15,000 White Parents March in NYC to Protest Busing of Students to Achieve Racial Balance
An estimated 15,000 white parents of public school students marched in New York City on this day to protest plans to bus students to achieve racial balance.
As New York City wrestled with de facto racial segregation in its public schools, proposals were made to bus students between districts to achieve racial balance. The idea touched off a storm of protests by white parents and politicians. The anti-busing march on this day was just one indication that whites in Northern communities were adamantly opposed to racial integration of their schools, and that this problem was not confined to the South.
A year later, when the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) sought to deny the City of Chicago federal education funds because of de facto racial segregation in its schools, President Lyndon Johnson on October 27, 1965, caved and got HEW to reverse itself and restore the federal funds.
Learn more about the 1964 NYC school integration crisis: http://blackhistorywall.wordpress.com/2010/02/04/new-york-school-boycott-of-1964/
Learn more: James T. Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and its Troubled Legacy (2001)
Read the NPR story on the legacy of school busing here.