Milton A. Galamison

Milton Arthur Galamison (March 25, 1923 – March 9, 1988) was a Presbyterian minister who served in Brooklyn, New York. As a community activist, he championed integration and education reform in the New York City public school system, and organized two school boycotts.

Early life and education Milton Arthur Galamison was born in Philadelphia, where he experienced poverty and racial bigotry. The black churches in Philadelphia provided cultural, social and educational activities that Galamison could not find elsewhere, and he was active in church youth organizations. He became an acolyte of Reverend Thomas Logan, rector of the St. Augustine Mission in Yonkers and ghost wrote articles for him in the Philadelphia Tribune. To those who knew him, Galamison appeared smart, articulate, self-confident, ambitious, and determined to succeed, but he received mediocre grades in vocational school and graduated Overbooke High School in 1940 with a nonacademic diploma. He realized his best route to success was through the ministry. In 1959 he founded The Parents' Workshop for Equality in New York Schools with the objectives of achieving racial integration in the schools of New York City, ensuring equal educational opportunity for all children, ending racial discrimination against black and Puerto Rican children, and improving education in the public schools. The Parents' Workshop was a grass roots organization initially housed at Siloam and later expanding to Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx.

In 1960, Galamison, Annie Stein, Thelma Hamilton and other members of the Parents' Workshop began a campaign to pressure the New York City Board of Education to integrate the schools.

On the heels of the success of the Freedom Day boycott, Galamison planned for a follow-on boycott for March 16, 1964. He lost key support from the movements more conservative leaders, however, and due to the resulting organizational fragmentation, this boycott failed to gain sufficient popular support. and in 1967 Galamison founded a new organization called Citywide Coalition for Community Control. The efforts of this group led to the creation of demonstration schools with locally elected governing boards responsible for decisions related to hiring and curriculum.

In July 1968, Mayor John V. Lindsay appointed Galamison to the Board of Education. Rather than signify his final victory in his long battle against inequality in the schools, however, this appointment "confirmed his eclipse and that of the movement he led." After he failed in his bid for reelection to the School Board in 1969, Galamison retired from the political sphere.

Later life In addition to his advocacy for education reform, Galamizon organized a vocational school, Opportunities Industrialization Center, in Brooklyn in 1967. He also published articles in magazines such as Freedomways and in religious journals.

Galamison continued to serve as a pastor at Siloam until his death in 1988 following a brief illness.