public hospitals.  In May 1958, The New York Times reported that there was an unwritten prohibition against prescribing birth control in public hospitals.  Wagner's Commissioner of Hospitals Morris A. Jacobs denied this and stated that "There shall be no interference in proper and accepted therapeutic practices nor intervention in ethical relationships between patient and physician."   Despite this statement, Jacobs refused to allow a doctor at Kings County Hospital in July to fit a diabetic patient with a contraceptive device to protect her health. According to New York State law at that time, birth control could only be given if pregnancy was "deleterious to the health of the patient," a policy laid out in a draft Department of Health policy statement  in 1963.

            This situation placed Wagner in a quandary both politically and religiously.  Protestant and Jewish organizations, as well as Planned Parenthood and the New York Civil Liberties Union, were lobbying to lift the ban on contraception in public hospitals, while the Catholic Church was adamantly opposed.  A consensus politician who avoided conflict, Wagner left the decision to the Board of Hospitals stating, "I am a practicing Catholic. As a Catholic, I would be opposed to the use of contraceptives in city hospitals.  But I have not discussed it with the commissioner or with members of the board."

            The debate continued throughout the summer, with Wagner refusing to intervene.   When the Board of Hospitals met in September, it voted to reverse the policy.  Wagner's position, while sincere, was also shrewd.  In all likelihood, the outcome was what he desired.  He may not have been in direct communication with the commissioner or the Board of Hospitals, but he did know how to count votes and predict the outcome.    Wagner believed in letting professionals decide what was the correct health policy and was able to separate his personal views as a Catholic from the decision.  Not coincidentally, his liberal supporters were able to get the policy they wanted, while Wagner was able to distance himself from it and limit the political damage he took among Catholics and conservatives.  

Civil Rights in New York City: In Honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Steven A. Levine
Coordinator for Educational Programs

Dr. Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott are welcomed by Robert F. Wagner at City Hall upon King's return to the U.S. after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, December 18, 1964. 

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

In the spring of 1963, Birmingham, Alabama was the focal point of the civil rights movement.  Mass demonstrations, sit-ins and protests led to the arrest of hundreds, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., by the brutal police force of Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene "Bull" Connor. 

            With the nation's attention focused on Birmingham, New York's Fur and Leather and Machine Workers Union organized a Rally for Equality on May 28^th, 1963 to support the civil rights struggles in the South.  Scheduled to speak at the event was Mayor Robert F. Wagner. What was striking about his speech was not Wagner's support for the freedom struggle in the South, but for its focus on civil rights in New York City.  He declared "If all we are going to do for the freedom fighters of the South is to express our sympathy for them, that might be helpful, but it wouldn't be enough.  It might even be considered a little hypocritical?" 

He used the rally to recommit his administration to fighting discrimination in New York City, issuing an executive memorandum directing all city agencies and departments "to review and re-assess all their present programs and activities pertaining to equal rights and opportunities for all" with the goal of expanding them or launching new ones.  Wagner was sincere, but he was also responding to a growing civil rights movement organizing to desegregate housing and public schools, end discrimination in employment, and empower New York's growing African-American and Latino populations.

Wagner's speech was a harbinger for the increasing polarization of New York City on racial issues.  Even as he gave his speech, his office had created a folder for "hate mail" from people opposed to his civil rights initiatives and his support for the movement in the South. (Sample) Simultaneously, the slow pace of change was leading to greater anger and impatience in the African-American community.  A year later, the NYPD would be putting down an uprising/riot in the streets of Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant, after an off-duty police officer shot and killed an unarmed African-American high school student.