| Description | Rita Holt, a teacher from Washington DC, talks to Dilip Hiro.
Track 1: She talks about her childhood and her college and teaching career. She talks about working for IBM and says she did not feel comfortable there so she went back to teaching, 1.37 mins
Track 2: She talks about the different ways that children in her class have responded to the Black Power movement and how this differs depending on the student's social class. They talk about middle-class families moving out of the black areas into areas where the schools are better, 4.07 mins
Track 3: She talks about working for IBM as a trainee computer programmer, 0.41 mins
Track 4: She talks about her involvement in the first sit-ins in 1960 and explains how she became involved in educational organizations such as the Washington Teachers' Union and the Afro-American Teachers' Association, which campaigns for changes to the curriculum. She talks about teaching 'negro history' in schools and says that black students asked for this course, 5.57 mins
Track 5: She says that the school budget is controlled by Congress because of the way the school is funded. She says she does not envisage any real change in the near future and says that she believes that the 'white power structure' does not have the ability to change because of racism and the class structure, 3.06 mins
Track 6: Silence, 1.01 mins
Track 7: She talks about 'rebellion' in the black community and says that she does not think this will affect the power structure. She says that the kids who come to her school felt happy after the riots, but she feels that life went on as before after this, 5.27 mins
Track 8: Dilip Hiro asks about deprivation: she says that children feel deprived but their parents do not because television has given children greater expectations. She talks about class differences in the black community in Washington and her experience of going to segregated schools in Georgia as a child. She says that she started teaching in a black school in Atlanta, Georgia. She says that she feels hopeless about the whole situation and that blacks and whites should recognise that the enemy is the leadership of the country, 6.21 mins
Track 9: She talks about concerned people in the white community but says that there is no real organization for change, 0.50 mins
Track 10: She says that Washington is special because the government is here and people here find it hard to organize because they work for the federal government. She says that people in Washington do not want to disrupt the government. She says that there is a greater feeling of black solidarity and awareness recently, 4.04 mins
Total: 33.16 mins
Dubber's reference number: PLA KF571E0103380 |