Public Schools: Battle of the Moms

PUBLIC SCHOOLS

"When you see that man," the mother instructed her young son, "spit at him." The man was Thomas F. Nevins, an assistant superintendent of the New York City board of education. The mother was one of 65 parents who for three days had forced their way into Jackson Heights' P.S. 149, children in tow, to protest the compulsory exchange of students between the previously all-white school and one predominantly attended by Negroes six blocks away.

Last week, while children bawled and mothers screamed defiance, police hauled the demonstrators off to criminal court after a melee that stunned the nation's biggest school...

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