The Citizens Protest Committee of St. Louis and the Demand for Black Educational Equity, 1951-1954

• In Event: Echoes of Resilience: The Evolution of African American Education Since the 19th Century

Abstract

This microhistory traces the development and evolution of the Citizen’s Protest Committee on Overcrowding in Negro High Schools (CPC) an organization that was formed in 1951 by parents and students calling for better school conditions in St. Louis’s Black schools. I ask: How did the Citizen’s Protest Committee organize? What did they achieve? What was the role of students in this protest movement? How and why did the group disband? How does this movement fit into larger narratives of educational civil rights? I argue that a study of the CPC can provide examples of how local agendas for educational equity coexisted with national agendas that prioritized the end segregation.

Author

• Luimil Negrón, University of Missouri - St. Louis