Mr. Robert Sander shares that his NYC History class had Johanna Fernandez, a professor from Baruch College give a talk on her book, The Young Lords: A Radical History. Utilizing oral histories, archival records, and an enormous cache of police records released only after a decade-long Freedom of Information Law request and subsequent court battle, Johanna Fernandez has written the definitive account of the Young Lords, from their roots as a street gang to their rise and fall as a political organization.
Two days later, Mr. Sandler had Vivian Vázquez Irizarry visit his live synchronous class to talk about her documentary, Decade of Fire. Through a rich seam of archival and home movie footage, Decade of Fire confronts the racially-charged stereotypes that dehumanized residents of the South Bronx in the 1970’s, and rationalized their abandonment by city, state and federal governments. Vázquez Irizarry, in her role as the film’s central character and co-director seeks not only healing for her community, but to redeem them from the harmful mythology spread by the media that has continued largely unchallenged to this day. She tells the story of a people who held on, worked to save their community and start anew against impossible odds. The accounts she gathers are supported by extensive research, archival footage, print and broadcast news excerpts, testimonials from retired FDNY firefighters and brass, as well as Bronx historians.
Mr. Sandler says, “the students loved getting to have intimate discussions with these two brilliant historian activists and had great discussions about how these topics related to the BLM Movement and the murder of George Floyd.“ (photos courtesy of Mr. Sandler)
