Frederick Douglass Community Coalition – Strategies

  • Organizing Meetings Against the Opposition

  • Signing Petitions Against the Opposition

  • Creating a Space for Community Members to Come Together

After the announcement of the possible closure of Douglass High School, the Frederick Douglass Community Coalition and other members of the community–teachers, parents, students, came together to organize a meeting with RSD officials (Dixson. 2015, p. 291). The RSD created the “steering committee” which would be making decisions in the Master Plan regarding the future curriculum of the school (Dixson, 2015, p. 292). It was crucial for the Coalition to push back on this because the RSD was excluding community input, which went against the Coalition’s goal to more centrally involve the community in developing the curriculum even prior to 2005 (Dixson, 2015, p. 292).  Dynamic action occurred at the meeting. A petition calling for an education based on: college preparation, fine arts, and community service was passed around (Dixson, 2015, p. 291). 

The Frederick Douglass Community Coalition was a place for community members to come together and express their concerns of the future of their schools. The Coalition, compiled of members from all different backgrounds enabled the sharing of information (Dixson, 2015, p. 291). In fact, the day after the meeting with the RSD officials, the Coalition held a meeting. An individual who was invited to be on the RSD’s “steering committee” was able to inform the Coalition insider information (Dixson, 2015, p. 291). The individual expressed their concern that the committee wasn’t interested in getting community feedback or recommendations about the Master Plan; the “opportunity” for recommendations to be voiced was only to temporarily appease the community as the “steering committee” was only interested in getting the seal of approval (Dixson, 2015, p. 291).

The Coalition’s goals went beyond wanting to have a say on the future school’s academic content. A more grandiose problem was that the community and its history were being white-washed. The sake of the predominantly black community and the future of Douglass was in the hands of predominantly white-elite policymakers (Dixson, 2015, p. 292). The charterization of Douglass and more widely, New Orleans, exemplifies and reinforces the implications of a white-savior complex.