Photo by Jean Lachat/Chicago Sun-Times
Educator, activist and historian Dr. Timuel Black writes about his experience in the 1963 Boycott, and how the lessons of the 60s can be applied to public education struggles today:
When those thousands of freedom-minded Chicagoans came home from the March, we organized the great Chicago School Boycott, known as “Freedom Day,” October 22 of 1963. I was one of the organizers of that event.
Half a century gone now, I recall that the public schools on the south and west sides of the city were all but empty during the boycott. The purpose of shutting down the schools was to make a point. The fight for educational equity was part of the great social movement for full equal rights in all domains—public accommodations, voting rights, housing, lending, job equality. The schools were on the front lines then, as they are again today.