On this day, 16 March 1964, 267,459 children in New York City boycotted classes in a second mass walkout in protest at de facto racial segregation in schools. The number constituted 26% of registered pupils in the city, but marked a significant decline on the 45% who participated in the first action, and mostly reflected the participation just of Black students, as the main Puerto Rican civil rights group withheld its support. Outside City Hall, speakers at the rally gave comments which alluded to the lack of support for the action from official civil rights organisations including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the national leadership of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). The previous week, 15,000 white parents had demonstrated claiming that the city had gone “too far” in promoting integration. Schools in New York City remain the most segregated in the United States.
Pictured: scene from the earlier boycott, February 3, 1964 https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1673409636177513/?type=3
