Book Displays: Equal Justice Initiative 2024: Nov

Calendar photo caption: Students in Los Angeles call for immigration reform during a march on April 15, 2006. (David McNew/Getty Images)

In 1968, more than 20,000 Mexican American public high school students staged a walkout to protest educational inequity in East Los Angeles, where they were routinely beaten by white administrators for speaking Spanish at school.

The hostile environment contributed to exceedingly high dropout rates and low college attendance among Mexican American students. 

Frustrated with these conditions, teachers joined with groups such as the United Mexican American Students to develop a list of demands for the local Board of Education. When the board failed to meet these demands, students developed a plan to conduct a series of walkouts. 

Administrators locked doors and gates, but student protestors persisted. At Roosevelt High School, police beat multiple students engaged in protest.

During this era, Mexican American students were targeted with violence by school officials in other parts of the country as well. In the 1950s, students at the segregated Blackwell School in Marfa, Texas, were beaten with a paddle for speaking Spanish. One teach told students to write the word "Spanish" on a piece of paper, but the slips of paper in a box, and then "buried Spanish" at the base of the flagpole to drive home that students were no longer allowed to speak the language. 

The East Lost Angeles school board ultimately rejected students' demands, and racial inequality in public education persists for Mexican Americans. The protest nonetheless stands as one of the largest student demonstrations in U.S. history, inspiring activists who continue to fight for change today.