Long known as Chester’s main street for shopping, entertainment, business, and local politics, Avenue of the States is also the site of struggles for racial justice that challenge deep-seated inequalities in human rights, education, housing, and employment – to name but just a few.
CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVISM 1963-1964
The Chester school protests were a series of demonstrations that occurred from November 1963 through April 1964. The larger sit-down demonstrations took place at the corner of 7th and Edgmont (section since renamed Avenue of the States). The protests called for the end of the de facto segregation of Chester public schools and were led by the Committee for Freedom Now (CFFN) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons (NAACP).
Chester’s civil rights protests intensified in early 1964, featuring daily civil rights rallies, marches, pickets, boycotts, and sit-ins. Over the course of three months, more than 600 people were arrested. National civil rights leaders such as Dick Gregory, Gloria Richardson, and Malcolm X came to Chester to support the demonstrations. Chester played an outsized role in Civil Rights activism, earning the city the reputation as the “Birmingham of the North.”
Sit-Down Demonstrations, March 1964
Chester community activist, Ms. Barbara Muhammad, narrates in this short video the details of the photograph above and her recall of the 1963-9164 civil rights demonstrations.
The Delaware County Historical Society produced a short webinar titled Civil Rights & School Segregation – 1960s Chester, PA
CHESTER & THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
The Avenue of the States ends at Chester City Hall. The current location of city hall was once a location along the Underground Railroad. Chester was a stop between Wilmington, Delaware and Philadelphia. Watch Chester’s own “Born and Raised” Researcher, Yusef Miller, present his research findings on Chester and the Underground Railroad.
