I remember the day I stumbled upon Harlem Prep. It was 2012, and I was a young Masters student at Columbia University, on assignment for a professor at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. I had spent copious hours finding and then listening to oral histories of teachers in Harlem in the 1940s and 1950s. Tired from researching, I closed my notes and readied myself to the take subway home, except there was one more document in my stack—a DVD, actually—that I had not yet watched. It was not related to what I was researching; in fact, I did not know anything about it all. See, when I first entered the Schomburg Center, I asked the librarian if she had any tips about searching out oral histories of teachers during this specific time period. At the end of the conversation, she handed me a DVD that she thought might be useful to my research. All it said was “Step by Step: The Story of Harlem Prep” and a date of “1967” (which, I found out later, was not even correct)—no summary or creator information or anything more. Although I knew that it was not the right subject or time period I was researching, to be polite, I took it anyway and thanked her for her kind help.
So, at the end of the day, on a whim, I decided to pop in this mysterious DVD, just for a minute. What flashed before my eyes was a grainy documentary about a community school located in an old supermarket that educated students who had been “pushed out” of their previous schools. The humanity, the innovation, the energy, and the love of administrators, teachers, and students exploded through this little TV-screen in the corner of the Schomburg Center. I saw students in open-space classrooms talking about their dreams for a better life; I saw teachers engaging students through pedagogy soaked in cultural relevance and collaborative respect. And, I felt sudden jolts of inspiration for all that education could be—all that I have always wanted education to be. I left the Schomburg Center that day full of wonder, eager to learn more about this school—surely, there were books and plenty of research about this seemingly exceptional institution. Over the next few weeks, I scoured historical scholarship on Harlem and pop culture references, yet, no matter where I looked, there was nothing to be found. Other than a handful of blog posts by alumni, Harlem Prep’s historical record was astonishingly blank. As months went by, I began to think to myself that maybe it was my purpose as a scholar to try and do something to change that.
For the last eight years, I have had the pleasure of researching this school called Harlem Prep, trying to fill that historical void that I encountered back in 2012. Ever since that day at the Schomburg Center, it has been my goal to one day be able to share the story of Harlem Prep with the world, beyond the small circle of those who lived it. Over the years, I have had the great privilege of getting to know the beautiful members of the Harlem Prep family and to be able to hear their stories. My life has surely been changed by their generosity and kindness. In addition, I have been able to access thousands of documents about the institution and the people who created it, across different states. And, I was fortunate enough to be able to complete a nearly 600-page dissertation on the school in the pursuit of a Ph.D. That journey—in part, documented at uncoverharlemprep.com—was certainly a labor of love (and an undertaking in which I owe to the generosity of many people).
Today I am proud and earnest about embarking on a new journey—and in continuance of my initial goal—by humbly announcing that I have signed an advance book contract with Rutgers University Press. Although I know there is much work ahead, I am thrilled by the opportunity to help share the story of Harlem Prep with the world in book form. (And, don’t worry, the book will be significantly shorter than my dissertation!) Furthermore, I am happy to be in partnership with an institution like Rutgers and with editors whom similarly share my enthusiasm for this project. Fittingly, Harlem Prep also has a strong New Jersey connection—the school’s headmasters lived there and many alumni still do. Upon final approval, my book will be part of an exciting series: New Directions in the History of Education. Tentatively titled, Strength through Diversity: Harlem Prep and the Rise of Multiculturalism, my book will detail the life of this school—and the people inside of it—from 1967 to 1975, with a granular focus on the school’s multicultural philosophy. Over these seven years in which I write about, the school graduated and sent to college over 750 young people, almost all of whom had been out of school prior to attending Harlem Prep. While the book will certainly be a candid look at the institution, including details of its shortcomings, it also—I hope—will illustrate the enduring power of education.
As I think about bringing the story of Harlem Prep to a wider audience, I am reminded of how timely this story really is. For one, the kindness and love on display each day at Harlem Prep are qualities that are desperately needed inside schools—they are the bedrock of learning and engagement. Harlem Prep had those qualities in abundance, and this book, in part, will document the practical ways in which kindness and love manifested in the school’s make-shift classrooms and in the actions of its educators. I am confident that we can all learn from this example.
We can also look to Harlem Prep in terms of re-claiming multicultural education today. After all, our schools have also never been more diverse—and not just racially, ethnically, linguistically, and beyond, but also in terms of diversity of learning styles and needs. Classrooms are full of talented, inquisitive students who learn differently and who are full of unique life experiences. Harlem Prep’s entire educational philosophy was premised on the fact that this diversity was the school’s greatest asset. We must have a similar mindset today. As educators, we should rely on the beautiful diversity inside our classrooms and our institutions to be a guiding light—not just in theory or in empty rhetoric, but literally in every fact of the school. What does that look like? I believe that Harlem Prep provides a robust example for thinking about how to implement multiculturalism in the present.
Yet, thinking more broadly—and placing in context the uncertainly of our educational institutions during and then after this pandemic—never has it been more important, or more necessary, to re-imagine education. All across the country, the status quo of K-12 schools and colleges are being disrupted, with online classes and different modes of learning thrust upon educators, administrators, parents, and our students. Instead of forcing upon students certain curricula or pedagogy, we now must meet students where they are based on their access (or lack thereof) that they have to certain technologies, their various skillsets, and more than ever, the ways that they learn best. While 1967 or 1973 is certainly not 2020, Harlem Prep did something similar, even if in a different context: the school sought to personalize education to the students it was serving. Every student had been “pushed out” of his or her high school for a different reason, and students came to Harlem Prep with different abilities—there were no grades at Harlem Prep!—different living conditions, and vastly different ages (16 to 40+), politics, and lived experiences. Instead of being intimidated by the malleability that the school would have and be weighed down by constant fiscal uncertainty, Harlem Prep embraced flexibility in its pedagogy, policies, structure, grading, and more. Harlem Prep was able to foster the academic achievement of many hundreds of students in a turbulent 1960s and 1970s context. Although our present-day context presents a number of very different obstacles, in my opinion, we are still tasked with a similar challenge: to embrace flexibility and ultimately, to re-imagine teaching and student learning beyond the same methods that we have traditionally accepted in decades past. As we all envision new models of learning, perhaps we can seek inspiration from Harlem Prep’s example, too.
When I first “saw” Harlem Prep on that TV library screen school back in 2012, a majestic feeling rushed through me—it was a feeling of hope. As I spent hundreds of hours in the archives later on, reading the letters and memos of Harlem Prep administrators from fifty years ago, I felt a sense of wonder, as if I was peaking into a hidden narrative—both the achievements and the shortcomings—that too few people had ever known about it. And, every time that I had the great privilege of sitting down with an alumnus and bearing witness to his or her story, a wave of humility encapsulated me—even if, to be sure, not all stories ended in triumph. Tragedy is surely part of these individual stories and Harlem Prep overall, just as it is part of the human condition. Still, as I look to the past and now look to the future, it is my dream that when you read this book one day, you will not only feel inspired, but also feel that same sense of hope, wonder, and humility that I have, too.
Now, it’s time to go write!
-Barry
