A report published by the School District of how many African American Students were in each school, 1966, "Preliminary Report of the Distribution of Negro Pupils in the Philadelphia Public Schools".
Slow School Integration
For the School District of Philadelphia, school integration was slow because of housing segregation and white flight. To integrate schools, the District needed to start busing programs and to open new city-wide admission schools, which were heavily protested by white residents.
CLICK TO ENLARGE
A report on the physical limitations of integration, 1966, "Equality of Educational Opportunity". |
CLICK TO ENLARGE
January 24th, 1970, "Freeman Blasts Slow Integration", The Philadelphia Tribune |
Although the struggle for school desegregation in Philadelphia from 1955-1967 was not militant, the activists, black and white, were persistent in the face of a steadfast bureaucracy whose drawing of school boundary lines, establishment of transfer policies, assignment of students and teachers, and placement of new school buildings manifestly created segregated schools. . . . The impetus toward desegregation failed for a number of reasons: the limit of the federal law, a recalcitrant school board, city officials opposed to busing and white residents who organized against busing" - Anne Phillips, "A HISTORY OF THE STRUGGLE FOR SCHOOL DESEGREGATION IN PHILADELPHIA, 1955–1967.” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies, vol. 72, no. 1, 2005.
African American History
Racist teachers and white students in newly desegregated schools made black students feel inferior. Instead of submitting to the discrimination, the students, inspired by the Black Power Movement decided they needed to stand up for more black representation. Prior to 1967, African American history was only taught as a small part of American history. Students wanted to know their whole story not as a sub-unit of American history.
|
CLICK TO ENLARGE
Some of the students' demands, "Student Leaps From Window To Join Melee", November 18th, 1967, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. |
Walter Palmer, an adult leader of the walkout recalling some of the students' grievances, "Remembering the 1967 Philadelphia Student Walkout", November 16th, 2017, The Philadelphia Tribune.
|
Students come to us and say: 'They're oppressing us. They won't let us wear our hair natural [sic], they won't let us wear dashikis, they won't recognize our African names. We're getting suspended for natural hair, we're getting suspended for African clothes and jewelry, we're getting suspended for not standing up for the Pledge of Allegiance'"- Transcript of Walter Palmer, an adult leader of the walkout recalling some of the students' grievances, "Remembering the 1967 Philadelphia Student Walkout", November 16th, 2017, The Philadelphia Tribune. |