Ethnic Studies > Clarence Taylor: Knocking at Our Own Door

The author, Clarence Taylor conducted an interview with Reverend Milton Galamison in 1987. This first interview was a starting point for an extended research not only on the Downstate Campaign, which was the original purpose of this interview, but more importantly on the long and intense struggle for school integration in New York City.

Milton Galamison was born on March 25, 1923 in a working class family in Philadelphia, PA. He grew up poor during the depression, and he attributed his hardships to his father, rather then to the economic crisis of the 1930’s. In 1940 he became an assistant at his local church, Saint Michaels, to the new and young reverend Thomas Logan. They soon became close, the priest became his mentor. Galamison enjoyed being at the altar, it gave him the feeling of power and prestige. He later studied at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, in all all-male school that focused on theological education for the colored young. He later became one of the few Presbyterian ministers in the country, partly by the influence of Gladys, whom he married in 1945, and partly because after spending 4 years at the Presbyterian institution, he became familiar with the faith. In 1947 he was ordained by the Presbytery Church in Princeton, NJ, and was assigned to the Witherspoon Presbyterian Church there. A year later he was offered a position at Siloam Presbyterian Church in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, NY. “He declared to Siloam members that the greatest social evil people faced, were racial discrimination, class inequality, and war – evils that steamed from the greed of the rich and powerful” (34).

From the 1950’s he appeared on many religious TV shows, and became popular outside of the walls of his church as well. From 1955-57 he served as a chair on the Education Committee of the Brooklyn chapter of NAACP, which fought for the integration of NYC’s schools system. In 1957 he was elected as president, but left it two years later. He founded his organization, the Parent’s Workshop for Equality in New York City Schools. This was more of a grass root organization, and Galamison felt that he could do more to achieve his goals on the local level. In 1963 he led a city-wide boycott where more than 500,000 children stayed home on that day. This boycott however had no effect on the Board of Education, demanding for a scheduled plan to desegregate the city’s schools. He led two more unsuccessful boycotts, and at the end he lost his popularity among civil rights groups. In 1968 he was appointed to the Board of Education, and later was elected as Vice President. He finally concluded, “that little could be accomplished and the battle had been lost” (206).

Thesis and major arguments:

Racism was not eliminated in the United States with the fall of Jim Crow, the country remains until today, with the words of Andrew Hacker, “two nations, divided by race in everything they say and do.” The main focus of the book I think is that civil rights movements can help shape society. Civil rights activists, whether they fight for school desegregation, or racial equality, are always in an extremely difficult situation because they want major changes that would alter certain norms of the society. Milton Galamison sacrificed the most part of his life for the fight for school integration in New York City as an affluent minister of Brooklyn’s Siloam Presbyterian Church. The first key step toward integration was the 1954 Supreme Court decision, where the court held that the de facto segregation of public education based on race, deprived minority children of equal educational opportunities in violation of the 14th Amendment. This case of Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas became a catalyst for civil rights movements across the nation. It’s been a challenge to public schools for equal educational opportunities that continues to this day. According to Galamison segregated schools represented a psychological and educational damage to black and Latino children. New York City schools tried a number of measures, such as bussing, and pairing, by pressures from various civil rights groups, but none were successful. The minister realized that the housing separation and matters of class and race prejudice blocked any effort to desegregate schools. These geographical restrictions were a result of the racial practices in the real estate industry and resistance to integration by the white communities of New York (51).

Galamison, as the leader of the NAACP’s Brooklyn branch, organized parents to fight for decent education for black and Puerto Rican children. Overcrowding and segregation was common by the 1940’s; these children were confined to the worst schools, receiving an inferior education. The schools were often too dangerous for kids, daily instruction was four hours, and lunches were denied because of improper kitchen facilities. According to Kenneth Clark, segregated schools were a crucial problem: “One cannot expect a group to attain the full status of equality of citizenship if the masses of the children of that group are being denied adequate education in their elementary and secondary schools” I think this is the thesis of the book, and I think that the fight that Galamison and others started half a century ago are far from being over. The public school system and perhaps the public in general, have an enormous responsibility for giving kids the chance and opportunity of a democratic education that is not inferior to those of whites, and one that enables them to live with children of all backgrounds.

The strengths and weaknesses of the book:

The style of the book is very clear, easy to follow, free from any ambiguous statements. It’s written in a chronological order, starting with the birth of Milton Galamison, and introducing his family tree to the reader. The book takes us to the civil rights movements of the 1950’s and 60’s, while connecting all happenings to the life of the pastor. Actually the book is more like a biography, but gives us a lot more information, personal insights, and motivation about the era through the eyes of one man. The book’s structure is very coherent, we can see how one thing leads to another, and that everything Galamison does has a well grounded cause. The book is based on certain causes and its effect, the forces that motivated every aspect of the minister’s life, and how he reacted to these. The language of the book is easy to understand, and easy to follow. Every fact or action that the author mentions, are well supported by either personal or telephone interviews with the parties who participated in those, or by reciting from other books, magazines, news papers. The sources are mainly primary, since the author collected them for the purpose of this book. As we can read in the Acknowledgement part, the whole book is based on an interview with Galamison himself. He spoke about his personal experiences as a minister, and civil rights advocate. In the Notes part of the book we can find a long list of the references that were used by the author, supporting his ideas and views, and mentioning the names of those who had connections to the late pastor.