Bronzeville School Protesters Want Obama’s Support
A group of hunger strikers want President Barack Obama to support its plans for a high school in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood to specialize in science.
Since Aug. 17, a dozen people have gone without food, hunger striking because they want to have Walter H. Dyett High School at 555 E. 51st St. to reopen as an open enrollment school geared towards green technology.
Two weeks ago, city officials announced they would reopen Dyett as an open enrollment school. But the school, named for a musical director who taught students, like Nat King Cole, would focus on the arts, Chicago Public Schools officials said.
The decision angered the Coalition to Revitalize Dyett.
“This school district doesn’t respect us,” said Jeannette Taylor-Ramann, a hunger striker who has been hospitalized because she got ill from her effort. “I am willing to die to make sure our children get their just due.”
Taylor-Ramann has gathered regularly outside the school to draw attention to her cause. Taylor-Ramann and another hunger striker said Tuesday they were ending their strike because of their health.
Last week, about 70 supporters marched several blocks from the school to the outside Obama’s Kenwood home for a prayer vigil.
Some members of the group taped their mouths with the word “silence, ignored” written on the tape.
The Rev. Calvin Taylor led the group in several prayers.
“We are going all the way. . . All the way to the White House,” Taylor told the protesters, many holding candles.
The group sang gospel songs like, “We Shall Not Be Moved.”
White House officials did not return phone calls about the group.
In the past, CPS CEO Forrest Claypool said the new school plan “best meets our children’s needs, and this plan creates the opportunity for a unique, world-class high school on the South Side.”
The protesters want a school that would incorporate a science curriculum meant to capitalize on its location in Washington Park. The school would be a LEED-certified green building.
Jawanza Malone, executive director of the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization, which is part of the Dyett coalition, said the group would continue its hunger strike until it reached its goal.
Last week, three other people joined the hunger strike: Brandon Johnson of the Chicago Teachers Union, Susan Hurley, of Jobs With Justice and Asif Wilson of Teachers for Social Justice.
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