How does the struggle for multicultural education and self-determination relate to book banning and the right-wing pushback against antiracist education today? In this back-to-school special, we look at the grassroots movement led by student activists with the support of some faculty to establish Africana Studies Departments and Puerto Rican Studies Departments at The City of New York, or CUNYs Brooklyn College ” one of the first in the country. Members of the Black League of African-American Collegians (BLAC) organized with other student groups like the Puerto Rican Alliance and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) to force the implementation of the open admissions policy. These student-led actions in the late 1960s and early 1970s are the subject of the documentary film, Making the Impossible Possible, directed by Tami Kashia Gold & Pam Sporn and distributed by Third World Newsreel. Askia Davis and Antonio Nieves were part of the BC 19, a group of students who were arrested and incarcerated at Rikers jail for demanding open admissions and the establishment of the Africana Studies Departments and Puerto Rican Studies Department in the student-led takeover in 1969. Sonia Nieto is one of the BC 44, a former Brooklyn College faculty member who participated in the 1974 takeover. Learn more about this historic win from the former Brooklyn College students and faculty who were there on the frontlines.
The Laura Flanders Show explores actionable models for creating a better world by reporting on the people and movements driving systemic change. We spotlight the solutions of tomorrow, today. The 28minute radio program (released 5pm Wednesdays) also airs as a TV Show on PBS stations reaching 80% of U.S. households. Laura Flanders is an Izzy-Award winning independent journalist, a New York Times bestselling author and the recipient of the Pat Mitchell Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women’s Media Center. Says Katrina Vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of the Nation, who has known her for 25 years, “Flanders’ fearless and humane journalism never fails to challenge our downsized politics of excluded alternatives. But it does more — Flanders wants her reporting to shift power, seed bold ideas and offer people a way forward that is about transformative not transactional change”.