Justin Murphy: Your Children Are Very Greatly in Danger

In Your Children Are Very Greatly in Danger, veteran journalist Justin Murphy makes the compelling argument that the educational disparities in Rochester, NY, are the result of historical and present-day racial segregation. Education reform alone will never be the full solution; to resolve racial inequity, cities such as Rochester must first dismantle segregation. 

Drawing on never-before-seen archival documents, as well as scores of new interviews, Murphy shows how discriminatory public policy and personal prejudice combined to create the racially segregated education system that exists in the Rochester area today. Alongside this dismal history, he also recounts the courageous fight for integration and equality, from the advocacy of Frederick Douglass in the 1850s to a countywide student coalition inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement in the 2010s.  

“Justin Murphy’s carefully documented, quietly passionate book about generations of segregation and failure in Rochester’s deeply unequal schools calls us to start now on building a real path toward integration.” –Gary Orfield, Co-director, Civil Rights Project at UCLA

Justin Murphy is the education reporter at the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, NY. Follow him on Twitter @CitizenMurphy.

Justin Murphy will be in conversation with Erica Bryant. Erica is Associate Director of Writing at Vera Institute of Justice in Rochester, New York.

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Your Children Are Very Greatly in Danger

This is a hybrid event available both in person and streamed virtually via Crowdcast.

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