Black Firefighters and the FDNY

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Financial Stability ◽  
Equal Opportunity ◽  
Fire Department ◽  
Institutionalized Racism ◽  
White Resistance ◽  
The Impact ◽  
New Yorkers ◽  
Gain Access

For many African Americans, getting a public sector job has historically been one of the few paths to the financial stability of the middle class, and in New York City, few such jobs were as sought-after as positions in the fire department (FDNY). For over a century, generations of Black New Yorkers have fought to gain access to and equal opportunity within the FDNY. Tracing this struggle for jobs and justice from 1898 to the present, David Goldberg details the ways each generation of firefighters confronted overt and institutionalized racism. An important chapter in the histories of both Black social movements and independent workplace organizing, this book demonstrates how Black firefighters in New York helped to create affirmative action from the “bottom up,” while simultaneously revealing how white resistance to these efforts shaped white working-class conservatism and myths of American meritocracy. Full of colorful characters and rousing stories drawn from oral histories, discrimination suits, and the archives of the Vulcan Society (the fraternal society of Black firefighters in New York), this book sheds new light on the impact of Black firefighters in the fight for civil rights.

Activism from the Start

2021 ◽  
pp. 9-26
Author(s):  
Daniel R. Garodnick
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
World War I ◽  
York City ◽  
Housing Crisis ◽  
World War ◽  
City Life ◽  
East Village ◽  
The Town ◽  
New Yorkers

This chapter begins by describing the redbrick buildings that emerge out of the East Village on Manhattan's East Side, the plain and unenticing facades of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village that disguise the unique slice of city life that takes place within. It talks about Stuy Town's idyllic quality that contradicts the tumultuous history that produced this middle-class enclave tucked in the midst of Manhattan. It also explains Stuy Town's roots that are planted in bitter soil as the town was born of government-backed, and subsidized, racist policies and displaced with poor New Yorkers. The chapter tells Stuy Town's story of activism, where elected officials, civil rights leaders, and tenants joined together to fight against corporate greed and unjust policies, and for the rights of New Yorkers. It recounts how Stuy Town emerged from a housing crisis in New York City that began during World War I.

Impact of law enforcement-related deaths of unarmed black New Yorkers on emergency department rates, New York 2013–2016

2020 ◽  
pp. jech-2020-214089
Author(s):  
Sze Yan Liu ◽  
Sungwoo Lim ◽  
L Hannah Gould
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Black Communities ◽  
Media Report ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
Hospital Emergency Departments ◽  
The Impact ◽  
New Yorkers

BackgroundLaw enforcement-related deaths of unarmed black Americans may lead black communities to distrust public institutions. Our study quantifies the impact of law enforcement-related deaths of black New York residents on the use of hospital emergency departments (ED) during 2013–2016.MethodsWe used regression discontinuity models stratified by race and time period (2013–2015 and 2015–2016) to estimate the impact of law enforcement-related deaths on ED rates. Dates of deaths and media reports were from the Mapping Police Violence database. We calculated the daily overall and condition-specific ED visit rates from the New York’s Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System.ResultsThere were 14 law enforcement-related deaths of unarmed black New York residents from 2013 to 2016. In 2013–2014, the ED rate among black New Yorkers decreased by 7.7 visits per 100 000 black New Yorkers (5% less than the average ED rate) using the date of media report as the cut-off with a 2-week exposure window. No changes in ED rates were noted for black New Yorkers in 2015–2016 or for white New Yorkers in either time period. Models using the date of death followed a similar pattern.ConclusionThe decrease in ED rates among black New Yorkers immediately following media reports of law enforcement-related deaths involving unarmed black New Yorkers during 2013–2014 may represent potentially harmful delays in healthcare. Reforms implemented during 2015–2016 might have modified the impact of these deaths. Further investigation into the population health impacts of law enforcement-related deaths is needed.

scholarly journals The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on college students’ health and financial stability in New York City: Findings from a population-based sample of City University of New York (CUNY) students

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi E. Jones ◽  
Meredith Manze ◽  
Victoria Ngo ◽  
Patricia Lamberson ◽  
Nicholas Freudenberg
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
College Students ◽  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Mental Health Services ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Financial Stability ◽  
Population Based ◽  
Anxiety Depression ◽  
The Impact

