On February 3rd, 1964, Black and Puerto Rican students across New York City staged the largest civil rights demonstration of the 1960s, a school boycott of nearly half a million people known as Freedom Day. Join us on February 2 for a special free virtual tour exploring this momentous event and more through the stories of José Velez, who migrated with his family to New York from Puerto Rico in the 1950s. We’ll take a look inside the home he grew up in, listen to family oral histories, and consider his youth on the Lower East Side—specifically his education, whether that was from school, his community, the media, and his mother, Ramonita Rivera Saez, who parented him by herself for most of her life. Through his story, we’ll consider the wider history of educating immigrant and migrant children in the U.S. and the role Puerto Ricans played to make education more equal for all.

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