Elevated Voices: Elders Speak about Transportation Access
April 21st, 6PM, Myrtle Avenue Plaza
Opening Event as part of Foundations Expanded.
Elevated Voices is a collaboration between elders who live in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Clinton Hill, and Fort Greene; Pratt Institute’s Preserving Activism Beyond and Between Pratt’s Gates; and 7Cinema, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit video and media production organization. Its purpose is to make transportation access, service, and infrastructure more equitable by elevating the voices and experiences of elder community members and disseminating these oral histories to the general public. The project is supported by the Taconic Fellowship through Pratt’s Center for Community Development.
A Hidden History of Pratt’s Summer Youth Programs
March 28–May 1, 2022
In collaboration with Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership (MABP), Pratt’s Preserving Activism initiative sponsored a photography installation in seven Myrtle Avenue storefronts.
The Search for Hidden History (1973–2002)
In the early ‘70s, Pratt student activists from the Black Student Union (BSU), demanded that the Pratt administration diversify the student body and teaching force, revamp the curriculum through Black and Latin American Studies, and open up the campus to Central Brooklyn’s communities through summer youth programs. In oral histories, BSU activists describe their involvement with Horace Williams (Pratt, BFA Fashion ‘70) who started two summer youth programs beginning in 1973.
Yet, when students, faculty, and staff searched through Pratt’s archival sources for more details, they found only a few brochures and reports. Still, a set of photographic contact sheets in Pratt’s archives led us to Marc Weinstein (Pratt, BFA Photography ’74), who had worked with Horace Williams as a freelance photographer. Marc shared his images for this project, which begins to restore the hidden history of Pratt’s summer youth programs.
Horace Williams worked at Pratt for almost 30 years, eventually becoming Pratt’s first African American Vice-President. He led two summer youth programs— the Summer Youth Skills and Development Program (on Pratt’s campus) and the Youth and Adult Services Coalition (in 17 Central Brooklyn sites). These historic photos from the 1970s and ‘80s feature the wide-ranging learning opportunities offered to more than 6,000 Brooklyn youth and young adults.
Protests at Pratt
The Pratt student strikes in 1968 and 1969 were sparked in response to a tuition hike and the proposed purchase of Willoughby buildings. The scope of the protests broadened to address the administration’s disregard for student and staff interests, breeding a new desire in students to restructure the Institute as a whole. The Strike of 1972 picked up where the strikes of ‘68 and ‘69 left off, in a way, by focusing more on the mistreatment of Black and Puerto Rican students in addition to administrative grievances. This digital exhibit looks to examine the history of activism at the Pratt Institute and how this relates to trends that are currently taking place. In order to move forward, we want to look at how different initiatives such as community outreach, peace efforts, and the involvement of the Black Student Union have all come together to make the Pratt Institute what it is today.
Preserving Activism 