Mothers on the Move Oral History Project

The MOM Oral History Project is part of a larger study of the of the “achievement gap” which youth researchers have reframed as the “Race/Ethnicity, Class, Opportunity, Resource Gap*,” documenting how youth and adults across the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area (in urban and suburban settings) view disparities in educational achievement among different populations of students.

The MOM Oral History project is specifically interested in how communities have addressed educational discrepancies between the academic performance of minority and majority students and between students from poor and working class backgrounds compared to students from wealthier backgrounds.

Ten years ago, students and parents in the Bronx Education Services adult literacy programs learned that their children’s reading and math scores were among the lowest in New York City and locally, within their school district. “They also discovered that these conditions were due to longstanding discrimination in favor of wealthier and whiter-- parts of that school district” (News from Moms, 2002, p. 5). MOM and their successful struggle to change the leadership of the district –was born. Indeed, the organization’s roots are firmly planted in a ten-year struggle to close the academic achievement gap, which has long existed between the public schools located in the neighborhoods that comprise District 8.

MOM activism has a rich history as evidenced by extensive television and radio coverage and in the many newspaper, magazine, journal articles written about the organization. But this history is largely told through lens of “others” and persons who were not part of the organization. In the Summer and Fall of 2002 at the request of MOM a research team comprised of the children and grandchildren of MOM members and outside researchers from the CUNY Graduate Center conducted an oral history of MOM in order to tell the history from an “insiders” perspective, bringing in the voices and stories of its participants.

In this Participatory Action Research Project* youth researchers: Christine Doyle, Jeunesse Jackson, Sati Singleton, Travis Staten, and Ashley Webb were trained by outside researchers students: Monique A. Guishard and Rosemarie A. Roberts in basic qualitative research methods skills to devise an interview protocol and conduct interviews of founding and current MOM members asking them about their experiences in the organization. This Winter youth researchers will also participate in focus groups and presentations discussing their activist experiences as researchers and the impact of this project and their mother’s activism on their view of the “achievement gap.”

* This project was funded by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.
Dr. Michelle Fine, of the Graduate Center of City University of New York, Principle Investigator

Thoughts of youth becoming researchers:

Travis Marquis Staten, freshman John Jay College of Criminal Justice

“I heard about the MOM youth research team through my grandmother (Elma Staten) who is an active member of MOM. My grandmother has told me that she has been involved in demonstrations and protests having to do with education and environmental issues. My preconceived notions of research were that all researchers were nerds and of old age. Dressed totally out of style and spent the majority of their time drained with work. I had very little knowledge of research studies other than for science fair projects.”

Sati Singleton, 23, senior at Hunter College

“I joined this project because I was interested in learning just what exactly my own mother’s (Lucretia Jones) involvement had been over the years. I had had a basic idea of what she’d been doing concerning particularly the public school systems, but I didn’t know exactly what her role was.”

“My preconceived notions of research were not many before this project as I’d taken some courses dealing with research in which I learned the basics of what it was and what it was used for. However, prior to any college exposure of research, to me it simply meant using an encyclopedia, the internet, or library to find desired information. I enjoyed it though as I was a curious person about many things. My preconceived notions of MOMs were that they were an organization that only had to do with improving the South Bronx public school system, but I learned that over the years they’ve worked on many various issues such as housing, cleaning up the streets, making the roads of Hunts Point safer.”

“I have learned a lot about the activism that goes on within my neighborhood, as well as gained a broader perspective of what has been going on in public schools that I have not been aware of, such as the Tracks system. I think teaching youths how to be critically conscious and aware of injustices they may not have noticed before is one of the best things that can come of this.”

