PSYCHO-POLITICAL PATTERNS OF SCHOOL DESEGREGATION: MOUNT VERNON, NY

It is pointed out that representatives in the black community realize that there is an increasingly thin line between continuing to propose opportunities for integration into the present system &/or expressing their alienation from the system by proposing local control of public instit's, such as Sch's, that serve their sections of town. The efforts of the Mount Vernon black community are seen as straddling that fine line. As advocates of participatory democracy, the members of this community have successfully persuaded the State Commissioner of Educ for New York that integration is still a viable alternative for providing equality of educ'al opportunity. At the same time they believe, & the Commissioner has agreed, that signif parental involvement in educ'al decision-making must accompany integration in order to make it work for the best interests of all the children. The reaction of the white community has included much hysteria, panic, mob psychosis & other problems associated with the mental health of a community. The racial turmoil in Mount Vernon, whose various leaders have been attempting to reconcile deep-seated emotional & racial att's within the framework of Ur ethnic pot is described. The city of Mount Vernon was 27. 5% Negro in 1968; it is estimated that the % will be 50% by 1975, if current pop trends continue. Formal integration of its Sch's began in 1963. Such efforts as the 'Dodson Plan' (proposed by Dan Dodson of NY U) & the 'Martin Plan' (by John Henry Martin, Mt. Vernon Superintendent of Sch's) are discussed. The Martin Plan was adopted & approved in 1965, but the Board of Educ did not intend to provide the necessary resources or live up to its commitments. Pressed by the State Commissioner, the Board drew up an alternate plan which was rejected by the Negro community. Eventually, a Black Community Planning Board was set up, allowing the Negro community for the first time to formulate its own educ'- al policy. Subsequent events are discussed in detail. Then an Agenda is proposed for maintaining 'creative tension' while resolving race relations in communities such as Mount Vernon. It includes the use of courts, insistence on full compliance with the law in decision-making, & development of contact & confrontation. The psychiatric & psychol'al professions are called upon to assist in developing small cadres in the black community toward greater participatory democracy. The poor man & the black man are learning to manipulate the key pol'al