In 1959, high school students from Toronto danced in Buffalo, creating an international sensation.

To some viewers of the May 23, 1959 WGR-TV broadcast Dance party, two Toronto teenagers traveled along the QEW to perform an act of abuse live on Buffalo TV. The show received at least eight calls complaining that a black boy and a white girl shouldn't be dancing together. Host Pat Fagab chose to calm the callers down. After all, the kids in the north should have known better – as Fagan later suggested, they should have followed the old adage, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

Student council members at Toronto's Malvern College, who felt that most of the school's social events were reserved for upperclassmen, organized a bus trip to Buffalo for the younger students, led by Don Schrank and Margo Taylor. Dance party. Among the 46 students who attended was 15-year-old Clayton Johnston, who played trumpet in the school band and won several track awards. according to Globe and MailClayton and his sister Carol were the only black students at Malvern at the time.

The challenge started during the lighting dance segment. Clayton was paired with another 15-year-old, Patty Banks, and the phones lit up with complaints about the interracial couple. Fagan approached Schrank's mother, Muriel, who was taking care of the children. He suggested that it “would be a good idea” if Clayton no longer appeared on camera.

Mrs. Schrank was surprised.

The calls highlighted racial tensions in Buffalo. Post-World War II black migration to the city was accompanied by white flight to the suburbs. Black neighborhoods like Ellicott, east of downtown, have been hit by urban renewal plans. In 1956, there was a racial riot between Buffalo teenagers at the Crystal Beach amusement park near Fort Erie. Historian Virginia Walcott noted in her book, “Amid the growth of the civil rights movement and the rise of juvenile delinquency.” Racing, riots and roller coasters, “the community's elite viewed the interracial subculture as subversive. The Crystal Beach riots showed them that integration is not just subversive, but potentially destructive.” These fears were not allayed by the rise of rock 'n' roll—popular white WKBW DJ George “Hound Dog” Lorenz launched a following promoting black acts to mixed audiences and broadcasting live from black clubs.

WGR-TV Dance Party, Pat Fagan, 1960

Clayton got the news and left the studio. The Toronto Daily Star he noted that he walked a mile in the rain to “cool off” before returning to watch the rest of the show in the hall with a station employee. The other children were shocked, though it took them a while to understand what had happened. “No one knew about it until three-quarters of the way through the program,” Valerie Tow said Star. “Had we known earlier, drastic measures would have been taken.”

In Toronto, Clayton's parents saw their son and Banks dancing and noticed something was wrong. “We didn't see him again after that and we thought something like that had happened,” said his father, Leonard. Globe and Mail. “There, they don't seem to understand that they are obliged to allow a mixed dance, even if a few of their listeners call. Only a man with nails complains.'' Banks' mother said it was a “very sad incident”.

Fagan, who has hosted the show for two years, said it was the first time such an incident had occurred and was handled satisfactorily. The Toronto press coverage was, in his opinion, “making a mountain out of a car.” He believed that while Torontonians were more liberal than Buffalonians, it was true that “Negroes will rule with Negroes, and whites will rule with whites.” Fagan “actually, I'm going to Buffalo next week where I'll be honored by members of the Boys Club of the City League at Pat Fagan Night.” The station's general manager, Van Buren DeVries, believed that Fagan had shown poor judgment by listening to the complaints, but planned no further action: the station had no policy against interracial dancing, so the calls should have been ignored.

Headline and photos from the May 25, 1959 edition of the Toronto Daily Star.

The Star The fiasco published an editorial titled “The Impact of Jim Crow” that predicted how it would affect Clayton: “In the innocent fun of a teenager, his childhood world explodes. The boy was a man. He knew the caustic effects of racial discrimination; the feeble anger of a young man who was publicly shamed for his color, unfairly and without any rational reason, at being told that he belonged to the untouchable caste. It is too much to expect a 15-year-old boy to escape this injustice unscathed. Of course, his innocent days are over. In the future, under the campus friendship Clayton Johnston, if suspicion does not sometimes whisper: what are they really thinking? This is the terrible side of racial discrimination: it destroys love and trust between people, it closes the veil of suspicion between us that prevents us from knowing each other.”

