This essay is dedicated to Marlene Park, teacher and friend, whose guidance, patience, and exemplary scholarship are greatly appreciated. The author also wants to acknowledge and pay tribute to Ernest Crichlow (1914–2005), who passed away during the preparation of this article.

1. Ironically, at the time of this writing, the New York City Department of Education (formerly the New York City Board of Education), has been reorganized into ten regions, greatly reducing the role of local school community boards.

2. Eventually, the schools were recombined at the Marcy Avenue site, and in 1975 the name of the school was changed to Boys' and Girls' High School. The author is grateful to David M. Ment, Municipal Archives, City of New York, for providing details on Central High School.

3. Not every New York City public school has commissioned art. The Board of Education began this practice in 1905 when architect Charles B. J. Snyder requested funds for a pair of murals for the auditorium of the new De Witt Clinton High School. Over the next century, the city, federal government, alumni, and various organizations have initiated and funded public art projects in schools. In 1965, Mayor Robert Wagner issued an executive order encouraging city agencies to include artwork in city buildings, a practice that was already fairly common in schools. In 1982, the City Council passed Percent for Art legislation and, since 1989, with the creation of the New York City School Construction Authority, every new school building incorporates permanent public art.

4. Other commissioned art of this period that addresses racial issues includes a bas-relief by José Buscaglia “depicting the marriage of Afro-American, Puerto Rican and North American cultures,” designed in 1972 for I.S. 84, Bronx; a mural by Romare Bearden, featuring enormous portraits of African-American and Latino leaders, rejected by the Art Commission and redesigned as a more schematic composition showing a map projection of Puerto Rico and Africa at either end with profile views of a Puerto Rican and African-American student over a cityscape in the center, also for I.S. 84 (see exhibition file 3780 E–L, Art Commission of the City of New York); Hugo Gellert's mural We Can See Far for We Are Standing on the Shoulders of Giants (1970) for Hillcrest High School, Queens; and the Martin Luther King Memorial, by William Tarr, completed in 1973 for the Martin Luther King, Jr. High School, Manhattan. Charles Alston, then on the Art Commission, who was ambivalent about rejecting Bearden's original design, also created two public artworks for schools. The first was a mosaic entitled Man on the Threshold of the Space Age, in 1963 for P.S. 154, Manhattan, and a decade later, in 1973, Alston designed an exterior sculpture for I.S. 158, Bronx. Following that, in 1975 Bearden designed a second, less controversial mural about daily school life for P.S. 346, Brooklyn.

5. New York Times, 12 24, 1954Google Scholar, reprinted in Ravitch, Diane, The Great School Wars: A History of the New York City Public Schools (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 252Google Scholar (see ch. 23, “The Discovery of Segregation and Scandals,” and ch. 24, “Boycotts and Demonstrations”).

6. For a discussion of community control, see Wilcox, Preston, “The Meaning of Community Control,” Foresight 1 (1969): vGoogle Scholar, quoted in Coleman, James S. et al. , Equality of Educational Opportunity (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966), 20Google Scholar.

7. There is an extensive bibliography on the Ocean Hill–Brownsville crisis and disagreements to this day about what actually took place. I have found Confrontation at Ocean Hill-Brownsville, ed. Berube, Maurice R. and Gittell, Marilyn (New York: Prager, 1969)Google Scholar, to be a useful reference. See also Podar, Jerald, The Strike That Changed New York: Blacks, Whites, and the Ocean Hill–Brownsville Crisis (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003)Google Scholar.

8. The old school was located at 832 Marcy Avenue. It is still used by the Board of Education for a variety of programs and received landmark designation in 1975.

9. New York Times, “High Schools Here Still Present a Study in Contrasts,” 06 29, 1975, p. 28, col. 2Google Scholar. This article is referring to the 1964 Allen Report, which advised the Board of Education to “introduce a large scale program of construction and development of four year comprehensive high schools” and to build them in largely white neighborhoods in Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. The comprehensive high school would eliminate the stigmatized minority-dominated vocational high schools, merging them with the predominantly white academic high schools. The Allen report, named for State Commissioner of Education James Allen Jr., entitled “Desegregating the Public Schools of New York City,” was released in May 1964 (see Ravitch, , Great School Wars, ch. 25Google Scholar).

