Jack Salzman, Cornel West Struggles in the Promised

114 // JONATHAN KAUFMAN
500,000 copies printed, to be distributed throughout the city. People should see,
he said, what his teachers were up against.
One handout quoted an anonymous leaflet placed in teachers' mailboxes in
Junior High School 271:
If African American History and Culture is to be taught to our Black
Children it Must be Done By African Americans who Identify With And
Who Understand The Problem.
It Is Impossible For The Middle East Murderers of Colored People to
Possibly Bring To This Important Task The Insight, The Concern, The
Exposing Of The Truth That is a Must If the Years Of Brainwashing And
Self-Hatred That Has Been Taught To Our Black Children By Those
Bloodsucking Exploiters and Murderers Is To Be OverCome. The Idea
Behind This Program Is Beautiful, But When The Money Changers Heard
About It, They Took Over, As Is Their Custom In The Black Community,
If African American History And Culture Is Important To Our Children
To Raise Their Esteem Of Themselves [sic], They Are The Only Persons
Who Can Do The job Are African American Brothers And Sisters, And
Not the So-Called Liberal Jewish Friend. We Know From His Tricky,
Deceitful Maneuvers That He is Really Our Enemy and He is Responsible
For The Serious Educational Retardation Of Our Black Children. We Call
On All Concerned Black Teachers, Parents, And Friends to Write To The
Board of Education, To the Mayor, To The State Commissioner of
Education To Protest The Take Over Of This Crucial Program By People
Who Are Unfit By Tradition And By Inclination To Do Even An Adequate
Job.
Other union handouts reprinted inflammatory statements by activist Les
Campbell and anti-Semitic slurs that had circulated around the fringes of the
Ocean Hill—Brownsville dispute.
As a device to win the strike, Shanker's decision to print the handouts was a
brilliant tactical move. Overnight it changed the debate from one over community
control and decentralization—over which many in the city, including Jews,
were divided—into a debate over anti-Semitism in the Black community. Are
these the kind of things, Shanker asked, that you want said in your schools? Are
these the kind of people you want running the schools and teaching children?
Many Jews were already unhappy with the rising militancy and anti-white sentiment
emanating from the more militant parts of the civil rights movement. Most
Jews in New York still considered themselves liberals, but many, especially in
working-class neighborhoods, were becoming scared. Crime had skyrocketed in
the 1960s, rising faster than at any other time since the 1930s. Two years earlier,
in 1966, New York Mayor John Lindsay had proposed establishing a civilian