Death at an Early Age

Death at an Early Age: the Destruction of the Hearts and Minds of Negro
Children in the Boston Public Schools
by
Jonathan Kozol

In 1964 Mr Kozol was a new teacher in a segregated classroom in the
Boston public school system. School board members, teachers, and
administrators consciously maintained a system of bigotry and physical
punishment. The aim, intended or not, was to persuade the kids that
they were inferior. The school buildings were in deplorable condition,
books were inadequate. In fact books were chosen so that the black
kids did not read about slavery, but about a perfect white world. Kids
were hit on their hands with strips of rattan, raising welts on their
hands and contributing to their feelings of inferiority. Jonathan
Kozol speaks with open outrage at the system which fosters and protects
prejudiced teachers. In his fourth grade class he introduced
"unauthorized" reading material. He took some kids on a few trips on
his own time and was verbally castigated for it. The final straw which
got him fired a week before the end of the school year was the reading
of a poem by Langston Hughes. But he's a black poet, you say! The
title was "Ballad of the Landlord". Look it up. The poem resonated with
the class, and they took it home and memorized it. His firing made the
newspapers; the city school committee upheld it, but it caused the
parents to gather, protest, and demand better conditions.

How many other large cities have (or had) the same problems? This is
just one man's account in Boston.

Jonathan today is a well-respected teacher and journalist. He still
lives in Boston. He also wrote "Amazing Grace", about the neighborhood
of Mott Haven in the south Bronx. In "cleaning up" Manhattan for
tourists, the city moved homeless and low income people to this poor
area and provided very few funds or services for their benefit.

Both of these books are highly recommended (by me). Or read any one of
his many other books. If he is speaking near you, go and see him!