AbstractUnderstanding the effect of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on students’ health and financial stability is important to establish effective interventions to mitigate these effects, which may have long-term consequences on their health and wellbeing. Public universities in urban centers represent a substantial proportion of college students in the United States. We implemented a cross-sectional population-based online survey of 2,282 students in a large, public university in New York City in April 2020. We created weights to account for non-response and used Poisson regression with robust standard errors to estimate adjusted prevalence ratios (aPR) for factors associated with mental health outcomes. Students experienced high rates of anxiety/depression and financial instability due to the pandemic. Half of the students reported anxiety/depression (54.5%) and an increased need for mental health services (49.0%) as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The majority (81.1%) reported loss of household income, and half (49.8%) reported worries about losing housing. High levels of food (aPR=1.4, 95% CI 1.2, 1.6) and housing (aPR=1.3, 95% CI 1.2, 1.4) insecurity were the strongest predictors of anxiety/depression. Household and personal experiences with possible COVID-19 symptoms were also associated with anxiety/depression or the need for increased mental health services. Addressing student needs at public urban universities requires an integrated holistic approach that targets urgent mental health and economic needs related to the impact of COVID-19. Students who become infected need mental health services as well as health monitoring.

“The Foul Odors of Blacks”

2021 ◽  
pp. 95-114
Author(s):  
Peter Irons
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
South Carolina ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
State Action ◽  
The Public ◽  
Civil Rights Act ◽  
White Resistance ◽  
Blacks And Whites ◽  
Reconstruction Period

This chapter covers the post-Reconstruction period and the Supreme Court’s rejection of laws to protect Blacks’ use of “public accommodations” on an equal basis with Whites, and the Court’s later upholding of Jim Crow laws that required segregation of Blacks and Whites. Congress had passed the Civil Rights Act of 1875, barring discrimination against Blacks’ access to places such as restaurants, theaters, hotels, and railway coaches. Ruling in 1883 in five cases from Kansas, California, Tennessee, New York, and Missouri under the caption of Civil Rights Cases, the Court struck down the “public accommodations” provision, holding that “private” businesses could not be regulated without a showing of “state action” in their operation. This ruling drew a sharp dissent from Justice John Marshall Harlan, who argued that businesses serving the public are subject to regulation. The chapter also recounts violent White resistance to Black voting, with South Carolina senator “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman as leader of a White group known as Red Shirts in murdering Blacks. The chapter concludes with discussion of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1895, holding that Louisiana could provide “separate but equal” railway coaches for Blacks and Whites, over another solitary dissent by Justice Harlan, arguing the Constitution is “color-blind” and protects Blacks from state-imposed discrimination.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberta Gold
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Labor Union ◽  
Housing Crisis ◽  
Alternative Vision ◽  
Racially Mixed ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City ◽  
New Yorkers

This book explores the emergence of New York City's tenant movement as the leading voice for an alternative vision of residence and citizenship against the backdrop of suburban expansion. It considers how tenants responded to the unprecedented housing crisis that faced New Yorkers at the end of World War II and discusses their positions on three public policy questions: public housing, slum clearance, and civil rights. It also examines the tenants' creation of labor-union cooperatives and their fight against “urban renewal”; the struggle over the rent strikes that erupted in Harlem and other ghettos in 1963; and how community politics played out in racially mixed neighborhoods where tenants waged campaigns against redevelopment in the mid-1960s. The book highlights the variety of ways in which New York tenants laid claim to what Marxists have called “the right to the city”: a kind of democratic say over the uses of capital to shape the urban environment and the lives of its inhabitants.

