Chicago Youth Committee for Civil Rights Monthly Newsletter - December 1960

Chicago, Illinois, 1960. Good. 11" x 8 1/2". Stapled mimeographed newsletter. Three leaves printed rectos only. About good: heavily creased at old folds; moderately stained and soiled.

This is an issue of a rare monthly newsletter published by a little known African American student organization, the Chicago Youth Committee for Civil Rights (CYCCR).

Most of what we know about CYCCR is found only in this newsletter, though the organization was given a brief mention in a scholarly article as one of a slew of student organizations that contributed to the development of civil rights activism on the University of Chicago campus in the early 1960s. Together with the NAACP and CORE, CCYCCR sponsored a variety of demonstrations including "wade-ins" at Rainbow Beach on Chicago's lake front.

This newsletter is almost entirely devoted to upcoming demonstrations and protests and includes a calendar for December 1960 which lists a total of three picket lines, a protest and a kneel-in. The three picket lines were for the Woolworth's located at 211 South State Street. A box under the calendar of events admonished, "WILL WE BE STOPPED??? Yes-unless more of us join the Woolworth picket line each Sat. We are really having an effect during the Xmas shopping period but we cannot continue to meet the urgent request of the Southern sit-in leaders without your aid." Nearly half the first page calls for a kneel-in in Deerfield on Christmas day:

"Deerfield is the lilywhite suburb northwest of Chicago which stopped a builder from selling to Neg*oes by condemning the land for park use . . . we feel that a kneel-in on Dec. 25 will be particularly appropriate. It might stir the consciences of some Deerfield people who pay lip service to the teachings of Jesus but neglect those teachings in their day to day lives."

The group further reported on a skate-in, was planning a school segregation protest and was also getting ready for a mass blood donation and fundraiser, alleging that "the white citizens councils are starving Fayette County Ne*roes."

A rare relic of student civil rights activism in Chicago simmering with youthful protest. OCLC shows one holding.