Agnes Woods, one of the October boycott’s chief organizers, offered a glowing report in The Flatlands on the Ad Hoc Committee-organized “freedom schools.”
The rioting at Castlemont High School in East Oakland, two days before the boycott was scheduled to begin, received national attention and heavily colored the coverage that the boycott received in the mainstream media. The Ad Hoc Committee came under heavy criticism from all corners of city government, accused of fomenting and abetting the riots in the course of the boycott campaign.
Woods acknowledged the unfortunate fact that the freedom schools had been overshadowed by the unrest at Castlemont, but noted that students seized upon the significance of the event: “[B]lack people in America are not content to be second-class citizens.” Although some planned freedom school sites had backed out at the last minute, students attended churches and community spaces across the city in the hundreds. Topics of discussion included “Negro history, Civil War history and labor history and Black Power.”
