I spent yesterday afternoon at a rally at Daley Plaza opposing school closings. The rally was the culmination of a three-day march across Chicago by students, educators, and community members. The video below offers a good report about the protests and the issues surrounding the proposed closures.

As I listened to several speeches and then marched along with friends, allies, and strangers, I caught myself smiling. Why should this be the case?

It seems unlikely, after all, that these major protests will prevent the majority of the proposed school closings. The Chicago Board of Education will almost certainly vote to close dozens of schools at its meeting this Wednesday. CPS seems to be preparing for this outcome. Rahm Emanuel thinks that black and brown folk in this city have short memories. In fact, he is counting on it. I personally think that he is wrong.

Yesterday the Chicago Sun Times published an editorial calling for 21 schools to be removed from the closure list. This would still leave 33 schools on the chopping block which is one too many.

Given these odds, why shouldn’t those of us who want education justice and vehemently oppose mass school closures succumb to despair and hopelessness?

At yesterday’s rally, I stood with people from every walk of life to resist the attempt to further decimate our communities. We raised our collective voices to say that we would continue to fight back no matter what “decision” the Board announces on Wednesday. THIS is cause for hope.

When I looked around, I noticed the joy and even more importantly the love that was reflected in the chants and in the protest. Yes, it was love that I could feel in the crowd but also hope. It’s important to be reminded that social justice movements are rooted in hope. This one for education justice in Chicago certainly is. To remain hopeful no matter our circumstance is to already be victorious. I am profoundly grateful to everyone who stands in a place of hope while organizing to change the world.

There is an essay by Howard Zinn that I always return to and last night the brilliant and committed scholar-activist Nancy Heitzeg reminded me of it. I’ll share the part that most resonates with me and that seems most relevant to the current struggle for education justice:

We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world. Even when we don’t “win,” there is fun and fulfillment in the fact that we have been involved, with other good people, in something worthwhile. We need hope. An optimist isn’t necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places-and there are so many-where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

Watch the individuals who were arrested yesterday as they staged a sit-in at City Hall after delivering over 10,000 petition signatures to Mayor Emanuel. Notice that they are singing throughout:

There is hope embodied in these acts of civil disobedience. Knowing that there are many who will put their bodies on the line to say “No, you will not destroy us without a fight” is a manifestation of radical love.

photo by Sarah Jane Rhee (5/20/13) – City Hall Elevator Blockade

Listen to the impassioned words of 9 year old elementary school student Asean Johnson as he excoriates Mayor Emanuel for his plan to close 54 schools.

How can we lose hope when we have young people like Asean to fight for? We cannot. Instead we must ask if we’ve done our very best by Sean and if our answer is no then we must do better…

Once again, I am privileged to share Sarah Jane Rhee’s beautiful photographs documenting three-days of protest against school closures here in Chicago. I’ve decided to share photographs of children & youth in the spirit of hope and justice.

photo by Sarah Jane Rhee (5/2013) Chicago

photo by Sarah Jane Rhee (5/2013) Chicago

photo by Sarah Jane Rhee (5/2013) Chicago

photo by Sarah Jane Rhee (5/2013) Chicago

photo by Sarah Jane Rhee (5/2013) Chicago

photo by Sarah Jane Rhee (5/2013) Chicago

photo by Sarah Jane Rhee (5/2013) Chicago

I try as much as possible to document activism & resistance by youth in Chicago on this blog. I do this because I am profoundly committed to the idea of youth leadership development and voice. I am co-founder of the Chicago Freedom School and these issues are central to our mission. I also see the activism of youth in this city as critical to prison abolition.

Anyway, today over 100 people gathered on the Southside of Chicago on 61st & Cottage Grove as part of an event organized by youth from FLY (who I’ve referenced several time on the blog) and members of Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools (CSOSOS).

The Chicago Tribune reported on the event:

The protesters [sic] staged a “die-in” about 4:45 p.m. on South Cottage Grove Avenue at East 62st Street to make the case that school closures will force displaced students to cross gang lines. The protesters wore mock blood-stained shirts as they blocked traffic at the intersection before being arrested. Goldenberg said.

