Harrison High Protests of 1968

Harrison Students protest in the rain on October 10, 1968, nearly a month after protests began.

By Hannah Bradford and Anna Hevrdejs

On September 16, 1968, 1,000 of Harrison Technical High School’s 3,000 students walked out of the sole high school serving South Lawndale and Pilsen in protest over the lack of African American history classes and the generally poor conditions in the overcrowded school, including perpetual disinvestment in neighborhood schools and a lack of bilingual teachers.^[1] While this first protest met with little success, African American students were joined by their Latinx peers when they walked out again a month later, this time with 2,500 students participating.^[2] These Latinx students had their own manifesto of complaints inspired by New Breed, an African American student activism group, which included a protest against the lack of diverse representation in both the teaching staff and curriculum for two neighborhoods which were no longer primarily white.^[3]

The 1960s were a time of great change across the United States, particularly regarding the increasingly insistent demands by African Americans for equal civil rights. However, other minorities are often left out of mainstream narratives of the Civil Rights Movement despite their own contributions to the struggle for equality. Latinx families that established a greater presence in the US following World War II were among these groups. As Latinx groups moved into Chicago’s working class neighborhoods in the 1950s and ’60s, most of the white descendants of European immigrants moved to the suburbs to escape what they perceived as a decline in the neighborhood’s quality.^[4] Despite white flight from neighborhoods like Pilsen and Lawndale, remaining white individuals held tightly to community leadership positions making it difficult for true representative leadership to thrive.^[5] White leaders in positions of authority at establishments such as Howell House, originally established to provide community support to European immigrants, discriminated against members of the Latinx population in Pilsen who would have benefited from their support system.^[6] The tension between the white minority’s continuing hold on power and the primarily Latinx majority helps us contextualize the tense climate in which Latinx students joined their African American classmates to protest at Harrison High in 1968.

The relationship between the African American and Latinx communities in the Pilsen and South Lawndale neighborhoods was never simple. Racial and ethnic “othering” existed within both communities and distrust and bigotry played a key role in their interactions.^[7] Much tension between these communities resulted from the Latinx desire to distance themselves from ethnic groups considered “undesirable” by the white minority and possibly pass as white themselves.^[8] This tactic was used by some Latin Americans who could combat their relative invisibility in various official records such as the US Census, which did not seriously attempt to count Latinx people specifically until 1970.^[9] Such “invisibility” created a space where Latin Americans had to hold on tightly to their particular identity. Even amidst the Harrison protests of 1968, which had a powerful Latinx presence, each group made their own separate demands, further emphasizing the tension between the communities that came together to protest.

Tensions across the city of Chicago among the African American and Latinx communities came to a head in the fall of 1968. During that time, Harrison High was one of many schools with students demanding better education, but it was one of the most influential.

Due to the lack of diverse teachers and support from the school administration, hundreds of students at Harrison decided to take part in walk outs, beginning in September of 1968. Initially, it was only African Americans primarily involved in the protests through the leadership of Sharron Matthews and Victor Adams, the vice president and president of the Black student organization New Breed, respectively.^[10] Both students were ultimately suspended, and Adams was also arrested since he was eighteen at the time. But the protests continued.^[11]

Latinx students would also play a significant, but often forgotten, role in the Harrison High School protests. By October, both Matthews and Adams were free from their suspensions, and the protests continued through the support of African American and Latinx students.^[12] The two groups presented separate manifestos of their demands. The African American students wanted more courses that focused on Black history, insurance for student athletes, and the recognition of ethnic student groups, while Latin American students demanded bilingual educators and counselors, a bilingual assistant principal, and a mandatory Latin American history course.^[13] But, as with civil rights protests taking place across the nation, the students faced violence. And they were often blamed for it. The focus of the newspapers in Chicago centered primarily on the violence of the protests, including vandalism and fights between police and students.^[14] This painted the students in a harsh light and distracted the public from what the students were protesting for. The violence was also instigated by those meant to protect them: the police.^[15] As seen in many of the images taken by the Chicago Sun-Times and based on students recounting their experiences from the time, the police had a heavy presence at the school.^[16]  In spite of the fact that the students were repressed by the police and school officials, their efforts were not in vain.

In part due to the Harrison High protests, 35,000 students across Chicago walked out on October 14, 1968. But despite these citywide protests, change did not happen immediately. The overcrowding issue would be partially solved by the building of the Benito Juarez High School in Pilsen during the mid-1970s.^[17] Chicago Public Schools eventually hired more Black and Latinx teachers, counselors, and administrators, and authorized the creation of ethnic studies classes and clubs.^[18] Many schools were also able to implement bilingual education in the 1970s. African American and Latinx students were able to come together to make real change not just in Harrison High School, but in schools across the city. Although civil rights protests in the United States are often historically associated with African Americans, Latinx people were also active organizers and played a significant role in the first protests for better education in Chicago.