Nine months prior to the uprising at George Washington High, the police had raided a shabby, beloved bar in Greenwich Village called the Stonewall Inn, sparking a 45-minute brawl. The late 1960s and early 1970s were revolutionary times across New York City. The next school year was a bit calmer, but the unrest of 1970 had been so extreme that the new principal compared the school to “a recovered heart patient or a recovered alcoholic.” The school sent all 4,500 students home early in response to the “large number of disruptions,” as the Board of Education put it. Furniture was toppled, lunch trays flung, and students roamed the hallways singing about revolution.
The demonstrators demanded a community-controlled “grievance table” in the lobby, staffed by parents, to address complaints against teachers and give academic advice. In March 1970, a group of students and parents attempted to commandeer the school’s cafeteria to protest overcrowding, illegal suspensions, and racist tracking. At the beginning of the 1970–71 school year, the red brick colonial building in a mostly Black and Latinx community was “in a state approaching anarchy,” according to The New York Times.
