They were just in middle school, but James Hudson and John Dover were already sick and tired of the “obstacles towards their advancement.” So on February 3, 1964, the two boys joined nearly half of the students in New York City schools who didn't show up to class. Except, they didn’t call it a skip day; it was a Freedom Day.
Over 464,400 Black and Puerto Rican students, from the city's elementary, middle, and high schools, either stayed at home, or marched in opposition to school segregation, and to demand the same resources given to white students. The NAACP, CORE, teachers, and Black mothers were the architects of Freedom Day, a boycott even larger than the Montgomery bus boycott.
Nearly 4,000 teachers were threatened with losing their jobs if they supported the boycott, but they still marched and held Freedom School classes in parks, churches, and homes.
The local and national media largely ignored this protest, so the school boycott never became as widely known as other boycotts. But bringing 464,000 people together in one day, was astonishing.
The 1964 New York City Boycott showed that the Civil Rights Era wasn’t just about the South, but the whole nation. There’s power in the ability to organize on a massive front, displaying how united we can be when we have the same goal.