The Black High School Youth Movement and the Southern Freedom Struggle, 1960–1965

• In Event: 56.028 - Our Bodies, Our Diction: Educational Equality Articulated Through the Activism of Youth After Brown

Abstract

Objectives and Overview

This project examines four sites of high school protest in Charleston, South Carolina, Birmingham, Alabama, and Jackson, Mississippi between 1960 and 1965 that significantly shaped the course of the Civil Rights Movement. The protests that originated from black high schools initiated the first direct action protests in Southern towns and cities. The protests also shaped the course of the movement in regard to how children should be utilized on the frontlines, causing deep rifts among movement leaders. The historically black high schools in these locations illustrate the dynamic interplay between students, teachers and the NAACP and demonstrate how the high school emerged as a critical site of protest.

Structure of the Session

This paper first examines the historiography of the Civil Rights Movement, which often overlooks the role of high schools. This paper explores the context surrounding high school youth protests across the aforementioned cities that consisted of sit-ins, and school-wide walkouts. These protests led to the incarceration of youth that galvanized local movements and raised critical questions about the role of young people in the movement. This paper concludes by examining the tension between autonomous high school protests and leadership that shaped the movement through the 1970s.

Scholarly Significance

Drawing upon oral histories, the NAACP Youth Council Papers, and the Southern Negro Youth Congress collection, this paper situates the politics of youth as an integral part of the Civil Rights Movement. High school activism has been usurped by collegiate activists, which is evident in the meta-narrative of the movement. College students and the institutions they attended were indeed central battlegrounds through college-aged groups like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). But focusing on the college campus limits the categorization of youth activism to the ages of 18 or older, which fails to attend to the nuances of activism in historically black high schools.

Author

• Jon Hale, College of Charleston