Box 19, Folder 6, Document 20

Box 19, Folder 6, Document 20

BLACK PANTHERS
PICKET A SCHOOL

Anti-Integration PartyWould
Boycott P.S. 139 in Harlem





By THOMAS A. JOHNSON
Harlem’s recently formed
Black Panther party, an anti-
integration group of articulate
young militants, staged its first
direct-action demonstration yes-
terday—picketing a local school.
Twelve of its members were
promptly arrested. The charges
included disorderly conduct.

Representing what appears
to be one of the most enthusi-
astic of Harlem's youth-oriented
“black power’ organizations,
the Black Panther members are
attempting to organize a boy-
cott of the old and decrepit
Public School 189, on 139th
Street between Lenox and
Seventh Avenues.

“Many of the brothers [party]
members] went to this school,”
a party official said as he
watched a picket line of 15 in
the afternoon that replaced the
demonstrators arrested during
the morning.

Officials said 80 per cent of
the school’s 1,200 pupils at-
tended, and said most of the
absences were normal for the
first day of school.

Their boycott demands in-
clude the placing of more
Negro educators in supervisory
positions, the teaching of
African and Negro history and
the promotion of the neighbor-)
hood-school concept so that
“the administrative structure
reflects the ethnic composition”
of the neighborhood.

‘Parents’ Position

The local Parents Association
has long advocated similar re-
ome but it does not back the}

eon Panthess, although some

Iso, pro-integra-
tion parents who are in a dis-
‘pute with the Board of Educa-
tion at Intermediate School 201)
nearby do not want the new
patty's support.
i r officers re-|
fuse | uss the number of)
members, but observers esti-
mate their hard-core enthusi-
astg at about 80, with almost
the me * all. They say
e eee amon
i Younes of con-
venience with the New York
Congress of Racial Hquality
was broken recently when a
anther member got into a
5 t with a white CORE)
worker during a joint demon-|,
ftration. ,
The party does, however,
have the backing of the black
nationalist Harlem People’s
Parliament, made up mostly of
the African-robed Yoruba Tem-
ple. The People’s Parliament
interprets the J position
on education first step

Atseaniea Beare est

se basement offices at 2409
Berane peeve. the patty got
series start with a
of mess 2 and fund-
raising affairs; the -publica-|
highly detailed position||
ered the on of the
Malcolm X IL tion School!’
(for members only) and the
boycott.

They look to the chairman of
the Student Non-Violent Sone)
dinating Committee, 25-year-old|!
Stokely Carmichael, as their

“alder statesman.” ey took)
their name from the, ; -
ol of the -

ty: Or tion||

Mr. Carmichael founded in
D itay ie peeled,

ie . govern, yu
15-mem es conmit an



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