Register of The Integration Project : The Jackie Goldberg And Sharon Stricker Collection,
1980-1985, n.d.
Processed by Patricia Martinez; machine-readable finding aid created by
Xiuzhi Zhou
Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research
6120 S. Vermont Avenue
Los Angeles, California 90044
Phone: (323) 759-6063
Fax: (323) 759-2252
Email: archives@socallib.org
URL: http://www.socallib.org
© 1999
Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research. All rights reserved.
Register of The Integration Project : The Jackie Goldberg And Sharon Stricker Collection,
1980-1985, n.d.
Collection number: MSS 021
Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research
Los Angeles, California
Contact Information:
- Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research
- 6120 S. Vermont Avenue
- Los Angeles, California 90044
- Phone: (323) 759-6063
- Fax: (323) 759-2252
- Email: archives@socallib.org
- URL: http://www.socallib.org
- Processed by:
- Patricia Martinez
- Date Completed:
- June 1996
- Encoded by:
- Xiuzhi Zhou
© 1999 Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research. All rights reserved.
Descriptive Summary
Title: The Integration Project : The Jackie Goldberg And Sharon Stricker Collection,
Date (inclusive): 1980-1985, n.d.
Collection number: MSS 021
Creator:
Goldberg, Jackie
Extent: 4 boxes
Repository:
Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research.
Language:
English.
Administrative Information
Access
The collection is available for research only at the Library's facility in Los Angeles.
The Library is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. Researchers are encouraged
to call or email the Library indicating the nature of their research query prior to making a visit.
Publication Rights
Copyright has not been assigned to the Southern California Library for
Social Studies and Research. Researchers may make single copies of any
portion of the collection, but publication from the collection will be
allowed only with the express written permission of the Library's
director. It is not necessary to obtain written permission to quote from
a collection. When the Southern California Library for Social Studies
and Research gives permission for publication, it is as the owner of the
physical item and is not intended to include or imply permission of the
copyright holder, which must also be obtained.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], The Integration Project : The Jackie Goldberg And Sharon Stricker Collection, Southern California
Library for Social Studies and Research, Los Angeles.
Historical Sketch
Civil Rights struggles after World War II created the climate for the landmark 1954 United States Supreme Court
Brown
v. Board of Education decision which overturned nineteenth-century law. The court ruled that educational facilities "which separate Blacks from
whites are inherently unequal". As a result, in 1963, a Black student in Los Angeles by the name of Mary Crawford, sued the
Los Angeles School Board for segregating and denying her equal opportunity under this new law. Years of litigation followed
as several L.A. boards of education appealed this high court decision.
In 1970, Judge Alfred Gitelson ordered the board to create a plan for integration. When the board came up with a scheme based
entirely on voluntary busing, the Judge said it was "designed to show extremely high cost, create disruption, and was designed
to fail- not a plan at all". Finally in 1976, the California Supreme Court ordered the board to desegregate, and a new Judge,
Paul Egly, ordered that a new plan be submitted to him by December, 1976.
Over that summer of 1976, about 40 teachers, parents, and community workers met informally in a crowded unpainted room in
a building in central L.A. Appointed by the Los Angeles Board of Education to study the district and recommend a plan for
desegregation, the group not only monitored the activities of the Citizen's Advisory Committee, but it also scheduled meetings
with the public to provide for airing of opinions and grievances. Knowing that its suggestions could be readily rejected,
the committee became cautious and tried not to advise anything too sweeping. Nevertheless, while it did produce a method and
schedule whereby some schools could be desegregated, the board promptly put the committee's proposals aside and dismissed
them.
Two methods of avoiding court ordered desegregation emerged right from the start: first, an integrated school was defined
as one where as much as 80% of one race attended. Second, special permits (PWT) allowed students to travel voluntarily on
school buses in order to integrate schools. Close to twenty-five million dollars would be spent on a nonplan that would place
the weight for change on the students.
The study group took the name of the
Integration Project and began attending public meetings, writing and circulating informational bulletins, and calling the attention of teachers
and parents' to the board's failure to obey the law. The group's plan brought together the major ethnic groups in the city:
Asian, Black, Latino, and white. They included suggestions for staff development, use of federal and state funds for human
relations, training and updating of facilities and material. Most importantly, though, the group was able to clearly establish
the need for multi-cultural and bilingual education.
The school board's position on integration emerged quite clearly: it was bad for education and it would create violence and
a situation where minority students would not be able to compete and thereby develop inferiority complexes. So, after weeks
of hearings and millions of dollars in expenses, Judge Egly rejected the Integration Project's plan for desegregation. He
then appointed a monitor to oversee the creation of a new board plan who would desegregate the district.
In June, Robert Doctor, a moderate pro-integrationist, lost his seat to Bobbi Fieldler, an ardent anti-integrationist.
