Citizens for 65

Originally known as Citizens for Coffin and District 65, Citizens for 65 was an Evanston and Skokie, Illinois, community organization which formed to support Gregory C. Coffin, superintendent of Community Consolidated Schools District 65, and particularly his policies related to the integration of Evanston elementary schools. (District 65 is contiguous with Evanston but also overlaps a portion of the political boundaries of Skokie, Illinois.) Coffin, appointed superintendent of District 65 in 1966, had fallen out of favor with a majority of the elected seven-member Board of the school district. At a contentious School Board meeting of June 24, 1969, the Board majority chose not to renew Coffin’s contract as superintendent, effectively terminating his position as of June, 1970. Public outcry forced the Board to back away from this position, deferring any decision concerning Coffin’s leadership of the district to a future Board as constituted by the results of the next election. With three Board members choosing not to seek reelection and because of the political alignment of the remaining four members, the upcoming election would determine whether or not the Board would hold its anti-Coffin majority. The School Board election of April 11, 1970, effectively became a referendum on Coffin’s tenure.

District 65 had committed to the desegregation of its schools formally in 1964 and hired Coffin, then Superintendent of Schools in Darien, Connecticut, in 1966 to implement a plan to meet this goal. Among his accomplishments at Darien, at that time an all-white district, was the implementation of a program to bring non-white students into Darien classrooms, to hire non-white personnel, and to develop curricular plans and materials introducing students to racial and civil rights issues. Quoted in the December, 1965 issue of School Management, Coffin stated: “There are many all-white districts in the nation. They don’t have to get involved in civil rights at all but, for the sake of their children, they should. After all, with the tremendous mobility of all our people, chances are very good that today’s students in all-white communities will be living, working and traveling in mixed communities a good part of their lives. As teachers, we had better prepare them for that experience right now.” Public contention over Coffin’s superintendency soon centered on the chosen path of integration but also on personality conflicts and bureaucratic infighting between the superintendent and some members of the District 65 School Board. Among both supporters and detractors Coffin was known for a sometimes abrasive, impolitic demeanor.

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