“Rumor, Vicious Innuendo, and False Reports”: Policing Black Soldiers in Wartime Staten Island

2020 ◽  
pp. 009614421990013
Author(s):  
Emily Brooks
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Business Owners ◽  
Staten Island ◽  
Black Soldiers ◽  
Real Issue ◽  
Crime Wave ◽  
The Impact ◽  
New Yorkers

On Staten Island in the spring of 1945, a small group of white politicians, business owners, and residents began complaining about a “crime wave” that they attributed to black soldiers stationed at the Fox Hills Army facility. Most of these complaints stemmed from vague references to rumors of crimes rather than actual incidents. Black journalists and members of the NAACP refuted these accusations and argued that the real issue was discrimination against the soldiers and racism on the part of white Staten Islanders. These accusations launched a months-long debate about racism, crime, and policing on Staten Island during the war. Ultimately, the mayor and military authorities responded by intensifying policing and surveillance of the soldiers. This article uses the conflicts around policing in wartime Staten Island as a lens to consider the impact of the war on black New Yorkers and black soldiers stationed in New York City.

scholarly journals New Yorkers’ Street Smarts and Survival Smarts During the Pandemic: Preppers, Community Resilience and Local Citizenship

2020 ◽  
pp. 65-86
Author(s):  
Anna Maria Bounds
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Community Resilience ◽  
Global Capital ◽  
Core Belief ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Local Citizenship ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact ◽  
New Yorkers ◽  
Extended Time Period

This qualitative study examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the philosophy and practices of New York’s urban prepper subculture. My three research goals are to: 1) explore preppers’ approaches to protecting their families against the pandemic, and how their commitment to self-reliance may have changed; 2) describe the different experiences of surviving a pandemic in New York, a global capital that is sharply divided by class and race; and 3) analyze the possible benefits of community resilience rooted in a sense of strong social bonds. For urban preppers, the government’s failure to enact a clear response to the pandemic reaffirmed their core belief: the government was not coming to help them. But while they had a strong foundation for successfully sheltering in place, they did not anticipate the challenges of working from home, remote learning, and staying in one location for such an extended time period.

scholarly journals The impact of asymptomatic COVID-19 infections on future pandemic waves

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Spencer J Fox ◽  
Remy Pasco ◽  
Mauricio Tec ◽  
Zhanwei Du ◽  
Michael Lachmann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Hospitalization Rate ◽  
Model Fit ◽  
Asymptomatic Infections ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Us Cities ◽  
New Yorkers ◽  
Pandemic Wave

Letter textThe prevalence of asymptomatic COVID-19 infections is largely unknown and may determine the course of future pandemic waves and the effectiveness of interventions. Using an epidemiological model fit to COVID-19 hospitalization counts from New York City, New York and Austin, Texas, we found that the undocumented attack rate in the first pandemic wave depends on the proportion of asymptomatic infections but not on the infectiousness of such individuals. Based on a recent report that 22.7% of New Yorkers are seropositive for SARS-CoV-2, we estimate that 56% (95% CI: 53-59%) of COVID-19 infections are asymptomatic. Given uncertainty in the case hospitalization rate, however, the asymptomatic proportion could be as low as 20% or as high as 80%. We find that at most 1.26% of the Austin population was infected by April 27, 2020 and conclude that immunity from undetected infections is unlikely to slow future pandemic spread in most US cities in the summer of 2020.

The Political Jurisprudence of Affirmative Action

1987 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 223-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
David L. Kirp ◽  
Nancy A. Weston
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
York City ◽  
Equal Opportunity ◽  
The Political ◽  
Life Outcomes ◽  
Urban Riots ◽  
Mere Presence

The headlines at the outset of 1987 told of Howard Beach, where a group of blacks had been chased, and one killed, because they had unwittingly entered a white enclave in New York City. And they told of Forsythe County, Georgia, where the mere presence of civil rights marchers, in a place from which blacks had been driven three-quarters of a century earlier, brought out depths of antagonism unknown since an earlier era of civil rights marches.Behind both events – indeed, behind almost every question of race to arise in recent years – was the specter of affirmative action. Even as, during the late 1960s, some blamed urban riots on the federal government's failure to achieve equal opportunity between the races by equalizing life outcomes, so in 1987 white antagonisms were regarded in some quarters as a crude reflection of the Reagan administration's hostility towards affirmative action. The rhetoric and the policies of that administration, it was said, contributed to a sentiment that blacks already had their share – indeed, more than their share. Official word and deed contributed also, it was argued, to a resentment against blacks who, because of quotas, had been unfairly advantaged.

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