Portside

I was young and I believed

I didn’t know I was naive

But if you don’t know what’s coming down

You can’t turn this world around

(But if you never even try

You’ll never ever learn just why)

Since I wouldn’t go to war,

They said, go off and teach the poor

To a town that’s mean and gritty

Go on down to New York City

I left in the blistering summer heat

Cruised on down to East 10th Street,

On my first post-college road trip

Thought, this place is really hip

Grabbed my bag and up the stairs,

Saw my good friend Eric there,

Bounded down to the first floor

Out the door to get some more

But my bags had disappeared

No, I cried, this is too weird

No one there had seen them taken

I was stunned and badly shaken

Eric’s place was barely able

Bathtub doubled as a table

Eastside people weren’t so pretty

Blown out minds and looking shitty

Even worse than digs so shabby

Was a neighbor very crabby

Raging, drugged with muscled body

He tortured Eric with Karate

Eric, sad, but we were buddies

Partners from our Princeton studies

Black and small and somewhat fried

Eventually fell to suicide

Off to find a place to live

$300 bucks I had to give

10th street living wasn’t right

Settled down in Washington Heights

Went on over to the Board of Ed

Packed with draftees filled with dread

Used my letter of introduction

Got my South Bronx-bound instructions

Off to work, my shoes all shined

Arriving to a picket line

“Wow” I thought with satisfaction

Teacher striking, lots of action

Joined the teachers on the line

Seeking justice felt just fine

Didn’t know, amidst the strife

This type of fight would be my life

Meanwhile back at my new pad

Lack of food, cockroaches bad

Just a mattress for my head

Borrowed bakery day old bread

The first strike ended, stopped the duel

All the kids went back to school

Time to teach, my new found skill

Where was Ocean Hill Brownsville?

Kids were sharp and very cute

But didn’t like their substitutes

Every day they drove me mad

Good was boring, they liked bad

School was lousy, not well done

They were looking for some fun

They were black and we were white

We all knew this wasn’t right

Then the strike broke out once more

Teachers marching out the door

Once again I walked the lines

Teachers’ rights were on our signs

Soon it ended, back to teaching

Time to try more children reaching

But the contradictions raging

Forced my mind to start engaging

Then a teacher caught my ear

Tried to make the picture clear

None of us would have immunity

When teachers struck against community

How could a fight for teachers’ rights

Be separate from the awful plight

That drowns our students with its tides

And yet we stand on different sides

This wisdom struck like bolts of thunder

Removed the fog that I was under

Somewhere I heard my father say

We’re all equal in every way

I tried for days to reach the others

Draft dodging men, I called my brothers

But not a one would make a break

All looking out for their own sake

When the big strike three came to pass

We decided to teach our class

Six of 100 made up our mind

Defy the union picket signs

First we canvassed door to door

Inviting kids to a school house tour

Contradicting their teacher perceptions

Getting a friendly community reception

Every morning we formed our troop

Parents and children in our group

Just as the daily clock struck nine

We marched across the picket line

Teachers booed and shouted “scab”

