An Obama Reminder - The March Down University Ave • 06.10.08
One would think this photo is from the 1950’s but it’s not. On November 25, 1969, some 2,000 students boycotted their classes and marched down University Avenue to a rally outside the offices of the Alachua County School Board to have the all black school known as Lincoln High integrated. You see even though Brown vs. Board of Ed went down in 1954 this Florida county still had not fully integrated their school. Instead they practiced an informal policy of “tokenism” — whereby a few black students attended predominantly white schools.
In January 1970, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered Alachua County to fully integrate the schools immediately. The schools closed on Jan. 29, 1970, reopened a week later, on Feb. 7, they were integrated. The black high school, Lincoln High School, was closed, and about 1,000 black students were transfered to the 2,200-student Gainesville High School. Source
One boy now an adult told the Washington Post of his experience going to a newly integrated school (more…)
