Seattle school boycott of 1966

Last updated

The Seattle school boycott of 1966 was a protest against racial segregation in the Seattle Public Schools. On March 31 and April 1, thousands of students left classes at their public schools, with the large majority of them attending community Freedom Schools instead. [1] [2]

Contents

History

Parents, civil-rights groups, and community organizations had spent years pushing the city to improve the public education system and make Seattle schools equitable for all children. They challenged the structure that concentrated children of color disproportionately in a few under-funded schools and demanded that the district improve the quality of these schools. However, they were unable to persuade the majority-white school board to deal with the issue. [3]

After years of frustration with city officials, a coalition of organizations led by the Central Area Civil Rights Committee (CACRC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) organized a boycott, requesting that all Seattle parents keep their children out of school for two days. [4]

Organizers saw the need for alternative education programs during the boycott to provide childcare for working parents and model multicultural education for the students. They decided to call these sites "Freedom Schools" to connect the local boycott to the national struggle for racial justice. [4]

Eight Freedom Schools were originally planned, but on the morning of March 31, so many students walked out of school that many new Freedom School sites had to be set up. Some parents stayed when they came to drop their children off because the sites were so crowded. Freedom Schools were held at: First A.M.E. Church, Madrona Presbyterian Church, Goodwill Baptist Church, East Madison YMCA, Cherry Hill Baptist Church, Tabernacle Baptist Church, Mt. Zion Baptist Church, Woodland Park Presbyterian Church and the East Side YMCA. [4]

The curriculum of the Seattle Freedom Schools included subjects that were not taught in Seattle Public Schools. There was an emphasis on teaching African American history and the history of the civil-rights movement. Freedom Schools also provided "leadership training [for youth to become] a new generation of civil rights leaders," said Dr. Earl Miller, a Seattle organizer with the NAACP and CORE. [5]

Hundreds of volunteers served as teachers, doctors on call, outreach workers, transportation directors, childcare assistants, and resource people. [6] The total number of students who walked out is estimated at 4,000. [1] Organizers estimated that 3,000 of them participated in Freedom Schools. The school district absentee rate rose 58.5% over the two days. According to the chairman of the Boycott Committee, about 70% of the students attending Freedom Schools were people of color, predominantly African American, while approximately 30% were white. Though the school district attributed the absences to the upcoming spring vacation, organizers of the boycott considered it a huge success [6]

Some participants criticized what they saw as token support from white families who participated in the Freedom Schools. Other people were disillusioned by a lack of long-term results as the Seattle Public School district continued to perpetuate racism and inequity. Regardless, the Seattle Freedom School campaign of 1966 is part of a history of racial-justice organizing which gives strength and guidance to the people who continue to work for racial equity. [7]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Civil rights movement</span> 1954–1968 U.S. social movement

The civil rights movement was a social movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement in the country. The movement had its origins in the Reconstruction era during the late 19th century and had its modern roots in the 1940s, although the movement made its largest legislative gains in the 1960s after years of direct actions and grassroots protests. The social movement's major nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience campaigns eventually secured new protections in federal law for the civil rights of all Americans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Montgomery bus boycott</span> 1950s American protest against racial segregation

The Montgomery bus boycott was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was a foundational event in the civil rights movement in the United States. The campaign lasted from December 5, 1955—the Monday after Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, was arrested for her refusal to surrender her seat to a white person—to December 20, 1956, when the federal ruling Browder v. Gayle took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws that segregated buses were unconstitutional.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Lawson (activist)</span> American minister, educator, and activist

James Morris Lawson Jr. is an American activist and university professor. He was a leading theoretician and tactician of nonviolence within the Civil Rights Movement. During the 1960s, he served as a mentor to the Nashville Student Movement and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He was expelled from Vanderbilt University for his civil rights activism in 1960, and later served as a pastor in Los Angeles for 25 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freedom Summer</span> 1964 voter registration campaign in the U.S. state of Mississippi

Freedom Summer, also known as the Freedom Summer Project or the Mississippi Summer Project, was a volunteer campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi. Blacks had been restricted from voting since the turn of the century due to barriers to voter registration and other laws. The project also set up dozens of Freedom Schools, Freedom Houses, and community centers such as libraries, in small towns throughout Mississippi to aid the local Black population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southern Christian Leadership Conference</span> African-American civil rights organization

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African-American civil rights organization based in Atlanta, Georgia. SCLC is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., who had a large role in the American civil rights movement.

