Chicago Hunger Strike Ends but Fight for Dyett High School Continues
Twelve Chicago parents, grandmothers, and community organizers ended a 34-day hunger strike this week over the fate of Dyett High School — but the underlying fight over what kind of school will actually reopen in the Bronzeville neighborhood is far from settled.
A School District’s Decade of Disinvestment
Walter H. Dyett High School had served as Bronzeville’s last open-enrollment neighborhood high school before Chicago Public Schools voted in 2012 to phase it out over low test scores, with the school closing entirely after its final class of just 13 students graduated this past June. The closure fit a pattern community members say has defined Bronzeville’s relationship with CPS for more than a decade: the historically Black South Side neighborhood has seen more than 15 school closures, turnarounds, or conversions in that span, part of a broader wave that saw CPS close 49 public schools system-wide in 2013 — the largest mass school closure in U.S. history — with critics noting the closures fell disproportionately on poor, Black, and Latino neighborhoods like Bronzeville.
The Coalition to Revitalize Dyett High School, led by Kenwood Oakland Community Organization director Jitu Brown, spent years pursuing conventional advocacy routes before resorting to the hunger strike: sit-ins at City Hall in 2012, protests outside aldermanic and mayoral offices, and ultimately a detailed 53-page proposal submitted in April to reopen Dyett as the “Walter H. Dyett Global Leadership and Green Technology High School,” a community-designed school built around sustainability education. CPS left the proposal unanswered as the start of the school year approached.
Twelve People, Thirty-Four Days
With patience exhausted, 12 strikers began refusing food on August 17, setting up camp near the shuttered school. Jeanette Taylor-Raman, who has spent nearly her entire life in Bronzeville, was among those who spent nights sleeping in tents near the building during the strike. The toll on strikers’ health became visible quickly — two were hospitalized within the first eleven days — even as the group held firm on their central demand: an open-enrollment neighborhood high school, not a charter or contract school that would require an application process the community argued would exclude many of the students Dyett was originally meant to serve.
Elementary school teacher Tammy Vinson, who supported the strikers, connected the fight to a broader pattern of disinvestment: “What the Dyett hunger strike is bringing attention to is that they have disinvested in that community so much.” Chicago Teachers Union activist Michelle Gunderson framed the stakes even more starkly, warning that allowing Bronzeville to lose its last open-enrollment school would set a precedent other neighborhoods should fear: “It’s not just about one school. Not having a neighborhood school in Bronzeville sets an example. Once it’s okay in one neighborhood, then we would have the domino effect; they will drop like flies.”
A “Compromise” Negotiated With Someone Else
CPS announced what it characterized as a compromise on September 3 — but notably, the agreement wasn’t reached with the hunger strikers or KOCO at all. Instead, the district negotiated with a separate set of community leaders, producing a plan combining elements from three different competing proposals: Dyett would reopen in 2016 as an open-enrollment, arts-focused neighborhood high school. The strikers, upon learning the deal had been struck without their direct involvement, initially declared their hunger strike would continue rather than accept a resolution negotiated around them rather than with them.
The strike ultimately ended September 20, at 34 days, with Reverend Jesse Jackson appearing alongside the strikers at Rainbow PUSH headquarters to mark what he described as a significant accomplishment. Reverend Janette Wilson of Rainbow PUSH, who had been in direct conversation with CPS on the strikers’ behalf, was careful about how she characterized the outcome: “We were not negotiating in a labor sense. The school is going to be open enrollment. It’s a neighborhood school, it’s a community school. We’re trying to celebrate that victory right now. And as we continue conversations going forward, more things will be agreed to.”
A Victory With an Asterisk
That final line captures why the fight, in the coalition’s own framing, isn’t actually over. The specific green-technology, community-governance model KOCO and the original coalition spent years developing wasn’t what CPS ultimately agreed to — the reopened school will carry an arts focus instead, drawing on a different proposal entirely. Jitu Brown struck a measured tone in response, acknowledging the win while making clear the fight for the full original vision continues: “We are happy the school is opening as a neighborhood CPS-run school. All is not lost.”
For related coverage of community organizing and public services, see our piece on Philadelphia community groups protesting pool closures, or browse our full Labor & Economy archive.