Ghosts in the Schoolyard

Episode 8: In this episode we’ll consider the vital link between schools and their surrounding communities, and the “institutional mourning” that occurs when schools close. We’ll hear an interview with Eve Ewing, author of Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side (University of Chicago Press) and a poem from Pat Frazier, the first ever National Youth Poet Laureate, whose debut collection is called Graphite. Click on the images below to see some of the extraordinary photographs of school closings by photographer Tom Lau. All three of these artists (Ewing, Frazier, and Lau) are proud products of the Chicago Public Schools.