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Fifteen Demands of Black and Puerto Rican Students
Date: 1969
Caption: Black and Puerto Rican high school students across the city named their demands for changes in their schools, including calls for a role in school governance.
Please note: This is work in progress. Please keep that in mind as you read. We are sharing this work in progress because these materials are relevant to discussions of school governance underway right now in New York. Please share your feedback at [email protected] and check back for updated versions soon.
In 1969, high school students across the country were involved in a variety of kinds of activism, including protests against the Vietnam War. New York students also organized in pursuit of justice and equity in their own schools.1 Their efforts were separate from, but also influenced by, discussions of self-determination and democracy underway at the time.
This document shows a set of demands that Black and Latinx students working across several New York City high schools prepared. Notice how student concerns overlap with, but in some cases are different than, adult organizers’. Student organizers expressed their opposition to the presence and actions of police officers in New York City schools. Some adult organizers, like Preston Wilcox, were concerned about this issue, but many adult organizers at the time did not make it a priority.
The students organized a one-day boycott of their high schools, to demonstrate their commitment to these demands.2
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Noah Remnick, “‘The Police State in Franklin K. Lane’: Desegregation, Student Resistance, and the Carceral Turn at a New York City High School,” Journal of Urban History 49, no. 5, published online January 11, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1177/00961442221142060, and Neil Phillip Buffett, “Crossing the Line: High School Student Activism, the New York High School Student Union, and the 1968 Ocean Hill-Brownsville Teachers’ Strike,” Journal of Urban History 45, no. 6 (December 2018). ↩︎
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“One-Day Boycott by HS Students,” New York Amsterdam News, May 10, 1969. ↩︎
Categories: K-12 organizing, student activism
Tags: self-determination, curriculum, school facilities, democracy, organizing, joy, policing and the criminal legal system, Black people, Latinx people
This item is part of "The Push for Community Control" in "Who Governs Schools?"
Item Details
Date: 1969
Creator: Black and Puerto Rican Citywide High School Committee
Copyright: Public domain
How to cite: “Fifteen Demands of Black and Puerto Rican Students,” Black and Puerto Rican Citywide High School Committee, in New York City Civil Rights History Project, Accessed: [Month Day, Year], https://nyccivilrightshistory.org/gallery/fifteen-demands.
Questions to Consider
- How did these student activists’ demands compare to those of adults advocating for community control? Where were they similar and where were they different?
- Which of these demands feel like they still apply today, and which no longer apply to schools, in your view?
- Do you agree with the 14th demand? Would this structure be helpful in your school? How would it be similar to or different from the governance structure of the community control districts?
References
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