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Abstract
The Moynihan Report (1965), A Nation at Risk (1983), and The Bell Curve (1994) are three nationally acclaimed texts – two federal reports and one academic book – that speak to the achievement gap between Black and white students between the 1970s and the 1990s. Placed in conversation together, these three texts demonstrate how, at least at the national level, Black family life was coded as being dysfunctional and at odds with mainstream American life. This thesis seeks to recast the 70s-90s not from a top-down approach, but from an inside out approach, one that places the voices, concerns, and agency of Black communities at the center of this study. How did Black Americans resist, confront, and/or conform to the dominant narratives being portrayed about their culture? The existing literature tends to focus on how communities organize in a moment of crisis - school closures, immigration raids - but less focus is given to the gradual and ongoing process of organizing that happens over the course of decades on the part of local activists and everyday people who are fighting for better futures for themselves and their children. This thesis seeks to accomplish three main goals: first, to demonstrate the systemic nature through which Chicago has been divested from, and its subsequent effects on the quality of education afforded its youth; secondly, to highlight the role of the media in sensationalizing stereotypical depictions of Black youth as criminal within the popular narratives/discourse - with particular focus on Black boys being delinquent or violent and Black girls being hypersexualized; and, thirdly, to emphasize the ongoing, gradual, and painstaking efforts that the Black community in Chicago took to organize - over decades - to confront the deteriorating city and worsening school conditions for their youth.