Girard College Wall

For seven months and 17 days, picketing and marching happened along the walls surrounding Girard College. The intention of the protests were to make the school integrated since Girard College's founder, Stephen Girard, intended the school to be for white boys only. The protests were led by Cecil B. Moore and on August 3, 1965 Martin Luther King Jr. visited the marchers and said the wall would crumble like the walls of Jericho. The issue of the school being segregated became a court case that went back and forth. After the Supreme Court refused to review the case trustees of Girard College voted to allow African-American students to join their school. Eventually four black boys were attending Girard College.