Episodes
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We're back... to take on THAT Nikole Hannah-Jones essay
It's been called "the most polarizing parenting essay ever." On September 20, 2026, The New York Times Magazine published a story by Nikole Hannah-Jones with the eye-popping headline, "In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?" This was a surprise sequel to her blockbuster essay…
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"We Can't Friend Our Way Out of White Supremacy" with Some of My Best Friends Are
Here’s a preview of another podcast, Some of My Best Friends Are, from Pushkin Industries. Harvard professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad and journalist Ben Austen are friends, one Black and one white, who grew up together on the South Side of Chicago. On Some of My Best Friends Are, Khalil and Ben,...
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Live from Queens, Part 2: Q&A
This is the second of two bonus episodes recorded live at the Queens Public Library on December 15, 2022. After interviewing New York City Schools Chancellor David C. Banks, Mark and Max reflected on the Chancellor’s remarks and took questions about the making of School Colors, why they chose...
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Live from Queens, Part 1: The Chancellor
This is the first of two bonus episodes recorded live at the Queens Public Library on December 15, 2022. Mark and Max interviewed New York City Schools Chancellor David C. Banks. Banks was appointed by Mayor Eric Adams and is just finishing his first year on the job. The previous leadership of…
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S2 E9: Water Under the Bridge
Over the course of this season, we've explored a rich history and complicated present — but what about the future? In this episode, we catch up with parents who became activated on both sides of the debate over the diversity plan. Since the diversity plan never came to fruition, what’s to be done...
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S2 Bonus: Ms. Mitchell's Pandemic Diary
"I know this work can take you under if you let it, so I try not to let it take me." Pat Mitchell is the beloved longtime principal of P.S. 48, an elementary school in South Jamaica. She cares deeply about her students, many of whom struggle with poverty and unstable housing. While school was…
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S2 E8: The Only Way Out
In 2018, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a plan to replace the Specialized High School Admissions Test, or SHSAT. For years, advocates had argued that the test favored white and Asian students while systematically keeping Black and Latinx kids out of the city's most elite and...
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S2 E7: The Sleeping Giant
In some ways, this entire season was prompted by the parents who organized against diversity planning in District 28. So in this episode, we let the opposition speak for themselves. Who are these parents? What do they believe and why? And why were they ready to fight so hard against a plan that...
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S2 E6: Below Liberty
Queens has changed a lot in the last few decades — and so has District 28. New immigrant communities have taken root and the district is, on the whole, pretty diverse. But most Black folks still live on the Southside, and the schools below Liberty Avenue continue to struggle. A lot of parents and...
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S2 E5: The Melting Pot
Until recently, District 28 was characterized by a white Northside, and a Black Southside. For more than a hundred years, we've seen how conflicts around housing, schools, and resources have played out mostly along this racial divide. So how did District 28 go from being defined by this racial...
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S2 E4: The Mason-Dixon Line
So much of the present day conversation about District 28 hinges on the dynamic between the Northside and the Southside. But why were the north and the south wedged into the same school district to begin with? When we asked around, no one seemed to know. What we do know are the consequences. As...
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S2 E3: The Battle of Forest Hills
In the early 1970s, Forest Hills, Queens, became a national symbol of white, middle class resistance to integration. Instead of public schools, this fight was over public housing. It was a fight that got so intense the press called it "The Battle of Forest Hills." How did a famously liberal...
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S2 E2: Tales from the Southside
District 28 is both diverse and segregated. There’s a Northside and a Southside. To put it simply: the Southside is Black, and the further north you go, the fewer Black people you see. But it wasn't always like this. Once upon a time, Black parents in South Jamaica staged an epic school boycott...
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S2 E1: "There Is No Plan"
Queens, New York is often called “the most diverse place on the planet.” So why would a school district in Queens need a diversity plan? And why would so many Queens parents be so fiercely opposed? Welcome back to School Colors — Season 2. Click here for a full episode transcript. Join us at the...
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Season 2 Trailer
School Colors is back! Season 2 premieres this week, presented by NPR's Code Switch. To listen, hop over to the Code Switch feed. In Season 1, hosts Mark Winston Griffith and Max Freedman reported from their home turf in Central Brooklyn. Season 2 is all about Queens. Queens is often touted as…
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S1 Bonus: School Colors, Behind the Scenes
Every month on the Third Rail podcast, Brooklyn Deep deconstructs hot topics and social justice issues that impact the lives of Central Brooklynites. In November, Third Rail featured a special behind-the-scenes look at the making of School Colors, Brooklyn Deep's most ambitious project to date....
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S1 Bonus: A Night at the Library
In this bonus episode, recorded live at the Brooklyn Public Library, producers Mark Winston Griffith and Max Freedman talk with Christina Veiga, a reporter from Chalkbeat. They are joined by a special guest: NeQuan McLean, president of the Community Education Council for District 16. Their...
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S1 E8: On the Move
Despite New York City's progressive self-image, our dirty secret is that we have one of the most deeply segregated school systems in the country. But with gentrification forcing the issue, school integration is back on the table for the first time in decades. How do we not totally screw it up?…
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S1 E7: New Kids on the Block
Gentrification is reshaping cities all over the country: more affluent people, often but not always white, are moving into historically Black and brown neighborhoods like Bedford-Stuyvesant. But even as the population of Bed-Stuy has been growing in numbers and wealth, the schools of District 16...
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S1 E6: Mo' Charters Mo' Problems
If you ask most people in Bed-Stuy’s District 16 why they think enrollment is falling, chances are they’ll point to charter schools: privately managed public schools, which have been on the rise in New York City for more than a decade. Charter schools were originally dreamed up to be laboratories...
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S1 E5: The Disappearing District
Since 2002, the number of students in Bed-Stuy’s District 16 has dropped by more than half. There’s no single reason why this is happening, but the year 2002 is a clue: that’s when Michael Bloomberg became the Mayor, abolished local school boards, and took over the New York City school system. In...
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S1 E4: "Agitate! Educate! Organize!"
In the wake of the 1968 teachers’ strikes, Black people in Central Brooklyn continued to fight for self-determination in education -- both inside and outside of the public school system. Some veterans of the community control movement started an independent school called Uhuru Sasa Shule, or...
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S1 E3: Third Strike
In the fall of 1968, New York City teachers went on strike three times, in reaction to an experiment in community control of schools in Ocean Hill-Brownsville, Brooklyn. The third strike was the longest, and the ugliest. The movement for community control tapped into a powerful desire among Black...
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S1 E2: Power to the People
In the late 1960s, the Central Brooklyn neighborhood of Ocean Hill-Brownsville was at the center of a bold experiment in community control of public schools. But as Black and Puerto Rican parents in Ocean Hill-Brownsville tried to exercise power over their schools, they collided headfirst with…
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S1 E1: Old School
Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn is one of the most iconic historically Black neighborhoods in the United States. But Bed-Stuy is changing. Fifty years ago, schools in Bed-Stuy's District 16 were so overcrowded that students went to school in shifts. Today, they're half-empty. Why? In trying to…
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Season 1 Trailer
Bedford-Stuyvesant is one of the most iconic historically Black neighborhoods in the United States. Community School District 16 covers about half of Bed-Stuy. And almost every school in District 16 is hemorrhaging kids. Something is wrong. But today’s crisis is just the latest chapter in a story...
About this show
School Colors is a narrative podcast from Brooklyn Deep about how race, class, and power shape American cities and schools. Season 2 premieres May 4, 2022: only on NPR's Code Switch.
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