Day, Peggy Dammond Mascott, Ted Lee, Rick Gartner, Alan

Description

In 1964, despite a year of sustained efforts by the NAACP, parents, and other civil rights activists, the Boston Public Schools remained racially segregated. Citizens for Human Rights (CHR), the group that organized the Boston’s successful 1963 Stay Out for Freedom, led by Reverend James Breeden and Noel Day, evolved into the Massachusetts Freedom Movement (MFM). MFM organized another Stay Out campaign for February 26, 1964; over 10,000 children attended the MFM Freedom Schools in 35 locations throughout Boston. The 1964 Stay Out, however, was also part of an emerging a national school boycott movement against segregated schools in the North that included similar demonstrations in New York, Chicago, Cleveland, and Milwaukee. The WGBH-FM program, 1964 Stay Out for Freedom- Live Broadcast, is a recording of the afternoon activities at the Freedom School located at the St. Mark’s Social Center, directed by Principal, Betty Richardson. The program continues broadcasting one of the actual Student Discussion Groups, moderated by Peggy Dammond Day, Director of Curriculum Development for the Freedom Schools and Alan Gartner, Director of the Boston Chapter of CORE. The group includes high school students from the City of Boston and suburban towns. This segment offered WGBH-FM listeners an opportunity to hear the students, both Black and White, discuss their ideas regarding issues of de facto segregation, class, gender, discrimination in housing, the lack of employment and higher education opportunities; and methods of social change, from their own perspective. In the next segment, WGBH reports on school absenteeism data provided...

Record Contributed By

WGBH

Record Harvested From

Digital Commonwealth