Desegregation Resources at YPL

Notable Primary Documents


(Please note that these items do not circulate and must be consulted on-site at Riverfront Library's Reference Department - 3rd floor.)

  • NAACP (Yonkers branch). Black paper: the state of Yonkers, 1979  LH R 344.079 B
  • Settlement agreement in United States of America v. Yonkers Board of Education  LH R 344.079 S
  • Settlement agreement in United States of America v. Yonkers Board of Education: housing portion (2007) 
  • LH R 346.043 S

Dissertations 


(Please note that these items do not circulate and must be consulted on-site in the library.)

  • Lynne M. Pachnowski. An analysis of the attitudes of public and private parents and students of Yonkers, New York, regarding the Yonkers Public Schools’ voluntary student transfer desegregation remedy (1994) 
  • LH R 370.19 P
  • Geraldine Pisacreta. The effect of court-ordered busing for desegregation and the creation of magnet schools on student achievement (2000)   LH R 379.26 P
  • Rachelle M. Salerno. Segregation, northern style: a political history of non-policy making in Yonkers, New York (1985)   LH R 363.55
  • Michael V. Yazurlo. Desegregation: yesterday, today and tomorrow: a case study of the Yonkers public schools (1990)    LH R 370.19 Y
  • Also of interest: Bruce D. Haynes. The social construction of a black suburban community: a case study of Runyon Heights, Yonkers, New York, 1912-1994 (1995) LH R 305.896 H

Local newspapers

(online and in microfilm format)

  • Microfilm of The Herald Statesman (mid-March 1932 – mid-October 1998)
  • Microfilm of The Journal News (mid-October 1998 – present)
  • Microfilm of The New York Times (1851 – present)
    • Note: There is a charge of 15 cents per copy for printing from the microfilm reader.
  • Online access to an archive of The Journal News is available on our website here.  It can be accessed in the library and at home with your YPL library card.
  • Please note: Though the library has an index to The Herald Statesman for the period September 1985 through mid-August 1998, The Herald Statesman is un-indexed for most of its run. The library has an index to The Journal News for the years:
    • 2002 (incomplete)
    • 2003
    • Jan. – June 2004
    • 2006 – 2010
    • 2012 – 2016  
  • Visit the online Yonkers News Archive (a partnership with newspapers.com) to search the entirety of the Yonkers Herald Statesmen (through 1998). Learn more here. 

Books with Local History Background

  • Charles Allison. The History of Yonkers (W.B. Ketcham, 1896; reprinted, Harrison Hill Books, 1984)  LH R 974.7277 A
  • Lisa Belkin. Show Me a Hero (Little, Brown, 1999) LH R 974.7277 B – the deseg case during the mayoralty of Nicholas Wasicsko 
  • Harold A. Esannason and Vinnie Bagwell. A Study of African-American life in Yonkers from the turn of the century (H.A. Esannason, 1993) LH R 974.7277 S
  • Bruce D. Haynes. Red lines, black spaces: the politics of race and space in a black middle-class suburb (Yale, 2001) LH R 974.7277 H – a study of the Runyon Heights neighborhood
  • Rev. Thomas Shelley. Slovaks on the Hudson (Catholic U. Press, 2002) – good for Yonkers history in the 20th Century  LH R 282.7472 S                                    
  • Frank Walton. Pillars of Yonkers (Stratford House, 1951)  LH R 974.727 W
  • Marilyn E. Weigold.  Yonkers in the twentieth century (SUNY Press, 2014) LH R 974.7304 W
  • Dated, but worth reading as a sketch of Yonkers history: Harrison Salisbury’s 4-part series on Yonkers in the New York Times, April 18-21, 1955 ; the first article has been reprinted in the Winter 2003 issue (vol.12, #4) of The Yonkers Historian, the Yonkers Historical Society newsletter.

The website https://fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html claims to have posted the contents of The Herald Statesman for the years 1932-1985, with the exception of the year 1948; and this Web site allows for online searching

Official Documents

  • The decision of the court rendered on November 20, 1985
  • The court’s housing remedy order rendered on May 28, 1986 
  • A notice to plaintiff-intervenors of a proposed settlement and public hearing (in the education portion of the case) scheduled for March 26, 2002
  • The settlement agreement (education portion of the case) dated January 31, 2002, and
  • The settlement agreement (housing portion of the case) dated April 1, 2007.