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Mark Winston Griffith Mark Winston Griffith is the creator, host and writer of School Colors along with Max Freedman.
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Mark Winston Griffith

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Mark
Brandon Watson/NPR

Mark Winston Griffith

Host, School Colors

Mark Winston Griffith is the creator, host and writer of School Colors along with Max Freedman.

Griffith is a third-generation resident of Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Until April 2022, he was the Executive Director of the Brooklyn Movement Center, a Black-led community organizing group based in Central Brooklyn that he co-founded in 2011. His parent organizing in Central Brooklyn and authorship of a report on Community School District 16 inspired him to co-create School Colors.

While at Brooklyn Movement Center, Griffith created Brooklyn Deep, a citizen journalism initiative that chronicles neighborhood change in Central Brooklyn. He has served as an adjunct professor of urban reporting at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, and has been a board member of The City news site, City Limits Magazine and Free Speech TV.

Griffith is an enthusiastic parent of two teenage boys and has navigated the public, private and charter school systems.

Story Archive

Friday

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School Colors Episode 9: 'Water Under The Bridge'

Over the course of this season, we've explored a rich history and complicated present, but what about the future? In the final episode, we catch up with parents who became activated on both sides of the debate over the diversity plan. And, since the diversity plan never came to fruition, we ask...what now?

School Colors Episode 9: 'Water Under The Bridge'

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Friday

School Colors Bonus: 'Ms. Mitchell's Pandemic Diary'

School Colors Bonus: "Ms. Mitchell's Pandemic Diary" Cassandra Giraldo hide caption

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Cassandra Giraldo

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School Colors Bonus: 'Ms. Mitchell's Pandemic Diary'

Pat Mitchell is the longtime principal of P.S. 48 – an elementary school in Jamaica, Queens. And while she cares deeply about her students and her work, she has struggled with the growing challenges faced by her school community. In this bonus episode, we look at the pandemic through the eyes of one elementary school principal, and how Covid-19 rocked education in the district – especially on the Southside.

School Colors Bonus: 'Ms. Mitchell's Pandemic Diary'

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Thursday

Throughline Presents: School Colors

A family walks towards Rochdale Village housing co-op and complex in Queens on April 28, 2022. (NPR/Cassandra Geraldo) Cassandra Giraldo /Cassandra Giraldo hide caption

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Throughline

Throughline Presents: School Colors

School District 28 is located in one of the most racially and ethnically diverse places in the U.S.: Queens, N.Y. But the neighborhood served by this school district has two sides – a Northside and a Southside. To put it simply, the Southside is Black and the farther north you go, the fewer Black people you see. But it wasn't always like this.

Throughline Presents: School Colors

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Friday

School Colors Episode 8: 'The Only Way Out'

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School Colors Episode 8: 'The Only Way Out'

When the District 28 diversity planning process came around, many Chinese parents had already been activated a year earlier by the fight to defend the Specialized High School Admissions Test.

School Colors Episode 8: 'The Only Way Out'

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Friday

School Colors Episode 7: 'The Sleeping Giant'

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LA Johnson

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School Colors Episode 7: 'The Sleeping Giant'

In some ways, this entire season was prompted by the parents who organized against diversity planning in School District 28. So in this episode, we're going back to that one ugly meeting, where they unleashed their fear and anger into the rest of the community. So who are these parents, what do they believe and why? Moreover, why were they ready to fight so hard against a plan that didn't exist?

School Colors Episode 7: 'The Sleeping Giant'

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Friday

School Colors Episode 6: 'Below Liberty'
LA Johnson

Code Switch

School Colors Episode 6: 'Below Liberty'

Though a lot of parents and educators agree there needs to be some change in District 28, the question remains: what kind of change? When we asked around, more diversity wasn't necessarily at the top of everybody's list. In fact, from the north and south, we heard a lot of the same kind of thing: "leave our kids where they are and give all the schools what they need."

School Colors Episode 6: 'Below Liberty'

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Friday

School Colors Episode 5: 'The Melting Pot'
LA Johnson

Code Switch

School Colors Episode 5: 'The Melting Pot'

Until recently, School District 28 in Queens, N.Y., was characterized by a white Northside, and a Black Southside. But today, the district, and Queens at large, has become what is considered to be one of the most diverse places on the planet. So how did District 28 go from being defined by this racial binary, to a place where people brag about how diverse it is?

School Colors Episode 5: 'The Melting Pot'

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Friday

School Colors Episode 4: 'The Mason-Dixon Line'
LA Johnson

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School Colors Episode 4: 'The Mason-Dixon Line'

So much of the present day conversation about District 28 hinges on the dynamic between the Northside and the Southside. But why were the North and the South wedged into the same school district to begin with? When we asked around, no one seemed to know. What we do know are the consequences.

School Colors Episode 4: 'The Mason-Dixon Line'

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Friday

School Colors Episode 3: 'The Battle of Forest Hills'
LA Johnson

Code Switch

School Colors Episode 3: 'The Battle of Forest Hills'

In the early 1970s, Forest Hills, Queens, became a national symbol of white, middle class resistance to integration. Instead of public schools, this fight was over public housing. A fight that got so intense the press called it "The Battle of Forest Hills." How did a famously liberal neighborhood become a hotbed of reaction and backlash? And how did a small group of angry homeowners change housing policy for the entire country?

School Colors Episode 3: 'The Battle of Forest Hills'

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Wednesday

School Colors Episode 2: 'Tales From The Southside'
Photo by Cassandra Giraldo for NPR

Code Switch

School Colors Episode 2: 'Tales From The Southside'

School District 28 in Queens, N.Y., has a Northside and a Southside. To put it simply, the Southside is Black and the farther north you go, the fewer Black people you see. But it wasn't always like this. Once the home to two revolutionary experiments in integrated housing, the Southside of the district served as a beacon of interracial cooperation. So what happened between then and now?

School Colors Episode 2: 'Tales From The Southside'

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Wednesday

School Colors Episode 1: 'There Is No Plan'
NPR

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School Colors Episode 1: 'There Is No Plan'

In 2019, a school district in Queens N.Y., one of the most diverse places on the planet, is selected to go through the process of creating something unexpected: a diversity plan. Why would the school district need such a plan and why were some parents so adamantly opposed?

School Colors Episode 1: 'There Is No Plan'

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