Reuniting to remember

In September of 1966, 242 black and white kindergartners participated in an experimental desegregation effort at Foster School, in the heart of the City’s Fifth Ward. On July 15-17, the Foster/King Lab 1966 Kindergarten Reunion Project gathered in the former school building, now the Weissbourd-Holmes Family Focus Center, to mark that milestone. The Foster School/King Lab 1966 Kindergarten Reunion project commemorated the teachers, families, administrators, leaders, students, and community who tried to shift Evanston from a segregated society toward an integrated one. Some of the original kindergartners and their parents, teachers, administrators, and community members spoke about what the experience meant for them and for the community. The weekend’s events included two moderated panel discussions and a screening of Larry Brooks’s 1967 documentary “The Desegregation of Foster School.”