NT-5020

Title card with countdown clock

Hand written "End School Segregation" sign hangs in window.

William O'Connor, Chairman of Boston School Committee.
INTERVIEW:
William O'Connor 1:04
if we admit that segregation exists in our schools, the Supreme Court has ruled that under the Constitution that is not available, it has never ruled that integration must be had in the public schools. It has ruled that you cannot have segregation. And if we formally admit that we have segregation, then it involves a court trial. The leaders have threatened a court trial, but to the moment, they have not attempted it. Waiting, I suppose for us to formally admit that we are guilty of segregation, then if we admit it, it would be certainly a cause for court case.

School boycott. Hundreds of people protesting in a city street. NYC, Boston or Chicago. De facto segregation.

The Boston Globe and The Harvard Crimson newspaper articles about boycotts.

Author Louis Lomax speaks at a rally in Boston

Louise Day Hicks, Chairman of the School Committee. Refused to concede that de facto segregation exits in Boston's public schools.

Protest sign reads "De Facto segregation is an educational matter." Various other hand written protest signs.

Cannon James Breeden, Episcopal Priest, leader of Boston's boycott movement speaks to a room filled with white and black supporters.
INTERVEIW:
Cannon James Breeden 7:45
Well, I simply say that it's an unusual means of protest. And many people when they are faced with the unusual say that it's wrong. It's certainly valid from the point of view of allowing those who are most deeply involved to express themselves, namely the children who are in the schools. But beyond that the parents are deeply involved too, because we insist that parent that parents give their children permission signed permission slips on their return. And any parent whose child is involved in the Freedom School is deeply involved himself.
Interviewer 8:25
The Boston School Committee has group will not say officially that de facto segregation exists in the Boston schools. In fact, they voted three to two that it did not exist. Therefore, what can you hope to accomplish with a boycott?
Cannon James Breeden 8:40
Well, as it's easy to say something doesn't exist. If when you say it, it goes away and doesn't bother you anymore. But as long as it keeps bothering the school committee, sooner or later, they're going to have to decide by majority vote that de facto segregation exists. It's there, whether they decide it exists or they decide that it doesn't. Our last stay out, helped one a member of the school committee face up to the problem. He did his homework and he no longer says the problem doesn't exist. We're hoping that this stay out. We'll perhaps push a couple more over into our column and then we can get down to solving the problems.

William E. O'Connor and Associate Professor of Business Administration at Suffolk University
INTERVIEW:
Interviewer 9:39
Why is this definition of a term become so important? Wouldn't it be Wouldn't it make your life easier if you went ahead and said, well, there is de facto segregation or racially in our schools, some of our schools are racially imbalanced. Why has it been This insistence on this definition of this term,
William O'Connor 10:03
Well, again, the majority of the school committee feel that, that the NAACP, in their insistence on a formal vote of the school committee to acknowledge de facto segregation had a legal significance to it. In other words, if we admit that segregation exists in our schools, the Supreme Court has ruled that under the Constitution that is not allowable, it has never ruled that integration must be had in the public schools. It has ruled that you cannot have segregation. And if we formally admit that we have segregation, then it involves a court trial. The leaders have threatened a court trial, but to the moment, they have not attempted it, waiting, I suppose for us to formally admit that we are guilty of segregation, then if we admit it, it would be certainly a cause for court case. Now the only solution to segregation is an audit to break it up. And there is where the conflict comes taking children out of their own committee, and busing them all over the city to strange communities. But in Boston in order to provide seats for those children in different communities, we must take the children out of the seats that are there in the neighborhood, because we don't have many surplus seats, unmasked to take care of a shift of 10,000 pupils.

City bus drives down a city street. CU of NAACP office window. Freedom Stay-out sign in window.

INTERVIEW:

Charles Silberman 12:14
Major new development in the school boycott movements in New York and Chicago is the partial defection of the local NAACP chapters. In New York, the NAACP is withdrawn from the city wide committee for integrated schools, although it may still participate if a second one day boycott materializes from Chicago. Here's a report by Harry Homewood of the Chicago Sun Times and W T. T. W.

Harry Homewood 12:43
State law of Illinois forbids anyone to induce or attempt to induce a child to stay out of school. Nevertheless, inducing children to stay out of school as a protest against segregation in public schools, as a protest against an inferior education for segregated students has become a potent weapon in the arsenal of those who fight for civil rights. That weapon was used in Chicago last October, a massive boycott of Chicago's public schools called Freedom Day kept more than half of Chicago's almost half million school children at home. 8,000 pickets jammed into Chicago's downtown business district as part of that school boycott. What did this exercise and mass absenteeism achieve that could not have been brought about by peaceful negotiation? One does not really know. However, two days after the boycott, the Chicago Board of Education publicly revealed for the first time that 23% of Chicago's Negro children attended schools that did not have a single white student. 82% of all of Chicago's Negro school children went to schools that were 90% and more negro. On the other hand, more than 76% of Chicago's white school children attended schools that were at least 90% White. Some of this seeming de facto segregation is of course due to the fact of residence. Some is due to gerrymandered school districts. It is a critical issue in Chicago because another school boycott has been threatened for later this month. The second boycott is not a popular issue among all Negro leader. Here's what Mr. Lawrence Landry, director of the Chicago branch of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Freedom Day chairman, spokesman for the boycott leaders has to say about this second boycott.