Jeunesse Jackson, 14, freshman Brooklyn Technical High School

“I found out about this project through my mother. Because she is a member of mothers on the move, she was able to get the information about it easily. She told be about it and I grew very interested. I wanted to understand why where I lived was so much poorer than where my friends lived. I wanted to know why the schools were so bad and what MOM was doing for them. I also participated in this project to learn about MOM from a different perspective. I wanted to understand what it was about from some of their members. Along with that, I also wanted to meet intelligent people just like me that had some sort of connection with me. Going into this project I had many questions and I figured this project would give me the answers.
The theory behind all of our work was to understand children and their parents better. We studied this through the organization MOM. MOM is an organization that fights for justice in our community and trys to make things like education just as equal in our community as in others. We wanted to see how their work affected their children and how they were able to benefit from this.
Before starting this project we talked about critical consciousness. This has to do with how people talk, learn and what they hear. Everyone’s conscience is different and acts different ways. They are receptors to different things. Everyone has a story behind who they are and their history. Our community and things around us make us the people we are, but some people have muted consciousness. People with muted consciousness are blind to what is going on. All the propaganda like movies, television, and newspapers fill their heads with different thoughts. Their minds are so overwhelmed with lies that they do not know a piece of what is really going on. They have no control over any of this because they have no one to guide them and tell them the truth. People who are critically conscious know what is going on and want to make a change. Once they find out they take action. Through our research we found out more about this theory.”

Ashley Webb, 14 freshman, Fashion Industries High School

“When I came to the first session of the research project I was asked the questions: What is research? & Who is a researcher? Research to me was using the Internet, library or books at home to learn only about the past. My answer to who is a researcher along with the others was a typical stereotype idea of a researcher. My idea was an old male who was extremely educated, with little or no family and dressed in a lab coat. I only thought being a researcher dealt with a‘lab scientist’. As time passed I managed to deconstruct that idea. Research is a systematic way of finding information. Everyone does some type of basic research. It can be very simple or extremely complex. There are two basic types of research. One is qualitative and the other is quantitative.”
“Through this experience I’ve learned so many things. I think- no I know for sure that I believe in the standpoint theory. Who I am matters. Through this project I have grown not only into a youth researcher, but an activist. A proud, youth activist
I hope that the things I’ve discovered and learned many can take along with them whether or not they are going home to their family members or to do a similar project. When doing research I hope the researcher is critically conscience and knows that who they are really does matter, and that you cannot stop being who you truly are. I also hope that people realize justice is not blind and changes need to be made in our social status as a whole.”

Christine Doyle, 16

“My mother and I are members of the Bronx community organization Mothers on the Move. I found out about this project through the organization. When I thought about research I thought about a white scientist looking person with no life and family and definitely no kids. That’s where the deconstruction of the “objective scientist” came in to place. We had to learn that we are all researchers. We are youth researchers. My preconceived notions about MOMs were that it was an organization that helped the community fight for social justice with issues such as education, traffic safety, housing and environmental justice. My thoughts were not wrong, but it is much deeper than I thought it was.”

“Many of the staff at the office are people who have had these problems and have been with the organization for so long that they became staff members-community organizers-. I learned a lot about MOMs working on this project. I learned where and why the organization started. I learned about different proposals and campaigns the organizations has had and also about the struggles they have had in trying to make change in the community. I learned that my mother is an activist. I have always heard the word “activism” around here and there but I never thought of my mother actually being an activist.”

MOM Members Interview Excerpts

Carol Doyle’s (member of the truck safety committee) thoughts during an interview with Travis Staten:

“My first exposure to MOM was through some literature discussing the work that MOM did.”

“I joined MOM because I thought it was a good organization, an effective organization that was interesting in making change, positive change in the neighborhood.” Witnessing the injustice that takes in the community on a daily basis also motivated Mrs. Doyle to join MOM.

“My goal when I joined MOM was just to contribute, to make a difference in the community”

Q: How far would you go to fight for change before you give up?:

A: “I’d never give up this is a life long commitment!.”

Elma Staten’s, (member of the Education committee) thoughts during and interview with Christine Doyle)

“I found out about MOM through a church member, Jessie McDonald.”