Radical Women (RW) is an American socialist feminist grassroots activist organization affiliated with the Freedom Socialist Party. It has branches in Seattle, Washington, and Melbourne, Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">E. D. Nixon</span> American civil rights leader (1899–1987)

Edgar Daniel Nixon, known as E. D. Nixon, was an American civil rights leader and union organizer in Alabama who played a crucial role in organizing the landmark Montgomery bus boycott there in 1955. The boycott highlighted the issues of segregation in the South, was upheld for more than a year by black residents, and nearly brought the city-owned bus system to bankruptcy. It ended in December 1956, after the United States Supreme Court ruled in the related case, Browder v. Gayle (1956), that the local and state laws were unconstitutional, and ordered the state to end bus segregation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fred Shuttlesworth</span> American civil rights activist (1922–2011)

Freddie Lee Shuttlesworth was an American civil rights activist who led the fight against segregation and other forms of racism as a minister in Birmingham, Alabama. He was a co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, initiated and was instrumental in the 1963 Birmingham Campaign, and continued to work against racism and for alleviation of the problems of the homeless in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he took up a pastorate in 1961. He returned to Birmingham after his retirement in 2007. He worked with Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement, though the two men often disagreed on tactics and approaches.

The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was formed on December 5, 1955 by black ministers and community leaders in Montgomery, Alabama. Under the leadership of Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Edgar Nixon, the MIA was instrumental in guiding the Montgomery bus boycott, a successful campaign that focused national attention on racial segregation in the South and catapulted King into the national spotlight.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birmingham campaign</span> American civil rights campaign in Alabama (1963)

The Birmingham campaign, also known as the Birmingham movement or Birmingham confrontation, was an American movement organized in early 1963 by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to bring attention to the integration efforts of African Americans in Birmingham, Alabama.

The Women's Political Council (WPC), founded in Montgomery, Alabama, was an organization that formed in 1946 that was an early force active in the civil rights movement that was formed to address the racial issues in the city. Members included Mary Fair Burks, Jo Ann Robinson, Maude Ballou, Irene West, Thelma Glass, and Euretta Adair.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aaron Henry (politician)</span> American civil rights leader and politician

Aaron Henry was an American civil rights leader, politician, and head of the Mississippi branch of the NAACP. He was one of the founders of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party which tried to seat their delegation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.

The civil rights movement in Omaha, Nebraska, has roots that extend back until at least 1912. With a history of racial tension that starts before the founding of the city, Omaha has been the home of numerous overt efforts related to securing civil rights for African Americans since at least the 1870s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johnnie Carr</span>

Johnnie Rebecca Daniels Carr was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States from 1955 until her death.

The Tyree Scott Freedom School is an educational program in Seattle, Washington, with a curriculum on social justice issues and anti-racist community organizing in Seattle. The project also holds a monthly gathering of anti-racist educators, whose goal is to end institutional racism in the education system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NAACP</span> Civil rights organization in the United States

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary White Ovington, Moorfield Storey, Ida B. Wells, Lillian Wald, and Henry Moskowitz. Over the years, leaders of the organization have included Thurgood Marshall and Roy Wilkins.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seattle movement</span>

The Seattle movement was part of the wider Civil Rights Movement, taking place in Seattle, Washington in the 1960s.

Milton Arthur Galamison was a Presbyterian minister who served in Brooklyn, New York. As a community activist, he championed integration and education reform in the New York City public school system, and organized two school boycotts.

The Chester school protests were a series of demonstrations that occurred from November 1963 through April 1964 in Chester, Pennsylvania. The demonstrations aimed to end the de facto segregation of Chester public schools that persisted after the 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka. The racial unrest and civil rights protests were led by Stanley Branche of the Committee for Freedom Now (CFFN) and George Raymond of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons (NAACP).

Reverend Cecil Augustus Ivory was a Presbyterian minister, disability rights activist and sit-in leader during the Civil rights movement.

References

  1. 1 2 Goodnow, Cecelia (2002-02-06), "City made great strides during the civil rights movement", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, retrieved 2009-02-07
  2. ↑ Clarck, Brooke. Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Homepage. "The Seattle School Boycott of 1966." 2005. 24 June 2006.
  3. ↑ Clarck, Brooke. Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Homepage. "The Seattle School Boycott of 1966: Identifying the Problem." 2005. 24 June 2006.
  4. 1 2 3 Clarck, Brooke. Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Homepage. "The Seattle School Boycott of 1966: Planning for the Boycott." 2005. 24 June 2006.
  5. ↑ Clarck, Brooke. Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Homepage. "The Seattle School Boycott of 1966: Support and Opposition for the Boycott." 2005. 24 June 2006.
  6. 1 2 Clarck, Brooke. Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Homepage. "The Seattle School Boycott of 1966: The Boycott." 2005. 24 June 2006.
  7. ↑ Clarck, Brooke. Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Homepage. "The Seattle School Boycott of 1966: The Aftermath." 2005. 24 June 2006.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.