Friday, March 6, 2015

From My Files

I have been tossing and organizing. I found my high school newspapers. I was in journalism and the newspaper staff for three years. 

A great fashion ad! 
But also in these old school newspapers were articles about the social issues that had become youth culture issues.

 In 1970 Earth Day came to school. I still have my Give Earth a Chance button!
Anti-war demonstrations took place across the country on October 15, 1969. Including in the Royal Oak, MI Memorial Park.
 A special edition of the paper came out after on April 22, 1968 about the assassination of
 Rev. Martin Luther King.

 I had not remembered the hiring of the school's first African American teachers in 1969.
And I sure didn't recall writing this article on student's reaction to including minority studies in the curriculum. (Note: I had an elective history class in Modern History that included reading about the creation of Unions and on Civil Rights. Rad.)
An article that totally threw me was in the March, 1970 issue: The KKK had visited KHS! The student reporters, one of whom was a good friend, reported that the head of the Michigan KKK (who admitted to being a bigot) was promoting Gov. George Wallace for president in 1972. He said the American Independent Party was for the "white, lower-income, middle class American".

I had not realized when I picked up these papers that I would be gaining insight into the social issues of my high school years.

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