National Student League activity at Detroit Northern High School (today’s Frederick Douglass Academy on Woodward) during the Great Depression.

‘Save-Our-Schools in Detroit’ by Isidore Kalish from Student Review (N.S.L.). Vol. 3 No. 5. Summer, 1934.

ONE of the major problems in Detroit Northern High School this term was to keep the school open until the end of May. We were prepared to take action as soon as the school administration had decided definitely on the length of the school year.

When it became obvious that the authorities were determined to postpone their decision, we decided to do the deciding for them.

We called an S.O.S. meetings—Save-Our-Schools—to take action against the threatened short semester.

The several speakers included a Reverend, a Representative from a Parents Organization, a school teacher, a judge, a labor lawyer, Maurice Sugar, and an N.S.L. member from Detroit City College (now Wayne University).

One of the actions undertaken by this meeting, the pasting of small Red and White stickers over the school, was very effective. The whole problem was brought square-before the entire Student body; the school janitors worked far into the night reluctantly removing the stickers with hot water, and the school authorities decided to maintain sessions until the first of June.

OUR next action centered around the question of relief for needy students. The N.S.L. circulated a petition requesting: (1) Free lunches for needy students. (2) Special 10 cent lunches for all others. (3) Lower lunchroom prices.

On the Monday following the appearance of Ralph Easley’s attack on the National Student League in the Hearst papers, Mr. Tanis, our principal, contributed a signed article to the local Hearst paper on radicalism in the Northern High.

Mr. Tanis bitterly attacked our demands for free lunches, and, attempting to discredit us, exaggerated our program—by claiming that we demanded a “salary of $15 for every Northern High School student.”

We immediately wrote letters to the News-Times and Free Press as well as to Mr. Tanis himself, repudiating his expose. We took the opportunity of showing that Mr. Tanis admits no visitors without permits, and that permits to see him and place our demands personally before him had been denied us.

Mr. Tanis lost no time in calling the students who signed their names to the letters to his office.

Sensing some sort of victimization, we called a mass meeting in front of the Public Library, distributed leaflets in the lockers, pointed out that Tanis was falling in line with Easley’s attacks upon us.

Our mass meeting elected a delegation to see the principal. He had written in the Times that we were only a handful, not more than a dozen, and here we were, filing in to his office, one, two, three—five, seven and eight. Eight! and only a committee!

In a prolonged discussion Mr. Tanis admitted that his article in the Times was a big mistake. He declared that all needy students, not already on the city welfare lists, would receive free lunches. He denied that the lunchroom was operating at a profit—and showed us numerous books and accounts to prove his point.

He was civil, somewhat apologetic, and withal, attempted to be liberal. In conclusion, however, he refused to let us have Reverend Bothens speak at the school against war and fascism.

We have great tasks ahead of us. We have to win over several faculty members to aid us. (Many of them are annoyed because the Principal keeps calling us out of their classes at all hours). We are taking stock of our progress in organizational strength and prestige—we will build a strong High School section of the N.S.L. before the year is out.

‘Student Review‘ was the magazine of the National Student League, first edited by Harry Magdoff. Emerging from the 1931 free speech struggle at City College of New York, the National Student League was founded in early 1932 during a rising student movement by Communist Party activists. The N.S.L. organized from High School on and would be the main C.P.-led student organization through the early 1930s. Publishing ‘Student Review’, the League grew to thousands of members and had a focus on anti-imperialism/anti-militarism, student welfare, workers’ organizing, and free speech. Eventually with the Popular Front the N.S.L. would merge with its main competitor, the Socialist Party’s Student League for Industrial Democracy in 1935 to form the American Student Union.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/student-review/v03n05-sum-1934-student-review.pdf