This Week in People’s History, Jun 25-Jul 1, 2025
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. https://ualrexhibits.org/desegregation/hot-spots-of-progress/hoxie/
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. https://www.hrc.org/our-work/stories/the-journey-to-marriage-equality-in-the-united-states#
‘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 https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/bree-newsome-removes-confederate-flag/
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. https://www.loc.gov/ghe/cascade/index.html?appid=90dcc35abb714a24914c68c9654adb67
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.” https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1550&context=ilsajournal/
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 here: https://youtu.be/MSDyiUBrUSk?si=IyodJbxvoS0JkB27
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: https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/jul/01
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