10. Seymour Levine, Senior Planner, School Planning and Research Division of the Board of Education, in an internal memorandum to Dr. Morris N. Sachs, Director, School Planning and Research, October 25, 1966, reporting on a meeting of the Mayor's Interdepartmental Committee on Integration (Real Estate Unit Files, Division of School Facilities, New York City Board of Education).

11. Letter from Stanley Leyden, Chairman Education Committee of Central Brooklyn Coordinating Council, to Adrian Blumenfeld, Administrator of School Planning and Research, April 29,1965 (Real Estate Files, Division of School Facilities, New York City Department of Education).

12. See Buder, Leonard, “Magnet High Schools in City Are Pulling,” New York Times, 07 3, 1975, p. 13, col. 1Google Scholar.

13. Board of Education School Profile, Office of Special Collections, Teacher's College, Columbia University, New York.

14. Business leaders in Bedford–Stuyvesant opposed this site because it necessitated the relocation of about thirty businesses.

15. Although the effort to build a new school began in 1960, it wasn't until 1965 that a resolution appeared on the Board of Education's calendar to begin the process. That resolution of September 24, 1965, requested funds for site acquisition and construction in the 1965–66 capital budget, estimating the total cost at $11,136,458. On June 14, 1966, Mayor Lindsay signed authorization to proceed with property acquisition, but, as of September 1966, the Board was still researching possible sites. See “Tentative Minutes, Working Committee on School Sites of the Site Selection Board,” September 27, 1966. The comment for Boys High School reads, “The Board of Education is studying the possibilities and effects of locating this high school in a de-facto segregated neighborhood or in a fringe area. Laid over.”

16. Real Estate Unit Files, Division of School Facilities. The total cost of the school rose to $24,764,100, based on the bid of $18,316,952. The approved school cost as of December 1969 was $15,565,000.

17. Crichlow, Ernest, “Interview with Ernie Crichlow, Painter,” interview by Camille Billops (New York, February 10, 1985), Artist and Influence 4 (1986): 41Google Scholar.

18. Ernest Crichlow, interview by the author, January 8, 2002, Brooklyn.

19. Martin D. Stein, interview by the author, November 5, 2001, New York City.

20. Ibid.

21. Undated letter, Files of Public Art for Public Schools, New York City Department of Education.

22. Crichlow, interview by author.

23. Stein, interview by author.

24. Crichlow, interview by author.

25. Ibid.

26. This was not an accident. Crichlow confirmed, “Naturally I kept adding on names. I tried to have a variety of people” (Crichlow, , “Interview with Ernest Crichlow,” 41Google Scholar).

27. The size of the budgets are somewhat in proportion to the scope of the commissions, but there are imbalances, where younger, inexperienced artists received comparable amounts to older, established artists. According to Camille Billops in a conversation with the author in December 2001, Malcolm Bailey was originally included in the group but dropped out. Crichlow recalls that Jacob Lawrence declined the offer to participate from the beginning but did not explain why.

28. For Norman Lewis's recollections of this time, see Lewis, , “Norman Lewis: Visual Artist,” interview by Vivian Browne, August 29, 1974, New York, Artist and Influence 18 (1999): 73–75Google Scholar. See the chapter on African-American artists and the WPA, “Emergence of African-American Artists During the Depression,” in Bearden, Romare and Henderson, Harry, A History of African-American Artists from 1792 to the Present (New York: Pantheon, 1993), 227–41Google Scholar.

29. For biographical information on Crichlow and Lewis, see the discussions in notes 50,69, and 72. For Eldzier Cortor, see Bearden, and Henderson, , History of African-American Artists, 272–79Google Scholar; Eldzior Cortor Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; and Fax, Elton C., Seventeen Black Artists (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1971), 79–94Google Scholar. For additional bibliography, see Igoe, Lynn, 250 Years of Afro-American Art: An Annotated Bibliography (New York: Bowker, 1981)Google Scholar.

