Berkeley Unified School District

Historical Note

In August 1961, the Berkeley Unified School District and the Council of Social Planning co-sponsored a workshop to study the interracial gains and goals in the district. The following year, the Berkeley Unified School District Human Relations Office was established to sensitize staff and the community to problems related to the effects of racism on minority students; to sensitize staff and community to the need to work together to develop a sense of community; to provide a school-community environment that would enable students of all ethnic groups to achieve academically; to develop social skills; to recognize the contributions of different ethnic groups to a more harmonious, patriotic, and committed populace; and to recognize the principle that all persons in the educational institutions of the nation should have an opportunity to learn about the differing and unique contributions to the national heritage made by each group.

An advisory committee was established in November 1962 to study de facto segregation within the district, and a task force on the topic was established in March 1964. Junior high schools within the district began to be integrated in the autumn of 1965 and in April 1967 the district’s board committed itself to total integration beginning in September 1968. The Berkeley Unified School District was one of the first school districts in America to desegregate without a court order. That same year, the district board adopted a program and mandatory training in minority history and culture for all staff members.

Citation:

Author: Harold Handy and Christopher Harter

Abstract:

The records Human Relations Office of the Berkely Unified School District held at the Amistad Research Center.

Berkeley Unified School District website (http://www.berkeleyschools.net/about-the-district/about/)