Introduction

Between 1964-1973, against the backdrop of a new generation of activism, Los Angeles students faced a struggle for equal rights and educational opportunities in the face of continuing racial segregation. This time period was a time of activism that exposed new truths. Many issues were brought to the surface, resisting this ongoing system of lies. Desegregation plans were proposed and fought over in court by mostly white activists and policy makers planning the future of the minority people that they knew nothing about. Meanwhile, communities of color in LA grew. Our time period was a time of both triumph and defeat.

Methods

We are making critical public history because our research is an act of agency. We, as researchers, are the affected people and we want to make a change. Our research addresses problems within our own lives, cities and schools. Our research is about achieving social justice. In addressing our issues, we have rebelled against a system that is putting down the "not as successful." Our research is from the perspective of the minorities. It is about the people and not the institution. We, as researchers, are the affected people and we want to make a change. We hope our data will be used as a tool for activists working to create social transformation. By doing the research we have liberated our minds and we hope this research will do the same for others.

Findings

In preparation for conducting our research we needed to achieve a perspective on the era's demographics and have first hand accounts. To get a perspective on the times, we watched the documentaries Chicano and Watts: Then and Now which gave us the opportunity to see real footage of events that occurred in the 1960's-70’s. We also read To Kill a Child’s Spirit and Segregation Blights our Schools both by John Caughey, and "How Crawford Began" by Mary Tinglof. This research paper is a critical public history. It has provided us with details and statistics on segregation during our time period. We also looked at census data and analyzed LAUSD’s racial and ethnic surveys. For first hand accounts, we conducted interviews with students, parents, teachers, community activists and school officials from this time period. As a group we defined critical public history as many sided. It is history that allows many perspectives and it contains both written and spoken documents. It includes the voices of the people that lived through it and the people that were "behind the scenes" as well. What makes our research an act of critical public history is that our data is more than just documents. We have the voices of the people who lived through the Watts Riots and the walkouts at Lincoln High. Nothing is "sugar coated." We gathered data that stretched us beyond easy answers. We challenged the issues.

Based on our interviews there were themes that came up again and again: the Watts Uprising, the blowouts in east LA, segregation, the Vietnam War and the rise of Black power, and counter cultural and Chicano identities. One could say the 1960’s was a time when "change was in the air." The students of this decade began to question their educational opportunities. During this time period the school board could be described as "colorblind." They stated that "they didn’t have schools with colored children, they had a school with students." But anyone that did look saw that there were all white schools, all black schools and few schools that were intermixed. Colorblindness was the school board’s scapegoat while they made policies that ensured segregated schools. In South Los Angeles, for example, the school board purposely divided schools along Alameda Boulevard. Alameda had the Whites on one side and Blacks on the other. If instead they had divided school boundaries perpendicular to Alameda Boulevard it would have integrated two of LA’s most segregated schools: Jordan and South Gate High Schools.

Also during the 1960’s, South LA was experiencing a lot of prejudice against Spanish speakers. In our interview with Luis Rodriguez, he spoke of being hit by a teacher because he spoke Spanish. With such problems occurring in South LA one would hope that it would be better in other parts but it just gets worse. In East Los Angeles there were many opportunities but few students who could take advantage of them. Most students were not encouraged to go to college. Many parents during the time period were working two to three jobs just to keep their children clothed. The parents didn’t have the educational background or experience to help their children make it to college. Mr. Bachelor of Jordan High School said "It was about survival, there he goes rather than there he lays, a man who runs lives to see another day." Kids were more worried about not getting killed while walking to a friend’s house than how they were going to get to school.

In East Los Angeles people of color were tracked into certain classes. Minority women were more steered into cosmetology classes and men of color were tracked into shop classes preparing them to be a part of the "working class." In West Los Angeles most felt that there were equal opportunities in some ways and not in others. Susan Remington of Venice High School felt that her father played a major role in her education, but once she hit college she felt "more independent." Sexism was a major issue throughout Los Angeles, but on the West Side in areas where racism wasn’t evident feminist issues began to arise. Mrs. Leys, who went to Culver City High School, remembers women during this time period rebelling by challenging the dress codes, wearing pants instead of skirts and wearing makeup. Unlike the South and East Side, residents of the West Side felt that diversity was about religion as much as race. Ms. Leys stated "My school had just as many religions as it did races. Christians were befriending Jews and vise versa." Susan Remington said, "to be Mormon and date a black man was unacceptable, if my father ever would have met my black husband he would have tried to talk me out of marrying him. Inter-racial dating was popular during the late sixties" Ms. Remington added "I saw many black football players dating the white cheerleaders, and that was frowned upon."

