Little Italy Riot, Jan. '64

ID: 2216 | This file appears in: Stephen E. Howe Elementary
Little Italy Riot, Jan. '64
A riot broke out in Little Italy on the morning of January 30, 1964 when United Freedom Movement members showed up to picket Memorial Elementary School. The picketers were upset over the treatment of blacks students who had been sent to the school as a part of Superintendent Ralph McCallister's integration program. The black youths at Memorial and other receiving schools in white neighborhoods could not attend physical education classes or eat in the cafeteria and could only use the bathroom once per day.

White residents, who had planned a counter-protest against integration, became incensed when they saw the picketers and attacked them. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured during the riot.

This incident and others like it eventually spelled the end of McCallister's integration program, leading to the School Board's decision to build several new schools in all-black neighborhoods instead of sending black students to under-enrolled schools in white neighborhoods.

Image courtesy of Cleveland State Library Special Collections
Download Original File
"Little Italy Riot, Jan. '64" appears in: Stephen E. Howe Elementary