New York Liberation School: Study and Movement for the People’s University

In the 1960s and 70s Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and Adrienne Rich all taught at CUNY helping Harlem emerge as as an epicenter of Black, Puerto Rican, queer, and women’s liberation.

Conor Tomas Reed is part of the next generation brought up in these educational institutions and nourished by these writers’ work. Eager to understand the decolonial metamorphosis that transformed the landscape of higher education, Reed explores how they supported each other and the unique methods of movement and study they brought to the classroom and the neighborhood. Digging into the archive and interviewing surviving members, including Samuel Delany and Louis Reyes Rivera, Reed reclaims these vibrant histories as they help chart our tasks today.