Full Description
In the 1960s and '70s—when Toni Cade Bambara, Samuel Delany, David Henderson, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, Guillermo Morales, Adrienne Rich, and Assata Shakur all studied and taught at CUNY—New York City's classrooms and streets radiated as epicenters of Black, Puerto Rican, queer, and women's liberation. Conor Tomás Reed is part of the next generation of insurgent CUNY thinkers nourished by these legacies. Highlighting the decolonial feminist metamorphosis that transformed our educational landscape, New York Liberation School explores how study and movement coalesced across classrooms and neighborhoods. Reed's immersive and wide-ranging narrative brings us into the archives and up close to the stories of its main participants in order to reactivate these vibrant histories. The result is a radiant reclamation of collective history that charts a vision for liberating education and society today.
Contents
Dedication
Introduction
Coalitions, Compositions, Boomerangs • Scales of CUNY • Institutional Strategies • Living Archives • Education, Organization, Metaphor, Labor • Chapters in Our Collective Story
Chapter 1: Freedom Learning: Lineages and Obstacles
City College Radicalism Emerges • Puerto Rico, COINTELPRO, and McCarthyism's Rise • Black and Puerto Rican Migration to New York City • Riots, Community Control, and Solidarity • Resisting Empire from the Island to the City to the College • One, Two, Many Free Universities • Ethnic and Gender Studies Divisions • Fiscal Crises
Chapter 2: Creating the "Black University," "black city," and "Life Studies" with Toni Cade Bambara, David Henderson, and June Jordan
Toni Cade Bambara: The Making of a Community Scribe • David Henderson: From Umbra to the Classroom • June Jordan: Seeing the Streets, Houses, Trees as Schools • Black (Community) Studies at City College • Teaching with the Strike • Strike
Reverberations in the City • Open Admissions and the Cost of Upheaval • Continuations
Chapter 3: Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich: Sisters in Struggle
Early Years Reaching • Re-visioning and Diving into SEEK • From "Blackstudies" to Deotha • Emerging Anger and Eros in Women's Studies • Continuations
Chapter 4: The Power of Student Writing and Action
Samuel Delany: Moving from Institutions to the Masses • Student Journalism and
Mobilization • Creating Harlem University • Tech News Becomes The Paper • Assata Shakur and Guillermo Morales: From CUNY to the Underground • Continuations
Chapter 5: Contemporary Struggles for Our Futures
9/11, December 19 and 20, and the Limits of Free Speech on Campus • Occupy and the Free University • Militarism and Surveillance at CUNY • #BlackLivesMatter and Black Women's Studies on the Streets • Palestine, Free Speech, and Labor • Counter-Institutional Models in the University of Puerto Rico and CUNY • CUNY Faces COVID-19, Welcomes BLM 2.0, and Defends Abortion Access • Continuations
Coda: CUNY Will Be Free!
Liberating Education • Archiving in Ethical Motion
