Riots at Centennial High School, 1971
Alvin G. That was a lot of turmoil in the country and Centennial was in the midst of it. Not only that but it was the Viet Nam War.
Corbin P. I interviewed Mr. Alvin Griggs former Edison Middle School Principal and Centennial High School Vice-principal, because I was curious about education in Champaign. During the interview Mr. Griggs mentioned race riots that happened at Centennial High School in 1971.
AG. They really didn’t want the minority, ah, the black kids in Centennial. And so there was an effort to push them out.
AG. We knew the riots were going to happen ahead of time. And the administration called the police department and asked them to have security there. And they refused to come and provide security. Except, for one officer, sat across the street and he wasn’t allowed to do that. But he did. He asked for back-up, and they told the other officers to take the Savoy route to Centennial. That means go the long way. And they did.
AG. The saddest thing, they met them with ax handles. And when the black kids got off the bus, the white kids didn’t have enough guts to use the ax handles. And the black kids didn’t know what was going on. And all of a sudden a light came on and said “Hey they’re coming after us.” And they were friends. Half of em they were on the track team, played basketball together. So they went out and took the ax handles.
AG. What the kids did with those sticks, with the ax handles, they went down through the building and broke the windows, the showcases. I mean they were upset and mad. So instead of taking the ax handles to other students they took the ax handles to the school. And then went in the cafeteria and kinda circled the wagons to protect themselves.
AG. I had a driver’s education class, and I was with my students. So we got in the driver’s education car, I didn’t know exactly what was going on, they didn’t tell us. So I got in the driver’s education car and started my class. And we completed the class. When we got back to the school, that’s when we found out they were having trouble. So I secured the students, got them to their next class. Then I got involved with the activities. Uh, they had the kids in the cafeteria and I met with uh, some of the administrators and uh, some of the students and we kinda cooled them down and calmed them down. Uh, and then after that, they wanted to go home, so some debate on the administrators whether they would allow them to go home and uh, they were too upset to stay at school, so uhm, they were allowed to go home. They called the busses back.
AG. I was assigned to the community. My job was to go, after class, after I finished teaching, to go out in the community to meet with the community people and I did that for a year or so and after I did that they asked me to move upstairs. I turned them down three or four times. I was enjoying myself. I was the track coach, cross country coach and I really loved my job and I had fun. They put me in the cafeteria too. And they had off duty police officers in the cafeteria and it, it didn’t work, it didn’t work. And so they put uh, coaches in there and they put uh, I keep saying Nichole Storch, she was on the school board and she passed away, a year or two ago. And she retired as a dean at Centennial, we started out together. She was teaching history. Then the two of us ended up in the cafeteria, just the two of us. And that’s what we did we kept order, ha ha, we kept order for 15 years.
CP. With the help of Ms. Storch, the Dean of Students, Mr. Griggs tried to keep the peace at Centennial High School. I would like to thank Mr. Griggs for sharing this story about the race riots at Centennial.