30. Camille Billops has also developed a reputation as a filmmaker, and she is the cofounder of the Hatch-Billops Collection, New York City. For an extensive bibliography on Billops, see Igoe, , 250 Years, 491–92Google Scholar. For a brief bibliography on Fern Stanford, see Igoe, , 250 Years, 1120Google Scholar.

31. For information on Wilson, see the discussion in note 99. For information on Chris Shelton, see Fine, Elsa Honig, The Afro-American Artist: A Search for Identity (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973), 226Google Scholar; and Igoe, , 250 Year, 1092Google Scholar. For bibliography on Todd Williams, see Igoe, , 250 Years, 1225–26Google Scholar. Max O. Urbahn Associates had already commissioned Williams to create a piece for another school, a painted steel sculpture completed in 1973 for P.S. 214, Bronx.

32. For a discussion of these groups, see Amaki, Amalia K., “The All Black Exhibition in America: Its History, Perception, and the Critical Response, 1963–1976” (Ph.D. diss., Emory University, 1994), 3Google Scholar.

33. The contract process is very different today. With the creation of the New York City School Construction Authority in 1989, an agreement is now signed between the artist and the School Construction Authority. The artist is no longer a subcontractor of the general contractor or the architect but is a direct consultant to the Department of Education and School Construction Authority.

34. Crichlow, interview by author.

35. Vincent Smith, interview by author, November 29, 2001, New York City.

36. Ibid.

37. Amaki, “All Black Exhibition.” See its appendix for a listing of all exhibitions and participants.

38. Crichlow, , “Interview with Ernest Crichlow,” 41Google Scholar.

39. Bearden and Henderson credit birth of the movement to Elizabeth Catlett (see History of African-American Artists, 424–25).

40. Amaki, , “All Black Exhibition,” 274–75Google Scholar.

41. Ghent, Henri, “Why, in 1973, a ‘Black Art’ Show?” New York Times, 10 14. 1973, sec. 2, p. 25Google Scholar; also quoted in Amaki, , “All Black Exhibition,” 191Google Scholar.

42. See Fine, Afro-American Artist (Fine's book includes the most comprehensive bibliography listing articles from the early 1970s); Lewis, Samella and Wassy, Ruth G., Black Artists on Art (Los Angeles: Contemporary Crafts, 1969)Google Scholar; “Black Artists in America: A Symposium,” Metropolitan Museum Bulletin 27 (01 1969): 245–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Rose, Barbara, “Black Art in America,” Art in America 58 (09–10 1970): 54–67Google Scholar.

43. All quotations from Gaither, Edmund B.'s introduction to Afro-American Artists New York and Boston (Boston: Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists and Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 1970), n.pGoogle Scholar.

44. Sims, Lowery, as do many subsequent writers, summarizes this viewpoint in “The African-American Artist and Abstraction,” in Norman Lewis Black Paintings: 1946–1977 (New York: Studio Museum, 1998), 42Google Scholar. See also the discussion in Bearden, and Henderson, , History of African-American Artists, 310Google Scholar.

45. See especially Gibson, Ann's essay, “The African-American Aesthetic and Postmodernism,” in African-American Visual Aesthetics: A Postmodernist View, ed. Driskell, David C. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

46. Lowery Sims makes a very perceptive comment about the dilemma of the artist's relationship to his or her audience: “In the context of the political and social turmoil of these years, the issue now was not merely the relationship of African-American artists to their African heritage but also included a notion of blackness gauged on a scale referencing relevance and accessibility to the African-American community” (see Sims, , “African-American Artist,” Norman Lewis Black Paintings, 46Google Scholar).

47. Billops explained that her piece, entitled War of the Fives, was a response to the Vietnam War, describing it as a “parody of nationalism.” She received another commission for a school project in 1992, creating two ceramic reliefs for P.S. 4, Manhattan. Although intended for the auditorium, they were installed in the cafeteria because of wall obstructions.