Although some members of the Watts community were burning down stores, bringing down the value of their community, they believed that they were working towards the success of the individuals around them. "I had to walk three miles to go and get my babies' milk," said Sweet Alice of the Core Mothers "There was racial tension. We had enough, we weren’t going to take anymore, we were going to fight." All this might have been hostile and violent but they believed it was all for the success of the minority people. From the perspective of the police who were involved, retired Officer Richard McCarty says, "Stupidity and mindless violence, was done by the people who lived there." But residents would say that without such violence change would not have been made. "If you shove one man in the corner long enough he will come out fighting," stated Sweet Alice.

In contrast to the "becoming equal" movement that was arising, there were many that didn’t want desegregation, they wanted "separate but equal." They had the mindset that pushed them to ask, "why can’t we have what an all white community has?" Why did they have to integrate in hopes of making everything equal? Amde of South Los Angeles said, "There were all white communities, why couldn’t we have an all black community? I was more on the side of Malcolm X, than on the side of Martin Luther King."

On the East Side of this development of a new utopia of equal rights the Chicano students were blowing out of schools demanding a better education as they shouted, "Viva La Raza, Viva La Raza." In the reading, Police Invade Roosevelt, schoolteachers and students spoke about their frustrations within the schooling at Roosevelt. They thought "it [was] criminal to force children to attend school twelve years and not to teach them to read! Recent reading tests are glaring evidence of this shame. It is criminal to continue to ignore our students and turn our backs on them when they plead for help!" But police who came out to "handle" students were non-understanding. They shouted obscenities at the students such as "Let see how brave you are now. Talk to your people, as they twisted [his] arm and dragged him away." But the students in East Los Angeles didn’t want to make change in a violent manner. Robert Rodriguez of Lincoln High School stated "we don’t have to walk out. Once they listen they will agree with what we want." But once the police were involved, the violence began. The students didn’t have any choice but to fight back. But the difference is the police had the law to back them up, and the students only had their passion to want a better educational opportunity. One would think that people would want educational opportunities for all students. But at the same time the more education we have, the more competition for the white upper class. Many students at the time of the walkouts joined the armed forces and some contributed to more of the violence by joining gangs such as the "Bloods" and the "Crips." In West Los Angeles many students were partaking in the sit-ins, ignoring the dress codes and some on the West Side purposely dated outside of their race to show people that they were ready to make a change.

Conclusion

In comparison to then and now there is a slight change in the schooling throughout Los Angeles. Schools might be integrated, but the social scene is still segregated. Although there might be more opportunity for the children of color there are still areas where there is less access to it. There are more advanced placement courses, but less qualified teachers who teach them. One advanced placement course in one area compared to another could be equivalent to a normal class at another school. There is more overcrowding in schools because we have more students who want to get a better education, but have not enough classrooms to teach them in.

What needs to be done in order to reach education equality is students need to become more involved. They need to take a stand and push the issues, ask questions that will make the school board and educational officials want to listen. Address all problems. Students should not be afraid to speak their mind. The students need to realize that their voices are an act of agency. It would be ideal if schools had equal amounts of qualified teachers, every student had the right to access college information, classroom sizes were smaller and more teachers weren’t only teaching for the money, but because of their passion for teaching.

The active role of critical public history that is pushing the agenda forward is the change being made by the people who have lived through the unequal opportunities of education. These individuals have hurt and are taking their anger and helping benefit children of the future. Our research isn’t filtered; we the people put in the whole story as opposed to historians who just put in the half-truths that they think is more bearable. We are the voice of the minority and we know what we want. We are making history. Our data is ammunition that will help us act as our own agents. Nothing we have written will be placed in a book full of lies that is taught in a classroom. Our data will be used to help others learn from the actions of the past and will help enlighten the students of the future. Change will never be made unless we take a stand and put our best foot forward. There were times when we all wanted to quit, we were put down and shoved away by people "who didn’t have the time to talk to us." But we knew that our research was for the better good of the students. So we continue on. We are using our power as individuals to act within a structure to make a change.