No Easy Way Civil Rights Timeline

No Easy Way: Integrating Riverside Schools—A Victory for Community

Click items on the timeline to discover a civil rights story.

In this memoir of his time as president of the Riverside school board, Littleworth sets the stage by giving us Riverside in the 1960s. Against a backdrop of growth and economic progress, the civil rights issues of the time play out in a community that struggles with de facto segregation in its schools.

Lowell School, a school transformed from integrated to segregated, is burned by an arsonist. Parents at the same moment petition the School Board for integration. These factors set in motion a crisis that grips the community only 20 days after the upheaval of the Watts riots.

Littleworth shepherds the school board and the community through the unfolding events, hoping to avoid violence. The resulting solution is a testament to the entire community.

This project was made possible with support from Cal Humanities, an independent non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. For more information, visit calhum.org.

 

1924
  • 1924
    Cross burning at rally of Ku Klux Klan attended by 5,000 persons, Riverside Polytechnic High School
1950
  • 1950
    Arthur L. Littleworth moves to Riverside
1954
  • January 1, 1954
    Irving School rebuilt on the site of the original 1891 school
  • January 1, 1954
    Lowell School, originally built in 1911, expands
  • May 17, 1954
    The U. S. Supreme Court, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, rules public school segregation unconstitutional
1955
  • May 31, 1955
    Second U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Brown v. Board of Education
  • December 14, 1955
    Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white passenger.
1957
  • September 4, 1957
    Little Rock Nine integrate Central High School under protection of National Guard
1958
  • January 1, 1958
    Littleworth joins the Board of Riverside Unified School District.
1960
  • 1960
    Minorities comprise approximately 14% of Riverside's population and they live in segregated areas
  • 1960
    Lowell becomes approximately 50% minority
  • 1960
    New classrooms built at Casa Blanca School
  • February 1, 1960
    Woolworth's lunch counter sit-ins begin in Greensboro, North Carolina
1961
  • January 1, 1961
    The School District constructs Alcott School and sets a boundary that will leave Lowell segregated
  • May 1, 1961
    Parents object to new Lowell School boundary
  • May 4, 1961
    The first group of racially mixed Freedom Riders leaves Washington, DC enroute to New Orleans led by CORE Director James Farmer.
  • June 16, 1961
    Lowell Study Committee recommends dispersal of upper grades to other schools
  • June 28, 1961
    Superintendent recommends Open Enrollment instead of integration
  • September 1, 1961
    Alcott School opens and Lowell's population goes from 50% minority to 90% minority.
1962
  • January 1, 1962
    Littleworth elected president of School Board
  • June 14, 1962
    California State Board of Education first considers eliminating segregation
  • September 1, 1962
    Starts Higher Horizons program
  • October 23, 1962
    California State Board of Education requires the elimination of segregation
1963
  • January 1, 1963
    Rumford Fair Housing Act
  • March 18, 1963
    Riverside changes methods for school boundary studies to avoid de facto segregation
  • June 1, 1963
    Riverside forms Human Relations Council
  • June 27, 1963
    California State Supreme Court takes a strong stand against segregation in Jackson v. Pasadena City School District
  • August 28, 1963
    Martin Luther King, Jr., leads the March on Washington
  • September 1, 1963
    San Dimas Conference explores race relations in Riverside leads to Compensatory Education Program
  • September 15, 1963
    16th Street Baptist Church bombed
  • September 16, 1963
    Arthur Littleworth and B. Rae Sharp of the School Board meet with minority community leaders on test scores
  • October 1, 1963
    Teacher aides implemented from Proposals for Integration
  • October 7, 1963
    Proposals for Integration
1964
  • January 1, 1964
    Libraries implemented from Proposals for Integration
  • May 16, 1964
    Riverside Unified School District recognized by NAACP
  • June 1, 1964
    Freedom Summer
  • July 2, 1964
    Civil Rights Act of 1964
  • July 16, 1964
    Community leaders begin to advocate full integration, not Compensatory Education.
  • September 15, 1964
    Community and Board evaluate Compensatory Education
  • November 1, 1964
    Repeal of the Rumford Fair Housing Act
1965
  • March 7, 1965
    Selma to Montgomery marches in support of voting rights
  • May 17, 1965
    RUSD Associate Superintendent Ray Berry suggests the Board consider eliminating de facto segregated schools
  • August 6, 1965
    Voting Rights Act of 1965
  • August 24, 1965
    Mrs. Donald Renfro, a Lowell parent, files a ''Request for Out of Area Attendance Permit'' for her children
  • September 1, 1965
    Riverside's school population exceeds 25,000.
  • September 3, 1965
    Parents meet and decide to petition School Board for integration
  • September 4, 1965
    Integration petition drive
  • September 7, 1965
    School Board meeting, petition received, fire discussed
  • September 7, 1965
    Lowell School burned
  • September 7, 1965
    Littleworth informed of arson
  • September 7, 1965
    Plan for boycott and Freedom Schools
  • September 8, 1965
    Board and administration develop new plan for Lowell students
  • September 9, 1965
    Fearing possible violence, Arthur Littleworth attempts to avoid boycott, meets with leaders
  • September 10, 1965
    Community meeting at Irving School
  • September 10, 1965
    Boycott leaders meet
  • September 10, 1965
    RUSD administrators gather at Miller's house
  • September 10, 1965
    Annual district teachers meeting at Ramona High School
  • September 11, 1965
    Berry shares proposal for integration with Renfro and Bland
  • September 11, 1965
    City and School officials meet to discuss crisis Saturday morning at 8 a.m.
  • September 12, 1965
    State Superintendent Max Rafferty calls Bruce Miller, offers assistance.
  • September 13, 1965
    Boycott, Freedom Schools open
  • September 13, 1965
    School Board meeting to consider integration petition
  • September 13, 1965
    Boycott committee meets at Eastside neighborhood Masonic Hall after School Board meeting, ends boycott
  • September 15, 1965
    Integration begins with Lowell and Irving students
  • September 20, 1965
    School Board appoints community advisory committee for integration plan
  • October 4, 1965
    Board names members of the Advisory Committee for Integrated Schools
  • October 5, 1965
    Community meeting of people opposed to integration
  • October 18, 1965
    Petition drives for and against plan
  • October 18, 1965
    Proposed Master Plan for School Integration presented to Board
  • October 19, 1965
    City Council refuses to vote to support plan
  • October 21, 1965
    Press supports integration
  • October 21, 1965
    Alcott parents opposed to integration voice objections to school district
  • October 25, 1965
    School Board votes unanimously for integration plan
  • November 1, 1965
    Casa Blanca Study Committee formed and charged with developing a plan by May 1, 1966
1966
  • February 1, 1966
    Emerson School students are integrated into Highland and Hyatt Schools
  • February 2, 1966
    Plan for integration based on a class by class approach, as well as geographic factors
  • May 1, 1966
    Littleworth, school district recognized at local, state, and federal levels for integration
  • July 1, 1966
    The U.S. government releases its study Equality of Educational Opportunity
  • September 1, 1966
    RUSD Implements integration district-wide
  • November 8, 1966
    Voters support School Board
  • December 1, 1966
    Home-School Program implemented
1968
  • January 1, 1968
    Civil Rights Act of 1968
1972
  • January 1, 1972
    Littleworth retires from School Board