

Ghosts in the Schoolyard
Racism and School Closings in Chicago’s South Side
Author: Eve L. Ewing
Narrator: Lisa Reneé Pitts
Unabridged: 6 hr 48 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: 06/25/2019
Categories: Nonfiction, Education, History, Us History, Social Science, Cultural & Ethnic Studies, American, African American & Black Studies
Includes:
Bonus Material
Synopsis
Never was that role more apparent than in 2013 when Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced an unprecedented wave of school closings. Pitched simultaneously as a solution to a budget problem, a response to declining enrollments, and a chance to purge bad schools that were dragging down the whole system, the plan was met with a roar of protest from parents, students, and teachers. But if these schools were so bad, why did people care so much about keeping them open?
Ewing's answer begins with a story of systemic racism, inequality, bad faith, and distrust that stretches deep into Chicago history. Black communities see the closing of their schools—schools that are certainly less than perfect but that are theirs—as one more in a long line of racist policies. The fight to keep them open is yet another front in the ongoing struggle of black people in America to build successful lives and achieve true self-determination.