The protest was intended “to demonstrate to Mayor (Rahm) Emanuel the loss of life that he will be responsible for if he and his appointed school board go through with the proposed closures,” the group said in a press release.

DNAinfo Chicago offered more details:

Matt Ginsberg-Jaeckle, an organizer with Southside Together Organizing for Power, and others called the event — in which students blocked traffic in the intersection of 61st Street and Cottage Grove Avenue — a “die-in.”

Students wore mock-bloody clothes in an effort to show the effect they believe school closings will have: more violence and death for the young students forced to cross new gang territories.

“The message is that school closings are killing people,” Ginsberg-Jaeckle said. “Everyone knows what will happen when these kids start crossing these gang lines.”

The students laid down in the intersection, blocking traffic for several minutes before being taken away by police after refusing to leave, witnesses said.

Police could not confirm immediately confirm any arrests but said the protest was “peaceful.”

According to witnesses at the scene, the students were led away in handcuffs.

Kelly High School teacher William Lamme said two of his students were arrested in the protest.

“They wanted to do something to show how they feel,” said Lamme, a Kelly social studies teacher. “Mayor [Rahm] Emanuel is certainly creating a school for young activists.”

Nearly 100 activists, parents and students were at the event, initially arranged by parents from Fiske and Sexton elementary schools. Sexton is slated to close and merge its students into Fiske.

“We have to make our voices louder and our actions stronger,” said Lamme, who came to support his students. “This is civics 101.”

Here is a brief video of a student whose school is targeted for closure speaking the importance of keeping it open:

As per usual, the amazing and intrepid movement photographer, Sarah Jane Rhee was on the scene to document the student resistance. She posted her terrific photographs on Facebook. I share some of them below.

by Sarah Jane Rhee (5/15/13) – Vigil to Stop School Closings

by Sarah Jane Rhee (5/15/13) – Vigil to Stop School Closings

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I wrote about the fact that Chicago students were organizing a boycott on April 24th. Yesterday, students from various Chicago high schools boycotted the second day of standardized testing (PSAE). They were protesting the role of testing as a factor in school closing decisions. Instead of going to school, students showed up at CPS Headquarters to make themselves heard.

Robeson High School student, Brian Stirgis, explained the reason for the protest: “We’re under-resourced, over-tested, and we’re fed up with the policies that are put in place by CPS officials.”

photo by Sarah Jane Rhee (4/24/13)

photo by Sarah Jane Rhee (4/24/13)

Laura McCauley reporting for Common Dreams wrote that “Over 300 students from over 25 different Chicago public schools ” boycotted PSAE testing yesterday.

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This weekend, I was privileged to participate in an event about the promise and pitfalls of youth-driven digital media. I joined the panel at the last minute when one previously scheduled speaker fell ill.

When I got home, I checked Twitter and saw the following video produced by Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools (CSOSOS – @ChiStudentsOrg) announcing their April 24th boycott.

You can also listen to 17 year old high school senior Brian Stirgus talk on Power92 about the impact of the school closures and about their planned protest this Wednesday. The traditional media has also covered the students’ efforts here.

I am so heartened to see that young people across Chicago continue to organize for social justice. It’s exciting that they are using digital media to help mobilize and engage others in their struggles. We should hope that these protests grow because this would signal that young people remain idealistic and retain some hope. I submit that the moment when these protests cease is when we should deeply worry. Young people who have no hope that their actions can impact positive change become nihilistic. Thank God that our youth in Chicago continue to believe in their own power to affect change.

I so wish that I could join in their action this Wednesday but I am organizing another event that conflicts. If you are a parent or guardian, I hope that you will support these young people by encouraging your own children to participate in the boycott. I hope that you will also show up as an adult ally to support these youth.

All of the information about Wednesday’s boycott is below. Please spread the word to others about this action. You can learn more at CSOSOS’s Facebook page and Tumblr.

Since I started this blog, I have wanted to feature the voices of the young organizers and activists who I have the pleasure to work with and to know. Today, I am thrilled to feature a post by Michael Johnson who is a community organizer with the Resident Association of Greater Englewood (RAGE). Michael offers his unique take on some of the rhetoric that has been adopted by opponents of Chicago Public School closures in the past few weeks. This blog post originated from a Facebook status that I read on Michael’s page. I was intrigued by his words and asked if he would consider expanding them into a post here on Prison Culture. These words represent Michael’s views.

