The Quest for Community Control: Education, Black Power, & the Lessons of Harlem and Oakland for Liberatory Education Reform

Abstract

From policing to education reform, community control is a term commonly used, but rarely understood. In this thesis, I analyze the movement for Black community control of education in Harlem and Oakland in the 1960s and 1970s through a comparative study. I use Harlem’s Intermediate School 201 (I.S. 201) and the Black Panther Party’s Oakland Community School (OCS) as case studies to better understand the meaning of community control and its implications for contemporary education reform. Who and what shaped the agenda for community control of schools in Harlem and Oakland? Who opposed it and why? Drawing from an extensive array of historical archival material, I recreate Black Power’s battles for community control to tell a history of policy making from below. I merge the device of historical institutionalism with insights from social justice movements, particularly Black Power, to explain how and why the meanings of community control converged and diverged between Oakland and Harlem. Through this analysis, it becomes clear that community control as a policy ideal was the result of institutional failure and distrust. Activists used their anger to fuel their imaginations of what education could be with community control. Control of curriculum and staffing emerged as key principles in activists’ conceptualizations of community control, although control of curriculum mattered more in Oakland and control of staffing mattered more in Harlem. By using a comparative approach, the stories of I.S. 201 and OCS highlight key lessons and actionable steps for grassroots organizing toward community control.