“[I wanted] to help improve that our children would get the best education.” (time 241)

Q: How did MOM move from focusing on a single issue, education, to a multiple issue
organization?

According to Mrs. Staten the shift in focus from education to other issues occurred because MOM responded to the communities needs.

“Just people in the community came in and was complaining and asking if MOMs could help them out and you know with like housing and some other kinds of issues so they just went from one project to another project trying to help as much as they could everybody in the neighborhood.”

Q: Why do you think some people fight for justice and others don’t?

“Well some people think that things are gonna stay the same that there is no change no matter what they do. Just like some people say they don’t vote because their vote won’t count it’s the same as this..some people just.. set in their ways and they refuse to you know…they’ve given up already they don’t think things is going to change no matter what.”

What effect do you think or hope your participation in MOM has had on your children or grandchildren?

“Well I think it will help them to see that they don’t have to move out of the neighborhood to better themselves, they could stay in the neighborhood and make a change and when they do uh if they go and get an education they could come back to the neighborhood, give back to the neighborhood instead of you know just forgetting where they came from.

Joyce Culler’s thoughts, member of Education and Environmental Justice committees, in an interview with her granddaughter Ashley Webb

“[I think MOM is] A very needed organization in the community. “It would be a very sad day if there wasn’t a MOM’s here in our community for our voices to be heard on real critical issues that our residents face in the Longwood/Hunts Point community.”

Mrs. Culler was inspired to make a change because:
Activism is in her blood. She was Born and raised in community on Kelly Street (right across from MOM’s. MOM’s is a dear part of her because that’s where she came from. As a child her grandmother belonged to Bronx Tenant League Org. on Southern Blvd. Mrs. Culler’s grandmother took her to all the meetings and bus rides. Her family belonged to the original Kelly St. Block Assoc. in the 1950’s. Her aunts were also activists in Harlem. Much of her childhood was spent on community involvement projects.

Q:Why do you think some people fight for justice and others don’t?

A:“People don’t get involved because they don’t have the time or they don’t know “how important their voice would be if they would come along.”

Lisa Ortega’s thoughts, member and community organizer of housing committee, during and interview with Sati Singleton

Ms. Ortega joined MOM because:

She liked the way women were using strategies against this evil guy who was supposed to be in charge of the schools. [At her first meeting] there was a lot of power in the room; it was jam packed full of women and she liked the fact that no one was speaking for her and that she had things to say and could answer questions about issues she knew about made her feel powerful.

As an organizer, she takes to tenant issues because she lives in a pretty bad building so she can identify with those issues and has a passion for housing issues. School issues also hit her heart because of her children.

Q:Could you share how the different MOM committees got started?

A:The Environmental justice committee got started because MOM did a door to door survey to find out about what people were thinking about, about issues. They found out that people were concerned about garbage, and environmental issues in the area. The tenant organizing began when they were working on educational issues. When she went door to door and people told her that they were interested in going to meetings but they didn’t want to leave their house after 6:00pm because there were drug dealers that they had to go through; there was no heat, “I’m freezing in here and I don’t feel like going to a meeting.” She reported back to MOM that she was also facing these obstacles in organizing for education. This is when they decided to do other issues.

Rita Veras’ thoughts, member and board member, interview with Christine Doyle.

“ I learned a lot with the workshops they had.”

“If everybody puts in a little bit…we can makea difference.”

“Even though we’ve had so much change, but we have a to make more change.”

“We have to keep fighting.”

“I’ll never give up.”

Q: Why did you join the organization?”

A: Because it’s the only organization in the area that deals with problems in the community (e.g. education, environmental, etc.).

Q: What obstacles have you faced while fighting for change?

A: Childcare could have been a problem but MOM’s provides childcare and the other women help with children. I oculd also take my children to the meetings and rallies. This was good, especially taking them tot he educaiton meetings so that they could see what I’m trying to do for them.

More to come on this page soon.