Saint Peter’s College Professor Authors Teaching Guide to Desegregation History
Jersey City, NJ – Saint Peter’s College Professor of Urban Studies Dr. David Surrey (Montclair, NJ) has co-authored Keeping the Struggle Alive: Studying Desegregation in our Town, which provides teachers with a curriculum guide to doing an oral history of race relations in their community.
The book, released in early 2002 by Teachers College Press, explores the work of middle school teachers and students at the Renaissance School in Montclair, NJ. A group of 75 students and four teachers learned about their town’s desegregation in 1973 by searching through newspaper articles, historical documents and conducting interviews. "The book looks at desegregation as a national problem," Dr. Surrey said.
"Too much of civil rights history emphasizes what happened in the South. By looking at an educationally and housing segregated Northern community we have hopefully moved forward in truly examining this issue."
Surrey, who also heads the Saint Peter’s College Faculty Senate, wrote the book along with fellow college educators Bernadette Anand, Michelle Fine and Tiffany Perkins. Surrey previously wrote Choice of Conscience: Vietnam Era Draft and Military Resisters in Canada. He is a frequent contributor on urban issues.