GBH Openvault
March on Roxbury; March on Roxbury
Part of From the Vault.
09/22/1963
Radio. Civil Rights march held one week after the church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama. Speakers discuss Boston School Committee representation and voting issues. 1963. In June 1963 the Education Committee of the Boston Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) presented the Boston School Committee with a 14-Point Proposal to end defacto segregation in the public schools. The contentious and failed negotiations precipitated a series of nonviolent, direct action demonstrations in Boston that also drew comparisons with the civil rights struggles, particularly in Birmingham, Alabama. The March on Roxbury following the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and the subsequent bombing of the Sixteen Street Baptist Church in which four young Black girls were killed. Organized by Boston civil rights leaders, the March featured speeches by Archie Epps, Harvard University; Kenneth Guscott, President of the Boston NAACP; Rev. Richard Owens, Peoples Baptist Church and Rev. Vernon Carter, All Saints Lutheran Church. At the site of the dilapidated Sherwin School, built in 1870, a reported 6,000 to 15,000 Roxbury residents and their suburban supporters listened to the speakers who highlighted the local struggle for quality education and the show of solidarity with Black people in Birmingham. Birmingham civil rights Attorney Orzell Billingsley, Jr. provided a report on the civil rights struggle in Birmingham, drawing comparisons with the struggle in Boston. He, along with Thomas Atkins, Executive Secretary of the Boston NAACP and Birmingham Civil Rights Attorney Orzell Billingsley, Jr. focused particular attention on need for greater voter registration for and participation in the upcoming Boston School Committee election to replace four of the five members of the Boston School Committee with a progressive slate of candidates, including local activist Mel King. Summary and select metadata for this record was submitted by Audrea Dunham.
License Clip
- Series
- March on Roxbury
- Title
March on Roxbury
- Series Description
Radio. Civil Rights march held one week after the church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama. Speakers discuss Boston School Committee representation and voting issues. Series release date: 1963
- Duration
00:43:17
- Asset Type
Raw audio
- Media Type
Audio
- Subjects
- African Americans-Civil Rights
- March on Roxbury
- Roxbury, Massachusetts
- African Americans-Educational Opportunities
- Race Relations-Similarities in discrimination in the North and South
- Politics-1963 Boston School Committee Election
- African Americans-Structural Racism
- African Americans-Human Rights
- Politics-National Association for the Advancement of Colored People/Boston School Committee Negotiations
- Birmingham, Alabama
- Boston, Massachusetts
- Race Relations-De facto Segregation
- African Americans-Social Justice
- Civil Rights Era
- Race Relations-Northern Discrimination
- Genres
- Event Coverage
- Topics
- Race and Ethnicity
- Social Issues
- Contributors
- Billingsley, Orzell (Speaker)
- Atkins, Thomas (Speaker)
- Epps, Archie (Speaker)
- Carter, Vernon (Speaker)
- Owens, Richard (Speaker)
- Guscott, Kenneth (Speaker)
- Citation
- Chicago: “March on Roxbury; March on Roxbury,” 09/22/1963, GBH Archives, accessed April 19, 2024, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/A_47A310B09A5841189161E4B8389B4072.
- MLA: “March on Roxbury; March on Roxbury.” 09/22/1963. GBH Archives. Web. April 19, 2024. <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/A_47A310B09A5841189161E4B8389B4072>.
- APA: March on Roxbury; March on Roxbury. Boston, MA: GBH Archives. Retrieved from http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/A_47A310B09A5841189161E4B8389B4072