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STUDENT POWER

Walking Out for Justice Since 1968

Fifty years ago, over 10,000 high school students walked out of their classrooms from five East Los Angeles high schools to protest racial inequalities in public education. At the time, the dropout rates at Roosevelt and Garfield High Schools in East LA were about 50 percent while Westside schools were below 4 percent. When the Los Angeles School Board ignored student leaders who presented a survey of student needs, students decided to target schools financially. They knew schools received funds based on the number of students in class each day and planned a massive walkout before attendance was taken. Students compiled a series of demands including an end to school segregation, corporal punishment for speaking Spanish, and classroom overcrowding. They also called for increased college opportunities beyond vocational training, community access to decision-making, and the hiring of more Mexican-American teachers and administrators. These demonstrations marked the beginning of the urban uprising known as the Chicano Movement and transformed the politics and culture of the Mexican-American community in Los Angeles and beyond.

When 2, 000 Garfield students walked out on March 5th, they took the city by surprise. Police responded quickly and declared the walkout an unlawful assembly. Ultimately, neither schools nor police would stop students from demanding respect.

Photo below: ©La Raza staff photographers. Courtesy of UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center

Freddie Resendez rallies students at Lincoln High School

“I don't think I slept, literally. When I left home, my mother knew, and she knew that I was very scared and she told me, I’ll meet you out in front of school. So I felt safe. I knew she was going to be there so I felt fairly good about it. I remember being in the classroom, and saying “Walkout!” and keeping my fingers crossed people followed me” -Paula Crisostomo

When Roosevelt students walked out at noon on March 6th, the principal locked the gates to detain students on school grounds. The LAPD had also been informed and were waiting with a large police presence resulting in arrests and brutality. Students persisted and made their way to Hazard Park for the first of many rallies.

©Devra Weber. Courtesy of UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center.

“Shorty” from El Jardin 13 in Pico Rivera raises his right fist at Roosevelt High

Students gathered at Hazard Park where they addressed School Board Members Ralph Richardson and Julian Nava and Congressman, Edward Roybal.

Courtesy of Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive. Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library

Policing and Surveillance

Students faced intense brutality and surveillance by police in their demand for racial equality. Since the 1965 Watts Rebellion, Los Angeles police were trained to suppress the mass mobilization of students by arresting youth, community members, and journalists. Some youth were physically beaten without mercy. Local police also employed undercover surveillance tactics under the direction of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). These undercover officers facilitated the arrest of the East LA 13 on conspiracy charges for disturbing the peace. At least seven of those arrested were leaders in The Brown Berets, an East LA-based social justice organization that defended marching students by shielding them from police. The violent police responses to peaceful protests for social justice in Boyle Heights politicized the community and advanced the fight against police brutality to the center of their social justice agenda.

Student demonstration at Roosevelt High School.

Police handcuff two women, a Brown Beret and a Free Press photographer, in front of Belmont High School on March 8.

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The Brown
Berets

The Brown Berets are a pro-Chicano organization that emerged during the Chicano Movement in the late 1960s founded by David Sanchez and remains active to the present day. The group was seen as part of the Third Movement for Liberation. The Brown Berets' movements largely revolved around farm worker’s struggles, educational reform, and anti-war activism; they have also organized against police brutality.

Using their uniforms to express “Brown Pride,” the “Brown Berets” were young Chicano and Chicana activists who, like the Black Panthers, focused on issues such as unemployment, housing, food, and education. In order to call attention to the unequal educational system in East Los Angeles, the Brown Berets organized “blowouts,” where hundreds of Eastside Mexican American public schools students walked out of class the first week of March in protest of the inferior educational conditions in the school system.

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23_RESISTANCE_1Brown Berets at Lincoln H

Calling for Change

For Lincoln High student Paula Crisostomo and her peers, the walkouts brought national attention amidst a tumultuous spring semester. On March 10th, they met with presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy where he pledged his support for their cause. Parents formed the Educational Issues Community Coalition (EICC) to advocate for the children and demanded the firing of Richard Davis, a Lincoln High School teacher who published a racist essay in the school’s faculty publication.

Meanwhile, the Vietnam War raged on and the nation prepared for the 1968 presidential election, in which the sitting President Lyndon B. Johnson announced shockingly that he would not seek a second term. The future of the nation seemed unclear. A few days later, on April 4th, civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

On the night of Paula’s prom, 13 leaders of the Walkouts were arrested including her favorite teacher, Sal Castro, and they became known as the “East LA 13”. Then, on June 5th, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles. Paula spent the next day, her birthday, with Sal Castro and his wife reflecting on the importance of Robert Kennedy’s support for their cause. Only one week later, Paula graduated from Lincoln High School, where she delivered a speech entitled, “A Dream Deferred.”