Civil rights movement

=== Chester school protests, Spring 1964 ===
{{Main|Chester school protests}}
From November 1963 through April 1964, the [[Chester school protests]] were a series of civil rights protests led by [[George Raymond]] of the [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons]] (NAACP) and [[Stanley Branche]] of the Committee for Freedom Now (CFFN) that made [[Chester, Pennsylvania]] one of the key battlegrounds of the civil rights movement. [[James Farmer]], the national director of the [[Congress of Racial Equality]] called Chester "''the Birmingham of the North''".<ref name=Mele>{{cite book |last1=Mele |first1=Christopher |title=Race and the Politics of Deception: The Making of an American City |date=2017 |publisher=New York University Press |location=New York |isbn=978-1-4798-6609-0 |pages=74–100 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xAl3DQAAQBAJ |access-date=October 27, 2018}}</ref>

In 1962, Branche and the CFFN focused on improving conditions at the predominantly black Franklin Elementary school in Chester. Although the school was built to house 500 students, it had become overcrowded with 1,200 students. The school's average class size was 39, twice the number of nearby all-white schools.<ref name=Phoenix>{{cite web |last1=Holcomb |first1=Lindsay |title=Questions surround student activism fifty-two years later |url=https://swarthmorephoenix.com/2015/10/29/questions-surround-student-activism-fifty-two-years-later/ |website=www.swarthmorephoenix.com |access-date=October 25, 2018|date=October 29, 2015 }}</ref> The school was built in 1910 and had never been updated. Only two bathrooms were available for the entire school.<ref name=nvdbase/> In November 1963, CFFN protesters blocked the entrance to Franklin Elementary school and the Chester Municipal Building resulting in the arrest of 240 protesters. Following public attention to the protests stoked by media coverage of the mass arrests, the mayor and school board negotiated with the CFFN and NAACP.<ref name=Mele/> The Chester Board of Education agreed to [[class-size reduction|reduce class sizes]] at Franklin school, remove unsanitary toilet facilities, relocate classes held in the boiler room and coal bin and repair school grounds.<ref name=nvdbase/>

Emboldened by the success of the Franklin Elementary school demonstrations, the CFFN recruited new members, sponsored voter registration drives and planned a citywide boycott of Chester schools. Branche built close ties with students at nearby [[Swarthmore College]], [[Pennsylvania Military College]] and [[Cheyney State College]] in order to ensure large turnouts at demonstrations and protests.<ref name=Mele/> Branche invited [[Dick Gregory]] and [[Malcolm X]] to Chester to participate in the "Freedom Now Conference"<ref name=McLarnon/> and other national civil rights leaders such as [[Gloria Richardson]] came to Chester in support of the demonstrations.<ref>{{cite web |title=Chester NAACP Scrapbook 1963–1964 |url=http://digitalwolfgram.widener.edu/digital/collection/p270801coll18/id/588 |website=www.digitalwolfgram.widener.edu |access-date=October 20, 2018}}</ref>

In 1964, a series of almost nightly protests brought chaos to Chester as protestors argued that the Chester School Board had [[de facto]] [[Racial segregation|segregation]] [[School segregation in the United States|of schools]]. The mayor of Chester, [[James Gorbey]], issued "The Police Position to Preserve the Public Peace", a ten-point statement promising an immediate return to law and order. The city deputized firemen and trash collectors to help handle demonstrators.<ref name=Mele/> The State of Pennsylvania deployed 50 state troopers to assist the 77-member Chester police force.<ref name=nvdbase>{{cite web |title=African American residents of Chester, PA, demonstrate to end de facto segregation in public schools, 1963–1966 |url=https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/african-american-residents-chester-pa-demonstrate-end-de-facto-segregation-public-schools-19 |website=www.nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu |access-date=October 26, 2018}}</ref> The demonstrations were marked by violence and charges of police brutality.<ref>{{Cite news |title=RIOTS MAR PEACE IN CHESTER, PA.; Negro Protests Continue – School Policy at Issue |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/04/26/archives/riots-mar-peace-in-chester-pa-negro-protests-continueschool-policy.html |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=July 13, 2018|date=April 26, 1964 }}</ref> Over six hundred people were arrested over a two-month period of civil rights rallies, marches, pickets, boycotts and sit-ins.<ref name=Mele/> Pennsylvania Governor [[William Scranton]] became involved in the negotiations and convinced Branche to obey a court-ordered moratorium on demonstrations.<ref name=McLarnon>{{cite journal |last1=McLarnon |first1=John M. |title='Old Scratchhead' Reconsidered: George Raymond & Civil Rights in Chester, Pennsylvania |journal=Pennsylvania History |date=2002 |volume=69 |issue=3 |pages=318–326 |url=https://journals.psu.edu/phj/article/viewFile/25768/25537 |access-date=October 27, 2018}}</ref> Scranton created the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission to conduct hearings on the de facto segregation of public schools. All protests were discontinued while the commission held hearings during the summer of 1964.{{sfn|Mele|2017|p=96}}

In November 1964, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission concluded that the Chester School Board had violated the law and ordered the Chester School District to desegregate the city's six predominantly African-American schools. The city appealed the ruling, which delayed implementation.<ref name=nvdbase/>