RACE, FOSTER-CARE, AND THE POLITICS OF ABANDONMENT IN NEW-YORK-CITY

Following the end of the Great Depression of the 1930s, the sectarian system of foster fare services in New York City practiced open discrim ination. African-American children were generally segregated in a smal l number of overcrowded and understaffed all-Black institutions. As th e African-American migration to the city accelerated in the years foll owing the outbreak of World War II, a small group of psychologists, ju rists, philanthropists, and social workers began a systematic challeng e to this system. This paper explores the role of racism in shaping Ne w York's foster care system and the experience of African-American chi ldren who were forced to depend on services originally organized to se rve Whites. It also looks at the ways race affected the way children w ere typed-as mentally ill, delinquent, or even criminal-in response to the structural realities of a system that sorted children into separa te types of institutions according to race. The paper also provides th e background for understanding the landmark challenge to segregation o f children in sectarian and public institutions represented by Wilder v Sugarman.