Chester school protests

Chester school protests
Part of the Civil Rights Movement
DateNovember 4, 1963 – April 28, 1964
Location
Chester, Pennsylvania
Caused by
Resulted in
  • Pennsylvania State Human Relations Commission determined the Chester School Board had broken the law
  • Chester School Board was ordered to desegregate Chester schools
  • Formation of the Greater Chester Movement (GCM) which became a conduit for distribution of funding for President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty
Parties
  • Chester Parents Association
  • Chester Police Department
  • Chester School Board
  • Pennsylvania State Human Relations Committee
  • Pennsylvania State Police
Lead figures

CFFN member Stanley Branche
NAACP member George Raymond

Mayor of Chester James Gorbey
Governor of Pennsylvania William Scranton

The Chester school protests were a series of demonstrations that occurred from November 1963 through April 1964 in Chester, Pennsylvania. The demonstrations aimed to end the de facto segregation of Chester public schools that persisted after the 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka.[1] The racial unrest and civil rights protests were led by Stanley Branche of the Committee for Freedom Now (CFFN) and George Raymond of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons (NAACP).

The protests intensified from February to April 1964, featuring civil rights rallies, marches, pickets, boycotts, and sit-ins.[2] More than 600 people were arrested. National civil rights leaders such as Dick Gregory, Gloria Richardson, and Malcolm X came to Chester to support the demonstrations.

Things came to a head in April 1964, when almost nightly protests brought chaos to Chester. The city deputized firemen and trash collectors to help handle demonstrators[3] and the State of Pennsylvania deployed 50 state troopers to assist the 77-member Chester police force.[4] The demonstrations were marked by violence and police brutality; activist James Farmer dubbed Chester the "Birmingham of the North".

The protests came to an end on April 26, when Pennsylvania Governor William Scranton convinced protestors to obey a court-ordered moratorium on demonstrations by forming the Pennsylvania Human Relations Committee to hold hearings on school desegregation.[5]

In November 1964, the committee concluded that the Chester School Board had violated the law. The Chester School District was ordered to desegregate the city's six predominantly African-American schools. The city appealed the ruling, which delayed implementation, but eventually desegregated the schools.

  1. ^ Mele 2017, pp. 84–85.
  2. ^ Mele 2017, p. 95.
  3. ^ Mele 2017, p. 94.
  4. ^ "African American residents of Chester, PA, demonstrate to end de facto segregation in public schools, 1963-1966". www.nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu. Retrieved October 26, 2018.
  5. ^ McLarnon 2002, pp. 318–326.