Judy Walker is alive, semi-retired, “enjoying life” and recalls fondly the leading role she helped to play in during the historic Northern High School student walkout of 1966.
In fact, she remembers the event that helped her decide to join the growing student revolt. Her guidance counselor suggested that she not focus on college but rather becoming a domestic worker.
“I was informed by him not to have such grandiose ideas,” she recalls 50 years later with a hearty chuckle. “I took offense! I was like, ‘What are you talking about? And I found out that several students where hearing the same thing.”
Walker is one of two surviving student leaders of the April 7, 1966 walkout that lasted nearly one month until their set of demands were met. Charles “Chuck” Colding is the other. Michael Batchelor, a third leader, died in 2006. More than half of the school’s 2,300 students boycotted classes and hundreds demonstrated outside the school. Their demands were as clear as a bell:
- Fire school principal Art Carty and officer Barney Lucas.
- Retain qualified teachers who wish to remain.
- Examine academic standards.
- Create a Student—Faculty Council to study problems, academic and otherwise, and suggest improvements.
- Investigate why the school didn’t have a community agent and appoint one.
At the invitation of rector David M. Gracie, a Freedom School operated out of St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church. The idea was borrowed from the schools created in southern states to rally against Jim Crow racial segregation and voting and societal discrimination. It was designed to demonstrate that the students preferred education to picketing.
But that was then and this is now: Walker argues that the Detroit Public Schools has taken a step backwards after decades of white corporate disinvestment and a power hungry state legislature and office of governor.
“From our activity (in 1966) a decade of positive change occurred but (DPS) has systematically reverted,” Walker declares.
She points out that while she, Colding and Batchelor led the walkout but there were other students like Lawrence “Peanut” Taylor who were important to the success of the effort.
“It was told to Chuck that he would not be able to pull it off without the help of certain people in the school,” recalls Walker, who was a popular student athlete and member of several clubs.
That’s where she, Batchelor and Taylor fit in. They were instrumental in making the effort successful. Walker also credits the greater community for being supportive, which included dozens of Northern teachers, area college professors, including Dr. Karl Gregory, black lawyers, and others.
“The premier black attorneys gave us advise,” Walker recalls gleefully. “There were tons of people behind us.”
Walker believes that she was fortunate to have witnessed the transition out of principal Art Carty, a white man who was “detached,” to Leonard Sain, a black man who cared about his students. Sain became principal the during the 1966-1967 school year, Walker’s last at the school.
“I found (Sain) to be particularly endearing and very much interested in the well-being of the students,” Walker recalls several decades later.
Judy Walker later earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Wayne State University and holds the distinction being the first woman of color in Michigan history to be elected to the state Board of Realtors.
About Post Author
