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THIS WEEK IN PEOPLE’S HISTORY, JUN 25-JUL 1, 2025  
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_ School Integration in a Small Town (1955), Love Is All You Need
(2015), ‘That Flag Just Had to Come Down’ (2015), Liberation Day,
(1970), It’s a Police Action, Not a War (1950), Goodnight Irene
(1950), Shut Up and Get Out! (1965) _

, Gordon Tenney, Life

 

_SCHOOL INTEGRATION IN A SMALL TOWN_

JUNE 25 IS THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY of the beginning of a dramatic and
hard-fought fight over school desegregation in the small Arkansas town
of Hoxie. Largely forgotten now, it was the focus of national
attention while it was going on.

In 1955, more than ninety-five percent of the residents of Hoxie and
the surrounding area were white. The school-age population attended
segregated elementary schools, two white and one Black. The area’s
only high school was for whites only; Black high school students
travelled by bus to Jonesboro, 25 miles away, to attend an all-Black
high school.

On June 25, 1955, the local school board voted unanimously to
integrate the town’s schools, in part to comply with the Supreme
Court’s unanimous 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, and
in part to solve a fiscal crisis. Integrating the schools would make
it possible to save a substantial sum by shutting one elementary
school and also eliminating the cost of the daily 50-mile round-trip
for Black high school students. 

At first, the school board’s decision did not generate substantial
local concern. The schools, which were in session at the time, were
integrated without controversy, even though they did attract the
attention of a writer and photographer from Life magazine. 

When Life published a 2-page spread headlined “Integration at Work
in Hoxie,” including photographs of peacefully integrated
classrooms, the region’s racists realized they had been asleep at
the switch. They held standing-room-only mass meetings, circulated a
petition calling for the school board’s resignation, and organized a
school boycott that was joined by fewer than half the white students.

The school board refused to resign and filed a federal lawsuit against
the segregationists, charging that they were trespassing on school
property and intimidating school officials. The district court ruled
that the segregationists had “planned and conspired” to defy the
law, and threatened them with fines and possible jail time if they
ignored a restraining order.

When the segregationists asked for relief from the federal court of
appeals, the Department of Justice entered the case in support of the
school board. It was the first time the Department of Justice had
supported school integration in court. The appeals court ruled in
favor of the Hoxie school board.

That was the end of the Hoxie integration dispute; a small minority of
white families enrolled their children at segregated private schools,
but otherwise the citizens adjusted to the end of school segregation
without difficulty.
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_LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED_

JUNE 26 IS THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015
decision in Obergefell v. Hodges to declare that same-sex marriages
are legal throughout the U.S. At the time of the decision, same-sex
marriages were already legal in 36 states.
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_‘THAT FLAG JUST HAD TO COME DOWN’ _

JUNE 27 IS THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY of a dramatic act of civil
disobedience on the grounds of the South Carolina State House to
protest white supremacism.

The protest was inspired by one very recent event, the cold-blooded
murder of nine African-Americans who were praying inside the Emanuel
African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston by a white
supremacist, and also by the South Carolina legislature’s refusal to
stop flying the white supremacist emblem on the Capitol grounds.

30-year-old Bree Newsome climbed the flagpole and removed the flag. 
She was arrested for her actions, but authorities decided not to press
charges against her.  For a detailed account of what happened on that
day in 2015 and why, visit
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_LIBERATION DAY, 1970_

JUNE 28 IS THE 55TH ANNIVERSARY of the first Gay Liberation Day
parades in New York City, Chicago, Illinois, and Los Angeles,
California. The 1970 parades were organized to mark the first
anniversary of the riots that had taken place in Greenwich Village as
a result of the police raid on the Stonewall Inn.  The next year, Gay
Pride marches took place in Boston, Dallas, Milwaukee, London, Paris,
West Berlin and Stockholm, in addition to New York, Chicago and Los
Angeles.
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_IT’S A POLICE ACTION, NOT A WAR_

JUNE 29 IS THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY of one of the major events in the rise
of doublespeak to describe U.S. foreign and military policy. 

Four days after the Korean War began, the U.S. was fully committed to
fighting the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. It was a
conflict in which 36,574 U.S. service members would die and 103,284
would be wounded over more than three years. 

President Harry Truman was asked by a news reporter “everybody is
asking in this country, are we or are we not at war?”  Truman
replied “We are not at war.” Later in the press conference Truman
repeatedly asserted that the U.S. was engaged in a “police
action.”
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_GOODNIGHT IRENE_

JUNE 30 IS THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY of the day in 1950 when the Melodisc
single "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena" and "Goodnight Irene," performed by The
Weavers (Ronnie Gilbert, Lee Hays, Fred Hellerman and Pete Seeger),
arrived on the Billboard Best Sellers in Stores chart and then
remained there for a week less than six months. You can listen to it
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_SHUT UP AND GET OUT!_

JULY 1 IS THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY of the sheriff of Camden, Alabama,
shutting down a meeting of the Summer Community Organization and
Political Education group, and then padlocking their meeting place
after forcing the group to leave, all without a legal basis for his
actions. Visit this Equal Justice Initiative site for a full
description of what occurred:
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For more People's History, visit
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* desegregation
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* same-sex marriage
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* white supremacists
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* gay liberation
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* Korean War
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* The Weavers
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* voter supression
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