Mr. Lawrence Landry, director of the Chicago branch of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Responses by Harry Homewood and Reverend Carl Fuqua, Chicago NAACP

INTERVIEW:

Lawrence Landry 14:32
On October 22 1963 250,000 children stayed home from school to protest inferior and segregated education in the city of Chicago. This protest was caused by the Coordinating Council of community organizations six weeks later, the first week of December, after weeks of evasion, misrepresented misrepresentation and downright lies by the school The Board President Claire Roderick, we sat down and discussed with the school board the adoption of a simple policy statement of integration. The school board refused to adopt such a policy and incited the negro community by making irresponsible charges against his leadership in early January of 1964, the ctcl frustrated in its efforts to get to get integrated and quality education in Chicago, called the second school boycott for February the 25th. There is a permission set to report on the same general aim that the labor community is caught is tired of waiting for Commission's and committee reports. We know the schools are segregated we are products of these schools. We know the living higher than Negro kids go through. We do not need a committee report only the School Board needs such a report.

Harry Homewood 15:54
The Reverend Carl few clay executive secretary for the Chicago branch of the NAACP does not agree with Mr. Landry. The NAACP does not agree with nor do they sponsor a second school boycott. Here's what the Reverend pukalet has to say.

Carl Fuqua 16:11
Now, the proposal for a second what is termed boycott and I don't call a one day demonstration of boycott. A second one, in February of this year, seems to me is going to point out something which the community already knows if it's going to be a boycott, some sustained amount of time, this is a different situation. But of course, it was just a one day demonstration, which is going to be a repeat so to speak of last October 22. I don't see that it's going to do anything more toward the solution of the problem than the October 22 demonstration. We sure is going to point up to the community the ire of many citizens, of parents of groups, children even, it's going to point up something which is already No, this was I think the main function of the October 22 demonstration. It lets the community and the nation as a whole know how a vast majority of people in Chicago the vast majority of Negro people in Chicago, go about de facto segregation in Chicago schools. Now that that effect is known. I don't see where it has to be reemphasize. To the extent that so much time has taken on the real emphasis, with less time being taken on the follow through to solve the problems which which caused the need for such demonstrations.

Harry Homewood 17:36
Since the Chicago School boycott in October, a considerable effort has been made to discover the problem piculuar to schools segregated by virtue of residence. And the problems peculiar to schools partially or wholly integrated. Two committees of able respected and responsible educators are at work of these problems, studying them and trying to arrive at a solution. A great deal is expected from these committee reports. Despite what Mr. Landry has said, the public school boycott is a powerful weapon, it can easily get out of control become a weapon for personal power. Chicago faces just such a situation. Militant young civil rights leaders are advocating a second school boycott in Chicago. They are not supported in this by all of the civil rights leaders, or by any of the Negro councilmen in Chicago City govern. What proved to be a weapon of bludgeoning power in October is now being used as a threat for personal gain. In an internecine fight within the Civil Rights leadership ranks in Chicago. It has been in fact, a Pandora's box and no one really knows whether the opening of that box will bring forth good or evil.

Andrew Stern interviews Reverend Allan Watley
INTERVIEW:
Reverend Allan Watley 19:25
I am definitely opposed to a boycott. In my judgment, it will stir up more animosity make it increasingly difficult for negros and whites to adjust to each other in educational pursuits.
Andrew Stern 19:41
What do you think will happen if these demonstrations continue?
Reverend Allan Watley 19:46
It makes it more difficult for people like myself and those interested in the welfare of our community to work. It's creating an image of Cambridge that's Uh, extended far beyond the state of Maryland. It goes throughout the country. This then reacts to the detriment of encouraging industries to come to Cambridge. This is one of the things we hoped for. And I stated in Washington a nice day to gain that this industrial area was growing in Cambridge, making it possible for more people to have an opportunity of employment. Now, I think attitudes on the part of extremists have killed the goose that laid the golden egg. And they are defeating the very purpose of which they strive to attain.

Andrew Stern interviews TE Murray, local chairman of the NAACP in Cambridge
INTERVIEW:
Charles Silberman 23:26
The Reverend T Murray, local chairman of the NAACP in Cambridge and a member of the Human Relations Council was asked what he thought of the school boycott strategy.
TE Murray 23:37
I've heard it said by some of the parent of some of the children that they do not yet approve of their children and gazed into too much conflict. They do not feel that it's good for their children was stated that they have some of them have trouble enough with their children now and they feel that to expose their child or his early age to such conflicts that this does something to the child. And I agree with him to a certain extent, I think this is a man's fight. And to me, it appears to me cowardice to a certain extent for a for adults to sit back and to send children what adults do to do what adults ought to be doing themselves.
Andrew Stern 24:36
Have any negros been accepted in white schools since the agreement?
TE Murray 24:44
I do not know of any. That has been a turn away from the schools. Those who have made applications as far as I know have been accepted. And I think here, perhaps there would have been more progress made if the Magro population. The Negro families have sent their children to these schools.
Andrew Stern 25:15
Why didn't they do it?
TE Murray 25:18
Now, this is a question that is hard for anyone, I think to really answer why they didn't do it. Because I think some of it perhaps might have been fear on the part of some of our, some of the color people. And this change over change over of intermingling with many people is strange to the adult, and therefore, it brings fear to them, and they impose this fear of them. This is as has a lot to do with it, I think.

B/W shot of an African American student in a graduation gown in line between two white graduates. Closing Credits.

END REEL