Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, various civil rights groups in Seattle unsuccessfully tried to persuade a predominately white school board to address the issues of desegregation of the Seattle Public Schools. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) felt that most of the educational deficiencies among the bulk of Seattle’s 9,300 African American students stemmed from their attending thirteen substandard schools that were overwhelmingly, and in some cases exclusively, African American. All of these schools were under-funded, staffed with less experienced teachers, and had lower test scores and graduation rates.
In this image, demonstrators picket in support of school integration outside the Seattle Public Schools Administrative and Service Center at 815 Fourth Avenue North. The board had just announced their rejection of the Seattle Urban League's (SUL) "Triad Plan" that would have insured that Black and white students schooled together. Walter R. Hundley (1929-2002), Seattle CORE chairperson, stressed that the picketers were not protesting the SUL's plan but rather the failure of the board to come up with any plan at all. The school district’s representatives argued that the neighborhood school was the best, and that all children should be able to live near and walk to their school.
The following year, on March 31 and Friday April 1, 1966, still frustrated by city official's lack of action, a coalition of organizations led by the Central Area Civil Rights Committee (CACRC), COR), and the NAACP organized a school walk out. Approximately 3,000 students boycotted their regular classes to attend eight Freedom Schools, taking courses on African American history and civil rights taught by volunteer teachers. The surprising support for the boycott forced the Seattle School Board to eventually implement most of the programs requested by boycott leaders.
Caption information source: "School-Integration Plans: N.A.A.C.P., CORE Will Meet Tonight," The Seattle Times, May 13, 1965, page 55. Caption information source: http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/school_boycott.htm Caption information source: https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/seattle-school-boycott-1966 Caption information also derived from captions written by Post-Intelligencer staff and attached to the back of the photograph.