48. Crichlow, Ernest, “Ernest Crichlow Interview,” interview by Henri Ghent (New York, 07 20, 1968), transcribed, p. 31Google Scholar, in Ernest Crichlow Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

49. “I feel that an artist has certain kinds of responsibilities. I still see him as basically a teacher, an educator and the thing that makes him somewhat special is that he has these sensitivities more developed than others have” (Crichlow, “Ernest Crichlow Interview,” by Ghent, roll N70–12). Crichlow not only taught art, but as early as 1963 was advising New York City public school teachers on materials available on notable African Americans to incorporate into the curriculum (see clipping from New York Courier, February 9, 1963, reproduced in Ernest Crichlow Papers.

50. For the two best published sources on Crichlow, see Igoe, , 250 Years, 585–89Google Scholar; and Ernest Crichlow, A Life in Art: May 4 to June 17, 2000, curated by Julia Hotton, ed. Jacques, Geoffrey (Brooklyn: Skylight Gallery, Center for Arts and Culture, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, ca. 2000)Google Scholar.

51. Apparently, his high school principal barred Crichlow from receiving the scholarship when he discovered Crichlow was black, but teachers raised funds on their own (see Hotton, Julia, “A Brooklyn Treasure: Ernest Crichlow, Artist, Teacher, Native Son,” in Jacques, , Ernest Crichlow: A Life in ArtGoogle Scholar, for the most detailed account of Crichlow's art school experience).

52. Crichlow, , “Interview with Ernie Crichlow,” 39Google Scholar.

53. While on the WPA, Crichlow taught in the New York City schools and was sent to Raleigh, North Carolina, to set up a community art center.

54. Crichlow, , “Interview with Ernie Crichlow,” 42Google Scholar.

55. Ernest Crichlow Papers, roll N/70–12, frames 707–30, Archives of American Art.

56. Elizabeth McCausland wrote in the exhibition pamphlet, “I admire Mr. Crichlow's craft and his humanity and I am proud to number myself among his collectors” (“Ernest Crichlow,” January 25–February 13,1960, ACA Gallery, New York). In her review of the show, Dore Ashton remarked, “Negro children of the city — their small joys and great wistfulness — are painted with dignity by this young artist” (Ashton, , Art Digest 27 (09 1953): 20Google Scholar, in Ernest Crichlow Papers, roll N/70–12, Archives of American Art).

57. Crichlow, interview by author.

58. Jacques, , Ernest Crichlow: A Life in Art, 38Google Scholar.

59. “I decided to go back and just try to draw and paint as honestly as I knew how, and I felt when I was doing it as honestly as I knew how I had to resort to some form of realism” (Crichlow, “Ernest Crichlow Interview,” by Ghent, 26). Gaither reaches same conclusion, asserting, “In his visual language the black artist is basically a realist. Black art is a social art and it must be communicative” (introduction to Afro-American Artists New York and Boston, n.p.).

60. Crichlow, interview by author.

61. During the period Crichlow was designing the mural, he was also creating illustrations for a children's collection of African tales. Many illustrations from that book resemble images in the mural (see Nunn, Jessie Alford, African Folk Tales, illustrations by Ernest Crichlow [New York: Funk and Wagnall, 1969]Google Scholar).

62. “I wanted to have some African sculpture in there because I feel that it's very important to understand where you come from” (Crichlow, interview by author). Cortor also used African sculpture to symbolize the artist at work, carving an African sculpture from the tree trunk. The typical emblem is a classically inspired figure. Both Crichlow and Cortor use African sculpture in their murals, not just as a reference or reminder, but as a reappropriation, a taking back.

63. Jacques, , Ernest Crichlow: A Life in Art, 24Google Scholar.

64. Exhibition file 400-AS, Art Commission of the City of New York. Despite Alston's criticism, Crichlow recalls that “Charles Alston was very sympathetic.” Mayor Lindsay appointed Alston as the Painter Member to the Art Commission in 1969. Crichlow himself served on the Art Commission from 1979 to 1981.

