The 1960's and 1970's were a time of shifting demographics- and resulting tensions- for Coney Island.Cathy Furiani- who writes the blog Second Half - took Martin Luther King Day as an opportunity to talk about her own experiences as a child growing up in Coney Island during those troubled times:
MLK was very much in the news then, and the message he was spreading was very much on every one's lips. I attended elementary school in Coney Island for only 1st and 6th grade. In between they bussed us to Brighton Beach. When that stopped in 6th grade, I became the minority in P.S.288 in Coney Island. In fact, I was the only girl with light skin in my 6th grade class. For junior high they bussed us again to Seth Low in Bay Ridge. It was the time of racial tension and taking action and on the second day of junior high the bigger kids in Bay Ridge attacked my school bus and turned it on its side. They didn't want us in their neighborhood. The third day of junior high I started taking the city bus to Reynolds in Sheepshead Bay. I went to that school until we left Coney Island and moved to Staten Island as part of the big migration over the Verrazano Bridge.
No comments:
Post a Comment