In early 1979, the Board of Education decided to change the rules for private bus operators in a way that would have lowered wages for many drivers. More than 2,000 bus drivers went on strike for over 13 weeks.
Denise Oliver, born in Brooklyn in 1947, grew up in Queens. Her father, George Bodine Oliver, was a drama professor, a Tuskegee Airman, and one of the first Black actors to integrate Broadway in the 1940s. He was also active in New York’s Black leftist political circles, working alongside members of the Communist Party and their allies. Her mother, Marjorie Roberts Oliver, taught at a high school in Queens when Black teachers were a small proportion of the city’s teaching force.1 Eventually, Denise Oliver would follow in the educational footsteps of her parents and work as a teacher. She first taught at University of the Streets, a school for youth of color who had been pushed out or expelled from the city’s schools.2
Located near the town of Hunter, New York, in the Catskill Mountains (a few hours from New York City), Camp Jened was unusual at the time for its focus on Disabled campers.1
The grounds of Camp Jened included a river, a lake with a dock for boating and places to row, swimming facilities, and a stream that was great for fishing.1 Camp Jened also had a large grassy field where campers and counselors gathered to play baseball.
Camp Jened was located in the northern Catskills, on over 250 acres (which is about ⅓ the size of Central Park, or as big as 250 football fields) with 22 buildings near the town of Hunter, New York. The camp’s founders designed it to welcome Disabled children and adults, who did not often have access to summer camps and outdoor recreation. Camp Jened was the first camp of its kind for Disabled youth in New York and first opened in July 1953. It ran until August of 1977, and then reopened in 1980.1
In the 1830s, the City purchased Randall’s Island to use as a remote burial ground for the poor and as an almshouse. Blackwell’s and Wards Islands were purchased later, and more institutions were built on the three islands to house and care for “various indigent, criminal, ill, poor, and disabled populations.”1 Journalist W. H. Davenport visited the “Insane Asylum” and “Orphanage and Idiot Asylum,” publishing his accounts of the residents and life in those facilities.2 The articles give a view of the conditions in these early reform institutions. Non-disabled children at the orphanage were taught in classes overseen by the NYC Department of Education. Children with physical disabilities (of which there were many) were taught how to craft products that could be sold. Children at the “Idiot Asylum” also had classes with a goal of preparing them for “useful occupations.”3
Édouard Séguin learned how to teach children with intellectual disabilities when he lived in France. Later, Séguin moved to the US and helped found schools around the country.
Many blind people lived in dire conditions in the city almshouse for the poor, because they were not able to support themselves and had no other place to go. After visiting the city almshouse with Samuel Akerly in 1831, John D. Russ decided to found the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind. Russ brought three blind boys from the almshouse’s ward for blind men on Blackwell’s Island (in the East River and near Randall’s Island). He took them to a widow’s home for care and education. This small class was the first known attempt to educate blind children in the United States. Several other children joined the following year, learning through experimental techniques to teach reading and writing used by other educators. After a period of instruction, the boys took a public examination to show the value and effectiveness of educating the blind, and as an appeal to philanthropists to donate money to the cause.1
