Willis Wagons

Now, we are not just a music, fashion, and style guide, but we want to educate and provide a sort of knowledge to help everyone's mind grow.

If you live in the Chicago area WTTW Channel 11 had a great program called "Dusable to the Obama"which takes you though Black Chicago. Program airs once again at 9:45. But I learned some things from watching the program like Fred Hampton, Martin Luther King Jr and his Chicago Visit, and the Willis Wagons.

A little knowledge for yo Fresh Soul: If you knew this already, that's amazing but if you didn't the Willis Wagons was a term used to describe portable school classrooms created by Chicago Superintendent of Schools Benjamin J. Willis (1953-1966). In 1961, Willis got approval to put up around 150 to 200 20 x 36 foot portable school units to substitute for sending some black students from overcrowded schools to white schools.

Compared to the South's segregation, the North was based on traditional neighborhood schools, that were racially motivated. So, to handle the rise of black enrollments, the school board hit folks with double shifts, shortened school days, and incorporated the "Willis Wagons" instead of integrating schools.

Furthermore, in 1963-64 led by the Woodlawn Organization and the Congress of Racial Equality, along with black community members protested with well organized pickets, boycotts, and marches. Willis retired in 66, and was replaced by someone with intergrationist background. As black people expanded from blocks, to schools, to neighborhoods, white families started to send their kids to private or suburban school.