In the 21st-century world of social networks, messaging apps, and viral videos, it’s hard to remember a time when people weren’t programmed to record and share every event of their daily lives. Future generations will have a treasure trove of material available through social media and digital sources to reconstruct the past, as society relentlessly creates video records of everything, including social movements and protests. The examples are numerous; read more about this at brooklyn-yes.com.
The Civil Rights Movement in Brooklyn
Historical memory tends to localize the Civil Rights Movement in the American South. Cities like Birmingham, Selma, and Little Rock are remembered as key battlegrounds. However, starting in the 1960s, New Yorkers, including those in the borough of Brooklyn, also fought—and in many cases, won—battles against discrimination in housing, employment, and education.
By all accounts, the Brooklyn chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was one of the most dynamic and creative chapters of this national activist organization. It organized a series of successful campaigns for school integration, housing desegregation, job creation, and improved sanitation and living conditions in the borough’s poorest neighborhoods, such as Bedford-Stuyvesant.
A telling example is a 1962 flyer in which Brooklyn CORE proposed a boycott of Sealtest products, once considered the world’s largest supplier of dairy goods. The issue was that the company employed almost no African Americans or Latinos; they made up only 1% of the workforce and were logically confined to the lowest-paying and least desirable jobs.
Fighting Discriminatory Hiring Practices
The boycott of Sealtest lasted for two months and sharply highlighted the discriminatory hiring policies of the Brooklyn-based company. By penalizing the company for its actions and persuading like-minded New Yorkers to give up its products, CORE effectively rejected Sealtest’s discriminatory practices. To rally the city’s growing Puerto Rican population to the cause, CORE activists created flyers in both English and Spanish.
Another example of the protest movement against ethnic discrimination involved the Ebinger Baking Company. Founded in Brooklyn in 1898, it had a reputation for delicious pastries and cakes. While it was an important part of life in the borough, the company failed to keep up with the diversification of Brooklyn’s communities, refusing to hire African Americans, Jews, and Latinos.
In 1962, Brooklyn CORE took action, calling on Ebinger’s management to hire African Americans and Latinos for positions as salespeople, bakers, and drivers. After several months of fruitless negotiations, the Brooklyn CORE chapter took to the streets and began picketing the stores.
When picketing and boycotting the stores failed to attract sufficient attention, organization members staged a sit-in in front of the bakery’s delivery trucks, temporarily halting operations and forcing the company to reconsider its hiring policies.
A small artifact speaks to CORE’s assertive protest strategy in the 1960s: among documents and items from the era is a small pink-and-blue military-style cap with the word “CORE” printed in pink along the side. It was a bold personal adornment worn by an activist “in the field.” This relic of the 1960s protest movement tells a story about the goals, methods, and tools available to the Civil Rights Movement in Brooklyn over 60 years ago.
As is known, the Congress of Racial Equality worked to create jobs, desegregate housing, and improve schools in Bed-Stuy from 1960 to 1964.
Discrimination in Housing
Brooklyn CORE also focused its members and resources on combating discrimination in housing. Perhaps the most creative method in this fight was “testing” landlords for discriminatory practices by using white and Black “testers” to assess whether a landlord used race as a factor in choosing tenants. If a landlord was found to be discriminating, CORE would hold a demonstration in front of the building.
In 1962, CORE members took to the streets to protest discriminatory hiring practices during the construction of the Downstate Medical Center. Activists carried a coffin through the streets near the center bearing the words “Bury Jim Crow.” Protesters used an even wider variety of picketing and protest tactics at the Downstate Medical Center itself. These events were captured in the documentary film “We Shall Not Be Moved: Downstate ’63.”
Another defining group of the Brooklyn Civil Rights Movement was the Freedom Organizations Coordinated for Unity in Shorefront (FOCUS). Based in the area they called the Sheepshead Bay-Shorefront, this majority-white group worked to end housing discrimination by directly targeting those they blamed for creating the problem: real estate professionals.
Through their efforts, FOCUS was able to get the licenses of several discriminatory brokers suspended. Additionally, the organization collaborated with Operation Open City to find proper housing for minority families who had faced discrimination, according to the Brooklyn Public Library’s collection.
Today, the constant push for equal city services and the ongoing fight against housing discrimination continues, standing on the shoulders of the civil rights giants who made so much progress in the 1960s.
New York City’s Congestion Pricing
A few words on the current state of protest in the borough of Brooklyn. In 2024, a program was set to begin that would charge a fee for driving in congested areas. The idea was to charge drivers a toll to enter busy parts of the city. The money raised was planned for improving public transportation, such as the subway. The proposed toll was $15.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul initially supported the immediate implementation of these tolls. However, she later reversed her position on the issue, and the city’s congestion pricing plan was suspended indefinitely.
In response, dozens of parents and children gathered for a rally and “stroller march” near the Hoyt-Schermerhorn subway station in Boerum Hill to urge Governor Hochul to support the immediate implementation of congestion pricing. The Hoyt-Schermerhorn station was one of 23 slated to receive elevator repairs funded by the toll revenue.
The advocacy group Transportation Alternatives was closely involved in this issue. They stated that instead of uplifting parents and caregivers by funding accessible subway stations, the governor’s call to cancel congestion pricing jeopardized the city’s future. Elevators are crucial for parents, especially those with young children who need strollers to navigate New York City, and moving a stroller through the subway without elevators is extremely difficult. The protest was organized by Transportation Alternatives, Riders Alliance, Kids Over Cars, and others.