On This Day in History, February 3: New York City School Boycott
On Feb. 3, 1964, 464,000 New York City school children — almost half of the city’s student body — skipped school as part of a protest against segregation within their school system. Though segregation in New York was not codified like the Jim Crow laws in the South, a de facto segregation was evident in the city’s school system.
Picketers, made up of teachers, parents, students and activists, marched at 300 of the city’s 860 schools, The New York Times reported. The protest culminated in a march across the Brooklyn Bridge to the Board of Education building on Livingston Street in downtown Brooklyn.