I have been closely following the latest round of school closings as a community organizer with the Resident Association of Greater Englewood (RAGE).  Throughout the process, I have noticed a tendency by those arguing against the closures to rely on particular arguments to make their case. These arguments usually have several overlapping components. School closing opponents argue that there is a need for quality education for ALL Chicago children and they also emphasize the costs of destabilizing student’s learning environments. In addition to these arguments, some community leaders, parents, and educators have also articulated their concerns about the safety of the children who will have to attend new schools in the fall.  Time and again, the idea of safety has been raised and with it the spectre of gangs as the primary threat has loomed. I worry that by framing the closures as primarily a threat to student safety, we are missing an opportunity to discuss our opposition on educational, civic and economic grounds.

The report backs on the many CPS hearings and CTU press conferences as well as media coverage have leaned towards a very particular narrative that has been emerging as the dominant one. In making the case against closing schools in Chicago, some have suggested (as I mentioned earlier) that this is a bad idea because it puts students at risk of gang violence. Further, the suggestion is made that CPS could not possibly protect these students from the “gangs” in the territory around their new schools (sources 1). 

This argument has been advanced by some youth leaders as well as some community organizers. I don’t dismiss the validity of the real concerns being expressed.  However I find myself conflicted as I listen to some of this rhetoric being used by the opponents of school closures. I fear that they are inadvertently adopting the city and the police’s language and framing around the “gang problem” in Chicago.

I have witnessed opponents of school closures fall into the same problematic terminology framing these communities as “gang infested areas.”(source 2, 3,4).  Whatever good will and sympathy might be engendered by this description of some neighborhoods, these come at a great cost as well.

The very young people who this movement is seeking to invest in end up being demonized instead. Ultimately, it leaves our young people and our communities more marginalized in the long-term.  The “gang” argument plays into the deeply embedded racist fears with the gang (read black youth) as predators that must be cleared out to ensure better educational opportunity. These youth that are so called “infesting” our community are human and worth engaging constructively. They come through the same systems, communities, families and kitchen tables as the current elementary school students that so many are rightly fighting for by opposing school closures.

I worry that an over-reliance on claims of safety rooted in a fear of gang violence is sowing the seeds of further oppression of black and brown youth in Chicago. I fear that any potential victories will purely be a “faux progress” based in the politics of fear. Fear of the “other” and criminalization will only serve to isolate our children further and strengthen the school to prison pipeline. It’s a poor trade off, more policing instead of quality educational opportunities that serve the entire community.  This mode of operating begs for crumbs not seeing a future in our schools or our children beyond just getting them out alive. The nearsightedness of this perspective ignores the common root of violence and educational inequality. It ignores the history and context that has facilitated this environment: where the poorest areas, most violent areas, areas of the highest rate of lead poisoning, foreclosures and school closures are all mostly African American.  This city is entrenched in a socio-economic system akin to Apartheid and the time to address the redistribution of resources is now, not blaming systemic poverty and the failure of institutions on the children they have failed (source 5 6 7).

I also wonder about the organizing beyond just fighting closures. These schools have failed due to mismanagement on the local and national levels. How do we move beyond counter-positioning and move into the offensive, utilizing schools as we see fit, pushing for quality education and  innovation in our own image?  See: Freedom University  Freedom Schools, CFS, Detroit FS These are some of the liberatory questions that I think we need to answer in this historical moment in Chicago.

The National Archives are terrific. I love visiting their site to find interesting artifacts from the past. They pulled together a few primary source documents about Rosa Parks’ 1954 arrest on a Montgomery bus. Below are copies of her original police report and a diagram of where Mrs. Parks was sitting on the bus when she was arrested.

