GBH Openvault
Stay Out For Freedom; Press Conference; Press Conference [2 of 2]
Part of From the Vault. Part of Boston’s 1960s Civil Rights Movement: A Look Back.
02/20/1964
In 1964, despite a year of sustained efforts by the NAACP, parents, and other civil rights activists, the Boston Public Schools remained racially segregated and negotiations with the Boston School Committee continued to be futile. The Citizens for Human Rights (CHR), the group that organized the Bostons successful 1963 Stay Out for Freedom, evolved into the Massachusetts Freedom Movement (MFM) and again led by Reverend James Breeden and Noel Day, organized another Stay Out campaign for February 26, 1964. The 1964 Stay Out, however, was also part of an emerging a national school boycott movement against segregated schools in the North, including similar demonstrations in New York, Chicago, Cleveland, and Milwaukee. WGBH-FM covered the Massachusetts Freedom Movements February 20, 1964 press conference in which Reverend James Breeden, Noel Day and Peggy Dammond Day provided specific instructions to parents regarding the upcoming February 26th Stay Out; challenged rumors about potential violence; outlined the Freedom School curriculum; discussed the parameters of possible actions by truant officers; and commented on a second legal opinion by Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke. Brooke ruled that the parents of children who participated in the School Stay Out could be fined $20 and anyone who induced a child to stay out of school could be fined $50. Summary and select metadata for this record was submitted by Audrea Dunham.
More material may be available from this program at the GBH Archives. If you would like research access to the collection at GBH, please email archive_requests@wgbh.org.
- Series
- Stay Out For Freedom
- Program
- Press Conference
- Title
Press Conference [2 of 2]
- Series Description
Radio series. Series release date: 1963
- Program Description
Radio
- Duration
00:16:51
- Asset Type
Broadcast program
- Media Type
Audio
- Subjects
- Freedom Schools
- Politics-Truancy Laws
- Race Relations-De facto Segregation
- Politics-Law Enforcement by State Attorney General
- Educational Issues-Legality of School Boycott
- Race Relations-Civil Disobedience
- Boston, Massachusetts
- Roxbury, Massachusetts
- Politics-National Association for the Advancement of Colored People/Boston School Committee Negotiations
- Stay Out for Freedom Day
- Civil Rights Era
- Race Relations-Northern Discrimination
- Topics
- Social Issues
- Contributors
- Ryan, Phyllis (Speaker)
- Day, Noel (Speaker)
- Breeden, James (Speaker)
- Day, Peggy Dammond (Speaker)
- Citation
- Chicago: “Stay Out For Freedom; Press Conference; Press Conference [2 of 2],” 02/20/1964, GBH Archives, accessed April 19, 2024, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/A_8BAE552327EF41299F39E630BDA1B671.
- MLA: “Stay Out For Freedom; Press Conference; Press Conference [2 of 2].” 02/20/1964. GBH Archives. Web. April 19, 2024. <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/A_8BAE552327EF41299F39E630BDA1B671>.
- APA: Stay Out For Freedom; Press Conference; Press Conference [2 of 2]. Boston, MA: GBH Archives. Retrieved from http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/A_8BAE552327EF41299F39E630BDA1B671