Our intrepid outreach coordinator Rachel Dickson’s research unearthed these articles from the October 23, 1963 edition of the Chicago Daily Defender. The Defender reported that up to 20,000 people participated in the rally downtown and 224, 770 students did not attend school. That is nearly 250,000 participants!
A few of the people mentioned above –
Dick Gregory,
Lillian Gregory,
Rev. Carl Fuqua, and
Lawrence Landry, have already been identified in our footage.
This next piece was really helpful in our search for Boycott participants – a list of schools whose students participated. The numbers are staggering:
And finally, this is really fascinating – an opinion column showing what some parents thought of the Boycott:
Do you think that parents would have the same response today if a boycott to oppose the CPS school closings was organized? Why or why not? Let us know!