65. Crichlow, interview by author.

66. Unfortunately, this did not occur, largely because of the fiscal crisis of the 1970s and 1980s, when excess school buildings were auctioned off and almost none were built.

67. Jacques, , Ernest Crichlow, A Life in Art, 11Google Scholar.

68. Reproduced in Lewis, Norman, Norman Lewis: From the Harlem Renaissance to Abstraction, organized by Corrine Jennings, exhibition catalog (New York: Kenkeleba Gallery, 1989), 63Google Scholar.

69. Lewis, Norman, “Norman Lewis Interview,” interview by Henri Ghent (New York, 07 14, 1968), p. 25Google Scholar, transcribed in Norman Lewis Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Lewis also expressed this opinion in later interviews. See also “Norman Lewis: Visual Artist,” interview by Vivian Browne, 08 29, 1974, Artist and Influence 18 (1999): 71–91Google Scholar; Lawson, Thomas, Norman Lewis: A Retrospective (New York: Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York, 1976)Google Scholar; Lewis, Norman Lewis: From the Harlem Renaissance to Abstraction; and, most recently, Lewis, Norman Lewis Black Paintings.

70. Craven, David, “Norman Lewis as Political Activist and Post-Colonial Artist,” in Lewis, , Norman Lewis Black Paintings, 58Google Scholar.

71. See Veneciano, Jorge Daniel, “The Quality of Absence in the Black Paintings of Norman Lewis” (in Lewis, , Norman Lewis Black Paintings)Google Scholar, who writes, “This discussion proposes that in their interplay of presence and absence, Lewis's black paintings sustain both the paradox and answers to the questions they raise about their relation to politics and meaning” (32). Ann Eden Gibson makes the argument that Lewis's Abstract Expressionism was not purely about aesthetics. In her carefully constructed essay, “Black is a Color: Norman Lewis and Modernism in New York,” in Lewis, , Norman Lewis Black PaintingsGoogle Scholar, she cites many examples of how seemingly nonobjective paintings evolve from a core of political content: “Lewis's insistence that his Civil Rights subject matter could be represented abstractly is a demonstration of his refusal to understand his blackness as a limitation” (23).

72. For most complete chronology, see Jones, Kellie, “Norman Lewis Chronology,” in Lewis, , Norman Lewis: From the Harlem Renaissance to Abstraction, 58–62Google Scholar. There is also good biographical information in the Norman Lewis interview with Henri Ghent (Lewis, “Norman Lewis Interview”) and in the interview with Vivian Browne (Lewis, “Norman Lewis: Visual Artist”).

73. Lewis, , “Norman Lewis: Visual Artist,” 73Google Scholar.

74. Lawson, , Norman Lewis, n.pGoogle Scholar.

75. See Bearden, and Henderson, , History of African-American Artists, 322Google Scholar.

76. See Lawson, Norman Lewis.

77. See Gibson, “Black is a Color.”

78. See Gibson's discussion of the “Rituals” in “Black is a Color,” 18–24.

79. Lewis, “Norman Lewis Interview.”

80. See the discussion in Veneciano, “Quality of Absence,” 33.

81. Exhibition file 400 AW, Art Commission of the City of New York.

82. For overviews of Vincent Smith's life and work, see Green, Nancy E., Dreams, Myths, and Realities: A Vincent Smith Retrospective (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University and Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, 2001)Google Scholar; Patton, Sharon F., “Vincent Smith: Images and Evocations,” Black American Literature Forum 19 (Spring 1985): 26–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar, also on-line at jstor.org; Sharon Fitzgerald1999): 22–27; Igoe, , 250 Years, 1114–15Google Scholar; “Vincent Smith: Sage, Bohemian, Prince,” American Visions 14 (06/07 1999): 22–27Google Scholar; “Vincent Smith: Painter,” interview by Sharon Patton (New York, 10 16, 1988)Google Scholar, Artist and Influence 9 (1990): 143–54Google Scholar.

