Place of Privilege

Young, Black and in an Unexpected Place of Privilege

 

There are private schools all across the country, places with better resources, better teachers, better budgets.  By definition, these schools are not for the public.  They are private.  They are exclusive.  They are for those who can afford better.  Rarely does that include black students. 

​

In the 1960’s, it almost never did.

​

And then there are the ultra-elite private schools, the super schools; places where the resources, the curriculum and the tuition are comparable to the best liberal arts colleges.  These are schools where lineage is a factor in the admission process.  These are not schools for those who can afford better, they are schools only for those who can afford the very best.

​

These are places of privilege.

​

The Place:    In New York, the crown jewel place of privilege is The Dalton School; one of the most prestigious, elite prep schools in the nation, recognized globally for its visionary progressive educational philosophy.   Whenever popular culture needs a readily recognizable reference for the alma mater of the extraordinarily rich and famous, they simply say “Dalton.”  Dalton is where Anderson Cooper was a student, Jeffrey Epstein was a teacher and Robert Redford and Bob Fosse were members of the PTA.  Time Magazine called Dalton “the most progressive of the city's chic schools and the most chic of the city's progressive schools.”  Dalton, and the extraordinary places of privilege like it, are where the purebred 1% are taught and groomed to become the next generation of America’s power elite.

​

The Time:     The second half of the 1960s, a period of unprecedented, involuntary, wrenching change in America, and few, if any, were optimistic about the outcome of that change.  It was a time of omnipresent conflict: young vs. old, black vs. white, north vs. south, haves vs. have-nots.  The Civil Rights movement.  The Black Power Movement.  The Anti-War movement.  Everything moving.  The assassinations of MLK and RFK led to riots, despair and fear.

​

It was in this historic, revolutionary time and place that the board of trustees of Dalton felt compelled to reach out to the previously unfamiliar communities of New York and actively recruit minority students.  Black boys.

By the early 1960’s, Dalton’s star had lost some of its luster.  Among New York’s super-elite schools, it was no longer King of the hill.  In just four years – from 1960 to 1964 – Dalton had gone through four headmasters.  Dalton parents were unhappy, and the board of trustees was in full-on panic mode.  And so the Dalton trustees and brand new headmaster, Donald Barr (father of the former Attorney General), committed themselves and their school to a radical course of actions that would not merely embrace change, but would attempt to shape that change into a better, more progressive, more inclusive and more diverse future for the school. 

​

“Place Of Privilege” tells what happened to the black boys placed into this strange new world, without any support system, without any rules of engagement.  The sudden presence of this small group of black boys began to change Dalton forever. 

​

50 years later, we talk to Dalton’s most recent minority graduates to find out if the elite private school landscape changed from 50 years ago.  We ask if the drive for diversity and inclusion made things any better.

​

“Place Of Privilege” tells the stories of these students; how Dalton changed their lives, and how their lives changed Dalton.  Written by two of the young black men with very different backgrounds (Mark Robinson and Ray Smaltz) who were among the new and very different members of the Dalton family during this historic time.  Among the stories and secrets unearthed as part of the research for this book were revelations about how Mark’s own family history is – incredibly – inextricably intertwined with the history of Dalton.  “Place Of Privilege” provides the remarkable narrative of the pathfinder courses their lives would take, as well as the story of what happens when you are young, black and in an unexpected place of privilege.

 

On Sale July 1, 2021