Whatever happened to the Manifesto? I think that young organizers should bring it back or at the very least start creating more lists of demands…

I was invited to attend a meeting a few weeks ago by a group of young organizers who are interested in taking action to address the epidemic of mass incarceration. It is always tricky for older organizers to participate in such meetings. It is hard to know when to speak up and when to stay quiet. I mostly bit my tongue. I wanted to respect their process but when the meeting ended, I did pull a couple of the young organizers aside to offer some suggestions for how to improve their meetings. I asked if they had already developed a list of their wants and demands. They said no. They had spent several meetings already discussing their “shared values” and agreeing to “their process.” I asked if they were surprised that they had lost quite a few members since their launch. They told me that building community among themselves was crucially important. I agreed and said that there is also value though in people gathering to discuss what they want and to plan a strategy & program to achieve it. It’s a balance that many never achieve.

In the 1930s, local youth began to get more involved in protest movements. This was particularly true for Southern youth who gathered in regional assemblies to articulate demands and network. In Opportunity magazine (a publication of the Urban League), Edward Strong reported on one such gathering of black youth that took place in Tennessee in 1938. Below is the position paper of the May 1938 Southern Negro Youth Conference.

In Chattanooga, Tennessee, last month, 500 young colored men and women met in the second all-Southern Negro Youth Conference. They came to express their wants and desires — to plan a new design for living — and in the program that they adopted all their hopes and aspirations for a brighter future were reflected.

What is the aim of young Negroes of the South today? What do they want? How do they propose to move ahead? The delegates answered these questions simply and unanimously.

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Once again, the terrifically talented Sarah Jane Rhee was present with her camera at Wednesday’s Chicago School Closings Protest. I have selected some of the photographs that illustrate the message that we need to fund schools rather than prisons/jails.

by Sarah Jane Rhee (3/27/13)

by Sarah Jane Rhee (3/27/13)

by Sarah Jane Rhee (3/27/13)

by Sarah Jane Rhee (3/27/13)

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Fund Schools Not Jails!
March 27, 2013

Erica R. Meiners is a Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Education at Northeastern Illinois University. She is the author of Right to be hostile: schools, prisons and the making of public enemies (2009) and articles exploring the school to prison pipeline. She is a member of her labor union, University Professionals of Illinois, and actively involved in a number of non-traditional and popular education projects including an anti-prison teaching collective (Chicago PIC Teaching Collective) and the Chicagoland Researchers and Advocates for Transformative Education (CReATE) and she is currently teaching classes at Stateville Prison and St. Leonard’s Adult High School. 

Thousands of people converged downtown today to speak back to Chicago’s unelected school board against the proposed closure of fifty-four public schools in Black neighborhoods. Amidst the colorful and pithy signs held up by teachers, parents, and young people my favorite (topping even the signs from the fall 2012 Chicago Teacher’s Union strike proclaiming Rahm loves Nickelback) was Fund Schools Not Jails!   

by Sarah Jane Rhee (3/27/13)

While it might appear that the struggle to shutter our prisons, to decriminalize marijuana and sex work, or to release people from prison early on “good time,” is disconnected from the fight to keep open and fully funded high quality neighborhood schools in Black communities, the two are intimately linked.
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This August, it will be 18 years since I moved to Chicago from my hometown of New York City. I can hardly believe that I’ve been here this long. I moved here for graduate school and never expected to stay. But Chicago is a city that grows on you. I’ve come to love this place. Not as much as I love New York where I was born and where much of my family still lives. But it’s a close second in my heart now.

When Rahm Emanuel announced that he would run for Mayor of Chicago. I had a viscerally negative reaction. I ranted to anyone and everyone that he was a corporatist who would seek to further privatize the commons. I supported his opponent Miguel Del Valle in the primary. I believe that the city would be in much better shape had Del Valle won but the truth is that I would have voted for almost anyone besides Emanuel.

Now we find ourselves under constant and coordinated assault by Emanuel and his allies in the business community. He closed down six mental health clinics last year with a promise to target more. The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) decided to increase its fares and Emanuel responded that riders who were unhappy should consider driving instead. In just a few weeks, the CTA will close all red line stops from Cermak to 95th street for 5 months effectively cutting off much of the Southside from the rest of the city. Emanuel is pushing a new mandatory minimum gun bill (HB2265/SB1003) designed to spike the prison population by nearly 4,000 in the next decade and costing us nearly $1 billion more in state prison funding. And the coup de grace is his recently announced decision to close 54 Chicago Public schools on the West and South sides of the city. He has been called the “Murder Mayor.” The title is earned and well-deserved.

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