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A Teenager Seeing Daily School Neglect
- Barbara Johns was 15 and a half and noticed her school bus driver was also her teacher and that classrooms were tar-paper shacks.
- She observed leaking roofs, cast-iron stoves, and umbrellas inside classrooms as everyday realities.
Youth Years Create Political Urgency
- Fifteen and a half captures a unique urgency when every school year feels decisive for identity and opportunity.
- That urgency pushed Barbara and peers to compare experiences and see injustice as intolerable rather than inevitable.
Students Organize A Secret Strike
- Barbara and five student-council classmates met on cinderblock bleachers and planned action, recruiting friends who could keep secrets.
- On April 5, 1951, they held an assembly, barred teachers from the room, and organized a student-led strike.