Taking names and keeping tabs

Don’t know from whence my courage came

But I was proud, eschewing shame

For many days the strike endured

My classroom filled, my will inured

Without supplies or books or training

I learned to teach, my skillset gaining

The halls were quiet as could be

The classrooms practiced ABCs

Each class was made of many ages

But they seemed happy turning pages

Five weeks the routine carried on

The tensions high, battle lines drawn

It wasn’t how I pictured teaching

But here were kids that I was reaching

We braved the conflict all together

Standing strong in stormy weather

I let the kids into my heart

My new career, a fateful start

But then the bitter strike was done

And daily classrooms had begun

I faced the union teachers’ glare

They didn’t want me teaching there

When other teachers got a class

I was always left to last

They vowed to leave a deep impression

They wanted me to learn a lesson

I remained a daily substitute

Living down my ill repute

I couldn’t keep the kids in line

They kept messing with my mind

I couldn’t sleep night after night

Each day my stomach wasn’t right

My days ended with me screaming

The kids were laughing, even beaming

Once again I was dependent

On my friendly district superintendent

When I told her of my plight

She agreed to set it right

I began the new semester

A fourth grade class I had sequestered

On Fox Street Bronx I found a school

Principal Lonoff made the rules

A delightful group of fresh fourth graders

Confronted with a new invader

But I brought forth my youthful passion

With all the tricks that I could cash in

Some came to class with ragged sticks

I said I won’t fall for your tricks

Oh no, they cried, it’s for the rats

On Fox street you’ll find lots of that

One contingent spoke only Spanish

My earnest lessons quickly vanished

My class was just their latest fate

Our school had no one to translate

The books were few

No lesson plans

There were lots of can’ts

And too few cans

Principal Lonoff told us all

There shall be silence in the hall

All that he wants is law and order

In case of visits from headquarters

I once played Puerto Rican songs

And by their desks kids danced along

Then in stormed Lonoff in a rage

To subject us to the printed page

Nightly through our windows passed

School yard rocks and shattered glass

Early mornings with my broom

I daily swept glass from the room

With winter winds ferocious breezing

The kids wore coats to forestall freezing

Lonoff declared the issue dead

Without word from the Board of Ed

Wilfredo, bored with class room dreck

Looked out the window, cut his neck

Lonoff freaked out at the blood

They covered windows all with wood

One young girl, her arms all bitten

Said with bedbugs she was smitten

I went to visit with her mother

But the landlord said he wouldn’t bother

I had grown up working class

Never had a lot of cash

But I never knew much more

About the suffering of the poor

I tried to paint a hopeful arc

Once took the kids to Central Park

I fell in love and tried my best

To undo how they were oppressed

Next year to remain in compliance

Lonoff had me teaching science

I said of science I knew shit

Lonoff said just use the kits

I decided to be a radical padre

And found myself some 6th grade cadre

We studied weekly from the text

The autobiography of Malcolm X

Then with my cadre, bold and hearty

We went to see the Panther Party

With old strike friends in the community

I developed power and immunity

Lonoff, in the liberal tradition

Gave me time and his permission

To do the outreach and explore

A Bronx-wide march against the war

Of the charts and in my glorium

I led a Bronx-wide moratorium

While Thousands gathered in DC

The Bronx Students marched with me

But yet the teaching took its toll

I hated how I lost control

Without much help and absent training

I had my doubts about remaining

One kid hid in the cloakroom there

I found by grasping for his hair

Next day his mom said “please sir please sir”

My son was up last night with seizures

One day Jeff Perry came to see me

Actually intent to free me

Leave he said and follow me

It’s nothing but a colony

Forget the draft

Walk out the door

We’ll keep you from

That awful war

There’s a place to go

And not for scuba

But revolution

Viva Cuba

That was the end of my teaching career

My mind was blown, my spirit clear

It radicalized me to my core

I knew not what, but I wanted more!

August, 2010

OFF TO TEACH THE POOR in 1968- A POEM BACKGROUNDER

This poem is about my personal journey as a working class Jewish kid form Philadelphia who traveled to NYC in 1968 to get out of the draft, not knowing that I was stepping into a tornado of social conflict. As a graduate of an elite college I found out that I could avoid the draft if I was willing to do what was considered by many as unthinkable – teach in a poor neighborhood of NYC.

Thousands of young NYC men had the same idea and the same war-avoiding desperation, but through good fortune I had a letter of introduction from an African American NYC District superintendent. I got a job at an elementary school in the South Bronx. This began an intensive year and a half coming of age for me and an education about poverty, racism, public education unions and power.

What I didn’t expect was that on my first day on the job I would arrive to a picket line – the vast majority of teachers in NYC were on strike. It was my first union experience and, at first, I enthusiastically joined the picket line.

The NYC Ocean Hill Brownsville struggle, as it is often referred to, was a historical moment: for NYC, for teachers, public sector unions, Jews and African Americans in NYC and beyond, as well as for public education. (There has been a lot written about it – one thorough overview is the book titled The Strike that Changed New York by Jerald Podair and for more here and here)

Ocean Hill Brownsville was the Brooklyn community where the district board fired and transferred teachers, demanding more control over who teaches and what is taught in their mostly African American neighborhood. The United Federation of Teachers (AFT) led by a rising star of the labor movement, Albert Shankar, struck to protect the union contract and due process rights of teachers above all else.

In its essence the struggle was between communities of color wanting control over their failing local schools and a union wanting to defend policies that protected predominantly white teachers, many of them Jewish, who lived mostly in the outer boroughs and the suburbs. This is all in the context in which the NYC Department of Education in Brooklyn rigidly controlled every single operational aspect of schools throughout the five boroughs.

The conflict brought to a head the Post WW II growth of “middle class” whites many of whom migrated out of the inner cities resulting in a shrinking urban tax base and the deterioration of schools, housing and public services. In the case of Jews in NYC, and elsewhere, they had gone into to teaching since the 30s for its rewards and because of the continued exclusion of Jews from parts of private sector employment.

This strike followed the ’68 riots that broke out across the country after Kings assassination and the emergence of movements among African American and Latinos seeking economic equality beyond the legal progress gained from civil rights legislation.

The three UFT strikes in the fall of 1968, the third lasting for five weeks, fractured a long standing solidarity between Jews and African Americans. Jewish teachers and communities joined a citywide white alliance with Irish and Italian Catholics. African American joined with Puerto Rican communities. Ford Foundation, ironically, funded the experimental district in Ocean Hill that led the community control struggle.

The lessons from the Ocean Hill Brownsville struggle are still being learned. Teacher unions are struggling to build community alliances while corporate funders promote privatization of education while posing as the champions of the poor. Off To Teach the Poor is my reflection on this moment in history.

Gene Bruskin is a 37 year veteran of the labor movement as a local union president, an organizer and campaign coordinator for numerous local and national unions.  He worked as the labor director for the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition and served as Secretary Treasurer for the Food and Allied Service Trades Department of the AFL-CIO. He was the UFCW Director for the successful Justice@Smithfield Campaign  He has done extensive international labor solidarity work, including with Iraqi workers and uinions, and is a founder of US Labor Against the War.  He retired in September 2012 after establishing and leading the Strategic Campaigns Department for the AFT and is presently working as a consultant for several unions. He is currently in the process of producing  a musical comedy for and about unions and workers called Pray For the Dead-A Musical Tale of Morgues, Moguls and Mutiny. (www.gofundme.com/prayfor the dead)