GBH Openvault
Stay Out For Freedom; Live Broadcast; Live Broadcast [3 of 4]
Part of From the Vault. Part of Boston’s 1960s Civil Rights Movement: A Look Back.
02/26/1964
In 1964, despite a year of sustained efforts by the NAACP, parents, and other civil rights activists, the Boston Public Schools remained racially segregated. Citizens for Human Rights (CHR), the group that organized the Bostons successful 1963 Stay Out for Freedom, led by Reverend James Breeden and Noel Day, evolved into the Massachusetts Freedom Movement (MFM). MFM organized another Stay Out campaign for February 26, 1964; over 10,000 children attended the MFM Freedom Schools in 35 locations throughout Boston. The 1964 Stay Out, however, was also part of an emerging a national school boycott movement against segregated schools in the North that included similar demonstrations in New York, Chicago, Cleveland, and Milwaukee. The WGBH-FM program, 1964 Stay Out for Freedom- Live Broadcast, is a recording of the afternoon activities at the Freedom School located at the St. Marks Social Center, directed by Principal, Betty Richardson. The program continues broadcasting one of the actual Student Discussion Groups, moderated by Peggy Dammond Day, Director of Curriculum Development for the Freedom Schools and Alan Gartner, Director of the Boston Chapter of CORE. The group includes high school students from the City of Boston and suburban towns. This segment offered WGBH-FM listeners an opportunity to hear the students, both Black and White, discuss their ideas regarding issues of de facto segregation, class, gender, discrimination in housing, the lack of employment and higher education opportunities; and methods of social change, from their own perspective. In the next segment, WGBH reports on school absenteeism data provided by the School Committee, along with Superintendent William Ohrenbergers comments on the Stay Out. Summary and select metadata for this record was submitted by Audrea Dunham. Morning session. Portions of these recordings of the morning and afternoon sessions of Stay Out For Freedom were removed by LED and used in the following programs: Freedom Stay-Out: What Happened This Morning Freedom Stay-Out: What Happened This Afternoon Freedom Stay-Out: What Happens Next?
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
- Live Broadcast
- Title
Live Broadcast [3 of 4]
- Series Description
Radio series. Series release date: 1963
- Program Description
Radio
- Duration
00:18:52
- Asset Type
Broadcast program
- Media Type
Audio
- Subjects
- Politics-Electoral Politics
- Stay Out for Freedom Day
- Boston, Massachusetts
- Politics-Voter Registration and Education
- Roxbury, Massachusetts
- Freedom Schools
- Race Relations-De facto Segregation
- Politics-National Association for the Advancement of Colored People/Boston School Committee Negotiations
- Civil Rights Era
- Topics
- Social Issues
- Contributors
- Day, Peggy Dammond (Speaker)
- Mascott, Ted (Producer)
- Lee, Rick (Reporter)
- Gartner, Alan (Speaker)
- Citation
- Chicago: “Stay Out For Freedom; Live Broadcast; Live Broadcast [3 of 4],” 02/26/1964, GBH Archives, accessed December 22, 2024, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/A_BC03581459DA446D8BFF01659122BFD2.
- MLA: “Stay Out For Freedom; Live Broadcast; Live Broadcast [3 of 4].” 02/26/1964. GBH Archives. Web. December 22, 2024. <http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/A_BC03581459DA446D8BFF01659122BFD2>.
- APA: Stay Out For Freedom; Live Broadcast; Live Broadcast [3 of 4]. Boston, MA: GBH Archives. Retrieved from http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/A_BC03581459DA446D8BFF01659122BFD2