83. Smith attended Junior High School 109.

84. Smith, “Vincent Smith: Painter,” 143.

85. Smith, quoted in an interview in Green, , Dreams, Myths, and Realities, 17Google Scholar.

86. For discussion of bohemian period in Smith's life, see Fitzgerald, Sharon, “Vincent Smith: Sage, Bohemian, Prince,” American Visions 14 (06/07 1999): 22–27Google Scholar.

87. Smith, Vincent, “The Painter Looks Back,” National Scene, Suppl., 11/10 (1980): 12Google Scholar; quoted in Patton, Sharon F., African-American Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 176Google Scholar.

88. See the discussion in Powell, Richard J., Black Art and Culture in the 20th Century (London: Thames and Hudson, 1997), 121Google Scholar.

89. For a more extensive discussion of friendship with Baraka and work with the Black Arts Repertory Theatre, see Smith, “Vincent Smith: Painter,” 148–49.

90. Ibid., 146.

91. Smith, interview by author.

92. Ibid.

93. Alston to Art Commission of the City of New York October 1, 1972, in exhibition file 400-AS, Art Commission of the City of New York.

94. Exhibition file 400-BI, Art Commission of the City of New York.

95. Ibid.

96. Smith, interview by author. Smith explained that, although some figures in the fourth panel look Japanese, that was not his intent.

97. Ibid.

98. Smith, “Vincent Smith: Painter,” 154. It's interesting that Smith has this perspective. Gibson puts Smith squarely in the context of Black Power movement. She writes,

Men and women like James Brown, Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver, Angela Davis, and Malcolm X use the term to refer to people of African descent, transforming its pejorative implications into a set of revolutionary political, psychological, and aesthetic concepts “Black Power,” “Black is Beautiful.” Artists such as Romare Bearden, Kay Browne, David Hammons, Alvin Hollingsworth, Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar, Vincent Smith and many others endorsed this transformation in their art and visually inserted it back into the body politic with a charge that is still changing the course of American history. (“Black is a Color,” 21)

99. For information on Wilson, including good reproductions of several works, see Bearden, and Henderson, , History of African-American Artists, 454–61Google Scholar. For Wilson's own views, see his statement in Arts in Society 5 (Fall/Winter 1968): 412Google Scholar; and Wilson, “A Conversation with Ed Wilson,” interview by Fadhili Mshana, n.d., Ijele:Art eJournal of the African World 1: 1, http://www.ijele.com.

100. Wilson explained, “I want people to think. Today most contemporary art doesn't encourage thinking… But I want people to think about other things like wasted lives, inhumanity as a way of life, brutality of this society” (quoted from Wilson, “Conversation with Ed Wilson”).

101. Ibid.

102. Wilson, Ed, “A Statement,” Arts in Society 5 (Fall/Winter 1968): 412Google Scholar.

103. Ibid., 416.

104. Bearden, and Henderson, , History of African-American Artists, 455Google Scholar.

105. Wilson says, “By 1960 I was welding and it gave whole new possibilities for construction and using space” (see “Conversation with Ed Wilson,” 8).

106. Bearden, and Henderson, , History of African-American Artists, 460Google Scholar.

107. “It just came literally on the way to New York to talk to this architecture firm that was doing the building and I was exploding. The model of that was a little crude cardboard thing that I would work later into concrete, something bigger done in full scale in wood” (quoted from Wilson, “Conversation with Ed Wilson”).

108. See the description of Middle Passage in Bearden, and Henderson, , History of African-American Artists, 459Google Scholar.

109. Wilson, “Conversation with Ed Wilson.”

110. See Rivers, Larry, Some American History (Houston: Rice University, 1971)Google Scholar.

111. Charles Alston to Donald J. Gormley, October 1, 1972, in exhibition file 400, Art Commission.

112. References to African music appear in Lucienne Bloch's WPA/FAP mural at George Washington High School and in Seymour Fogel's mural at Lincoln High School. For a discussion of the demands emerging out of the black art movement, see Amaki, , “All Black Exhibition,” 95Google Scholar.