"School Desegration Pickets"
Though rallies featured national figures like Martin Luther King, Jr., and lawsuits were often filed by men, the day-in, day-out on-the-ground organizing and protesting against school segregation was led by mothers who demanded the best possible education for their children. In 1958 in New York City, a group of mothers nicknamed the "Harlem Nine" vowed to "go to jail and rot there, if necessary," before sending their children to inferior schools created by the city's segregated housing patterns. In Milwaukee, mothers and children like those pictured below formed picket lines to demand integration; in 1964 Milwaukee parents and activists also organized a one-day boycott of the schools during which 15,000 students stayed home.
Source | "School Desegregation Pickets," black and white photograph, (Milwaukee, WI: ca. 1964), WHi-4993, Lloyd A. Barbee Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society.
Creator | Unknown
Rights | Wisconsin Historical Society. All reproductions must make reference to the proper image numbers.
Item Type | Photograph
Cite This document | Unknown, “"School Desegration Pickets",” SHEC: Resources for Teachers, accessed December 8, 2023, https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1343.
Creator | Unknown
Rights | Wisconsin Historical Society. All reproductions must make reference to the proper image numbers.
Item Type | Photograph
Cite This document | Unknown, “"School Desegration Pickets",” SHEC: Resources for Teachers, accessed December 8, 2023, https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1343.
