Anacostia students marching in favor of segregation are halted: 1954
Hundreds of white Anacostia High School students are turned back on the Pennsylvania Ave. SE Sousa Bridge by police October 5, 1954 as they sought to join forces Eastern Junior-Senior High School students opposed to integration.
Pictured is a mid-point on the bridge where a cordon of police sought to prevent their crossing. Several hundred white students were turned back here on the bridge while about a 100 who slipped through the first police cordon were turned back at Barney Circle.
About 500 students boycotted classes at Anacostia and about 300 at McKinley High School on October 4th, the first day of integration. There were some minor scuffles at Anacostia between black and white students on the first day of the integration of classes.
The student strike spread to Eastern and six junior high schools on October 5th.
McKinley students marched to the Board of Education building October 5th and were herded into Franklin Park by police. A delegation of three students met with assistant school superintendent Norman J. Nelson.
By October 6th, the strikes and school boycotts collapsed with attendance near normal.
The District of Columbia was one of the few major segregated school systems that moved quickly to integrate schools in the wake of the four May 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decisions outlawing school segregations, including the Bolling v. Sharpe decision banning Jim Crow public schools in Washington, D.C.
However, the school system quickly implemented a track system where black students were placed in the lowest tracks that included no college preparation courses and effectively segregated most black students within the schools.
The June 1967 Hobson v. Hansen decision broke up the track system, but by when white flight to the suburbs had effectively re-segregated District of Columbia public schools.
For a background post on the fight to break up D.C.’s Jim Crow schools, see washingtonareaspark.com/2015/08/20/dcs-fighting-barber-th...
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHskivJu7g
The photographer is unknown. The image is a Washington Daily News photograph courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.
Anacostia students marching in favor of segregation are halted: 1954
Hundreds of white Anacostia High School students are turned back on the Pennsylvania Ave. SE Sousa Bridge by police October 5, 1954 as they sought to join forces Eastern Junior-Senior High School students opposed to integration.
Pictured is a mid-point on the bridge where a cordon of police sought to prevent their crossing. Several hundred white students were turned back here on the bridge while about a 100 who slipped through the first police cordon were turned back at Barney Circle.
About 500 students boycotted classes at Anacostia and about 300 at McKinley High School on October 4th, the first day of integration. There were some minor scuffles at Anacostia between black and white students on the first day of the integration of classes.
The student strike spread to Eastern and six junior high schools on October 5th.
McKinley students marched to the Board of Education building October 5th and were herded into Franklin Park by police. A delegation of three students met with assistant school superintendent Norman J. Nelson.
By October 6th, the strikes and school boycotts collapsed with attendance near normal.
The District of Columbia was one of the few major segregated school systems that moved quickly to integrate schools in the wake of the four May 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decisions outlawing school segregations, including the Bolling v. Sharpe decision banning Jim Crow public schools in Washington, D.C.
However, the school system quickly implemented a track system where black students were placed in the lowest tracks that included no college preparation courses and effectively segregated most black students within the schools.
The June 1967 Hobson v. Hansen decision broke up the track system, but by when white flight to the suburbs had effectively re-segregated District of Columbia public schools.
For a background post on the fight to break up D.C.’s Jim Crow schools, see washingtonareaspark.com/2015/08/20/dcs-fighting-barber-th...
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHskivJu7g
The photographer is unknown. The image is a Washington Daily News photograph courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.