1967 Philadelphia student demonstration
The 1967 Philadelphia School Board Public Demonstration im Philadelphia was similar to the Chicago Public School Board Demonstration and the subsequent police riot, which took place on November 17, 1967, in Philadelphia, was just one in a series of marches organized in various cities across the United States with the assistance of the Student NonViolent Committee.
The Student Action Committee was in negotiations with the then school public Superintendent Mark Shedd and his adistant Julie Cromartie, some three years before the advent of the planned demonstration on the sunny morning of November 17, 1967, as the Philadelphia Public School Board Demonstration.
The Student Action Committee in union with two major civil rights organizations, one headed by Bill Mathis, Chair of the Congress of Racial Equality and the other, the Philadelphia Student NonViolent Coordinating Committee headed by Fred Mealy. Under black students of the Student Action Committee, Al Hampton, Scarlet Harvey, Jennefer Sprowalled, the entire demonstration and negotiations was arranged with Philadelphia Public School Representatives.
The citywide operation of the Student Action Committee group organizanizing black, white middle, high school and college and Catholic school students moved its forces to the Board of Education building on Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The students demanded an end to the tracking system holding Black students back from attending college and other opportunities, police out of public schools, up to date books, better school conditions, such as water fountain repairs and filtering and more Black school instructors. However, the protest was attacked by almost 400 Philadelphia Police Department officers wielding clubs, led by Commissioner Frank Rizzo; the violent dispersal of the protest would lead to at least two civil lawsuits alleging the use of excessive force, one placed by the attacked students and the other placed by the attacked adults in the event.
The Philadeladelphia demonstration was part of a larger trend of student demonstrations and in the United States during the 1960s and early 1970s stemming from the closure of public schools to African American student attendance in at least one state in the southern United States of the latter 1950s.
Several small segregationist, separatist, White Nationalist groups had demonstrated at the Philadelphia School Board regularly in opposition to integration of the schools.
Prelude
Student-led demands
Despite forming the majority of students in the public school system, there were few Black school officials. A number of demands had been presented to school administrators attending meetings held at the Church and World Institute on North Broad Street. Lack of action after those discussions with the school board prompted the November demonstration. The student-run and organized Central Coordinating Committee demanded better public schools for all students in Philadelphia, especially African-Americans, and an end to tracking and the forced vocational education system which affected African-American students at that time. The issue of ending vocational tracking and other situations drew supporters from all areas of the city of Philadelphia.In addition, the students wanted to openly embrace their African roots by wearing appropriate clothing and natural hairstyles. Other demands included the removal of uniformed police officers from public schools, and the addition of African-American studies to the curriculum. Also, the draft and the need for counselors of the students' draft problems was held as a demand. Cecil B. Moore supported the students' demands during his unsuccessful 1967 campaign for Mayor of Philadelphia. Philadelphia public school Superintendent Marc Shedd had previously allowed Moore to campaign directly in local high schools; Moore regularly ridiculed Rizzo, a high school dropout: "You kids stay in school or you may wind up as police commissioner."
The CCC had been negotiating with Superintendent Shedd, who was known as a reformer, for at least a year before the demonstration. The CCC also met with white students and community organizers such as Walt Palmer to draft a student bill of rights; with a draft in hand, students made plans to present their bill of rights to the Board of Education on November 17, 1967. Shedd later met with student leaders and formed an impression that only three hundred students would show up.
Organizers
The demonstration was led and planned, organized, and operationalized, in part, by the CCC. The main in-high-school-local-teams planning the demonstration and engaged as the prime leadership was the African American Student Society posted out of Gratz High School and Gillespie Junior High School, respectively. Germantown High School had a very active presentation and was a part of the AASS, which with student assistance, debated the difference between becoming a student union or a student association.The Student Action Committee was another organizing force behind the demonstrations. It was made up of high school students from various schools, public and religious, across Philadelphia. SAC met for at least three years before the demonstration, and published and distributed a student-run newsletter. SAC was active in a number of demonstrations in that period, such as the Philadelphia Post Office demonstration to demand hiring of African-Americans on an equal basis, the Girard College integration marches, various marches connected to the Civil Rights Movement as well as a number of anti-war marches.
Members of SAC were also active with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Congress of Racial Equality, which had offices in south and north Philadelphia, respectively.
Gratz and Bok
At lunchtime on October 26, 1967, approximately 300 students at Gratz High School walked out, carrying signs asking for greater Black representation on the School Board. A similar number of students also walked out at Bok Technical High School. District officials praised their actions as "real social studies in action".A dozen students held a day-long demonstration at Bok Technical High School on November 10, 1967, demanding a course be offered in African-American history; in response, the school's administrators threatened to expel the students. Leaders in the African-American community picketed the high schools with predominantly Black enrollment on November 16, encouraging students to attend a "Black Student Rally" to support the Bok students, who were rumored to have been suspended, at the Board of Education the next day. It was later clarified the twelve Bok students were told not to return to school until they brought a parent with them.
Student strike and police response
Assembly and negotiation
On November 17, 1967, by police count, 3,500 students in total did not attend classes and assembled around the Board of Education building at 21st and the Parkway. The demonstrators included youth groups, Catholic high school students, public junior high and high school students. School administrators had anticipated only 350 demonstrators. Student organizers disputed the police count, stating there were many more students present than the police projected, and, interestingly, most of the photos and video of the demonstration are missing from a number of archives. Up to 10,000 students were prevented from attending the demonstration by action of school administrators and police activity locking school doors, turning students away from the demonstration, and picking up and holding students through the afternoon. Superintendent Shedd had instructed principals to not encourage students to attend the rally, but the principals were also not to prevent students from attending.Students began gathering at the Board of Education building starting at approximately 9 AM. A small group of students and adult community leaders were admitted to negotiate directly with Superintendent Shedd and the Board of Education, led by Board President Richardson Dilworth; eventually, the Board agreed to each demand and the news was shouted from a window to the crowd below. The mood was characterized by Palmer as one of "hope, energy, and possibility that must never be forgotten" and the Philadelphia Bulletin likened it to "a picnic". The crowd grew visibly and audibly with the arrival of approximately 900 students from Benjamin Franklin and William Penn high schools, who were chanting "Black Power!" repeatedly.
Rizzo arrives
At approximately 11 AM, a car was damaged when two students climbed onto its roof; the increased size and noise of the crowd intimidated PPD Lt. George Fencl, who was onsite leading a small squad of plainclothes officers in the Civil Disobedience Unit, and he requested police assistance at approximately 11:30. Acting PPD Commissioner Frank Rizzo, who was overseeing swearing-in ceremonies for 111 new officers at City Hall seven blocks away, responded by loading the new officers in buses and speeding to the scene. Rizzo, who assumed command just before 12 PM, arranged the police forces across Twenty-first from the crowd, which he later characterized as "a howling, undisciplied and disorganized mob".According to the police, the demonstrators began throwing rocks and bottles at the police, an assertion which was disputed by students, school administrators, and bystanders at the scene. In the opinion written dismissing a subsequent lawsuit, a panel of three judges stated those witnesses "were inside the building without a full view of the noise and conditions" of the crowd and gave greater weight to the testimony of Commissioner Rizzo and others who said missiles had been thrown at the police. Shedd sent Fred Holliday, a Black school administrator, to ask the police to distance themselves from the crowd. Holliday was thrown to the ground by a police officer, tearing his coat; later, Board Vice President Henry Nichols convinced Rizzo to surrender his club.