The New York Times ran a front-page story on the event in its Dec. 2 issue. The following day, a Times editorial called the decision "an unacceptable and intolerable intrusion of political symbolism into the education system." Further on, the Times claimed, "Its sanction by educational authorities is as subversive as the outrageous display of the Confederate flag in some recalcitrant Southern school districts."

New Jersey legislators immediately went into action by considering a hastily-drawn bill outlawing the display of any other flag but the stars and stripes in school buildings. The bill has yet to become law.

These views, however, run quite contrary to sentiment in the Black community.

"The flag stands for determination, it stands for liberation," Derreil Fennel, president of the student body at Arts High School, told this reporter. She and other students were surprised that the flag had provoked so much heat. As they related it, the motion on displaying the flag was a spontaneous gesture. It came in the wake of a gathering of close to 400 students at the Nov. 30 board meeting and the submission to the board of a 12-page set of demands - entitled "Education for Liberation" - by the Newark Student Federation, a city-wide organization.

January 11, 1947
NEW YORK, Jan. 3 - The first steps in a community action to block wholesale evictions in mid-winter of 2,234 Harlem families were taken by more than 400 indignant tenants at a mass meeting called tonight in the threatened area by the Harlem Branch of the Socialist Workers Party. Scores were turned away from the Universal Church of Christ, 44 W. 115 St., after the hall was filled to capacity.

The meeting protested the action of the New York City Housing Authority, ordering the tenants to move from their homes on three square blocks between 112 and 115 Streets east of Lenox Ave. by Feb. 20. in order to clear the site for the Stephen Foster housing project. The projected apartments will accommodate only about half the number of families now living in the area.

The Lenox Fifth Avenue Tenants League, organized at the mass meeting, unanimously adopted a resolution and program of action to halt the evictions until adequate housing is provided for all the present tenants.  
 
 
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