Over the next year, 1977-1978, with the exception of the Hispanic Urban Center, an independent community group, Black and
Hispanic leaders seemed opposed to desegregation, spoke against busing, or subtly supported segregation by supporting the
court case decision as though it were just a squabble between white politicians and thus of no concern to them. Instead, they
now called for "quality education and community decision-making".
Judge Egly gave tentative approval to a new board plan called Concept L which would raise the number of traveling students
to 20,000, and exclude grades K-3 and 9-12 and also the most racially isolated areas of the city- South Central and East Los
Angeles. In October, 1979, a new round of hearings began to expand Concept L. Integration Project activists continued to print
informational bulletins with updates on court hearings. They warned that the imposition of "separate but equal" was becoming
fixed in the budget under an item entitled "Racially Isolated Minority Schools" (RIMS). Under this designation, money appropriated
for desegregation was instead being used to support segregation. When it became clear that Judge Egly would approve a RIMS
package to upgrade segregated schools, the Integration Project decided it could not ignore its existence. Suggestions were
written for "How To Improve Remaining Racially Isolated Schools.
Finally, in 1981 the case came to a close. The State Supreme Court refused to hear the merits of the constitutional amendment
as it applied to the Los Angeles
Crawford v. Board of Education case. Segregationists had brought an end to 18 years of litigation without desegregating one single minority school.
Scope and Content
The Integration Papers (1970's) is an alphabetical subject collection. The series contains a wide range of material pertinent
to The Project, including legal papers, newspaper articles, minutes of meetings, reports, and publications. This large archive
documents the segregation of Los Angeles schools, the litigation around that issue, and community organizing about education.
The best place to begin research for this collection would be in the clipping files. Here, one can obtain the details of the
happenings and at the same time learn where on the time line they happened. The newspaper articles document a wide range of
events- from court decisions to the controversial issue of busing. The material pertinent to this issue is a highlight of
this collection.
Meeting notes and minutes provide great insight to the Project's overall organization, ideas, and goals. Here, members voice
their opinions and tasks are undertaken. A strong leadership and high level of will is proven to exist within this group.
The political and social issues that influenced the Project's decisions can be best understood through the papers of different
organizations such as BARTOC, the Coalition For Bilingual Integrated Quality Education (CBIQE), and the Community Relations
Conference of Southern California (CRCSC).
Another highlight to this collection are the court-related documents from
Crawford vs. Board of
Education. Appeals, briefings, and proceedings richen the collection and facilitate the understanding of the case.
This large archive about school desegregation in Los Angeles was donated by Jackie Goldberg, Sharon Stricker, and Dorothy
Doyle, three key leaders of the Project. Dorothy, a teacher and writer, was for many years on the SCL Board. Sharon is an
accomplished writer, teacher, and feminist activist. Jackie, who went on to become president of the school board, is now on
the Los Angeles City Council.
Related Collections
Title: The Integration Project : The Dorothy Doyle Collection, 1967-1978, n.d.
Box 1, Folder 2
American Civil Liberties Union,
CAPA vs. Gates, City Council Hearing, 1985
Box 1, Folder 4
Bay Area Radical Teachers' Organizing Collective (BARTOC)
Box 1, Folder 7
Campaign For A Citizens Police Review Board
Box 1, Folder 11
Coalition For Bilingual Integrated Quality Education (CBIQE)
Box 1, Folder 12
Coalition For Bilingual Integrated Quality Education (CBIQE), ALERT Committee
Box 1, Folder 13
Coalition for Peaceful Integration
Box 1, Folder 14
Community Relations Conference of Southern California
Box 1, Folder 15
Community Relations Service, United States Department of Justice
Box 1, Folder 16
Conference on Racism and National Oppression
Box 1, Folder 18
Crawford vs. Board of Education, Attorney Fees
Box 1, Folder 19-27
Crawford vs. Board of Education
Box 2, Folder 1-3
Crawford vs. Board of Education, Exhibits
Box 2, Folder 9
Equal Rights Clearinghouse
Box 2, Folder 14
Famous Blacks and Chicanos
Box 2, Folder 20
The Integration Project, Newsletter
Box 2, Folder 21
League Of Women Voters of California
Box 2, Folder 22
Legal Services Corporation
Box 2, Folder 24
Los Angeles Branch NAACP vs. Los Angeles Unified School District
Box 2, Folder 25
Los Angeles Unified School District, Budget 1980-1981
Box 2, Folder 26
Metropolitan School Planning
Box 3, Folder 6
Publications, Miscellaneous
Box 3, Folder 7
Racial and Ethnic Desegregation
Box 3, Folder 8-9
Racially Isolated Minority Schools (RIMS)
Box 3, Folder 11
Senior High Schools, Profile Reports
Box 3, Folder 15
Transportation, Permits With Transportation Program (PWT)
Box 3, Folder 16
U.S. Department of Justice, Community Relations Service
Box 3, Folder 19
Westside Committee United for Equal and Quality Education
Box 3, Box 4
Miscellaneous Publications
