Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side

This study of school closures and community resistance in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago juxtaposes school closure as a budgetary and school improvement strategy against an historical backdrop of racial segregation and institutional bias. In 2013, Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel proposed a wave of school closings as the solution to a budget problem, a response to declining enrollments, and a school improvement strategy. The plan was met with vigorous protest from parents, students, and teachers. Ewing argues that Black communities situate the closing of their schools within a long history of racist policy, and fight to keep their schools open as an act of self-determination. For the community of Bronzeville, their schools—even the ones failing academically—were considered an integral part of their neighborhood, not merely “buildings full of failures.”