The Telegram's editorial (“Positive Goodness Needed”) criticized WGR for being so quick to indulge in open prejudice and chided the other students for not cooperating by leaving the studio. “To show an unshakable alliance at this time,” he noted, “would be to show intolerance for what is thin and cowardly.”

The youth gave an interview to CBC radio Adolescent temp Although it was easy to believe that they had chosen the noble path, one thought that they would have continued to dance like Malvern students. However, as host Doug Maxwell points out, “To say Toronto high schoolers are upset is an understatement.” When asked about her initial reaction, one female guest said: “More neutral, bigoted old ladies who see something on TV and complain, pick up their phones and scream. wait to see something like this.” Another girl believed that this might be the case here, as she witnessed adults insisting that black and white teenagers be separated in social services.

Leonard Johnston was speechless. A long-time community activist and active member of the CPR chapter of the Toronto Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Carriers, he asked the group to protest WGR's actions. Stanley Grizzle, president of the Brotherhood local, said the issue will be handled by union leadership, and he wants to raise it with the city's human rights labor committee. Grizzle, who campaigned as the CCF candidate for York East in the provincial election (making him the first black candidate to seek a seat at Queen's Park), observed that “we often wondered why we couldn't see integrated dance on the program.” . My two teenage daughters have discussed this many times. Now we know the reason.”

Agenda Segment, February 15, 2019: Stanley Grizzle – Civil Rights Pioneer

Also supporting the Johnstons was Beaches MPP William Collings, who said he would speak to the Department of Labor about an investigation into the incident. As the provincial liquor commissioner, Collings promised to talk to alcohol producers who advertised on WGR.

The Johnston family received many supportive phone calls from friends and neighbors. “Everybody's on our side,” Leonard said Globe and Mail. “Parents of the children who were with Clayton have expressed their grief over what happened, and many plan to write to the station.” Malvern students sent a petition to WGR. As letters flooded the station, DeVries said he might write an apology letter to Clayton when he understood more fully what had happened than what Fagan had told him. He felt it was unfortunate and hoped that Clayton was not hurt.

Buffalo's two major daily newspapers ignored the story. The Evening news On May 25, he buried a small message from the Associated Press agency Express courier the next day he made the same microscopic report. They also refused to publish a letter from Reverend James Hemphill, president of the Buffalo branch of the NAACP, criticizing the story; Buffalo Mayor Frank Sedita also ignored him.

“Black” week of the city Buffalo Criterion, agreed to publish. “This is a blow to democracy, not just in the city of Buffalo, but for the entire nation because it is a bi-national event,” Hemphill wrote. “If this is the experience of the city of Buffalo, then the Negro in Buffalo is no better off than the Negro in the Deep South. This event has created a stir among freedom-loving people in Buffalo, and race relations in Buffalo will not and will not improve unless this practice is abolished.”

The following week, Toronto's newspapers were filled with editorials and wire stories about segregation south of the border: Alabama Senator E.O. Eddins was invited to publish a children's book. Wedding of rabbits was banned because it depicted the wedding of black and white rabbits. (“If we're not careful,” wrote Sally Furlong Telegram“a black and white kitten will soon have a hard time finding a home because of questionable parentage!”) During a recall election in Little Rock, three members of the segregationist school board supported by Gov. Orval Faubus were expelled. Arkansas.

The cartoon, which appeared during the week of the “Dance Party” incident, mocked Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus after three segregationists he supported lost a recall election for the Little Rock school board. (Telegram, May 28, 1959)

On June 1, the Johnstons apologized to DeVries. “In connection with what happened at WGR-TV last Saturday, I have been made aware and read of certain statements made by one of our employees that are inconsistent with the station's policy. I apologize for the hasty action taken by this party. I want you to know that this individual and his actions were on his own initiative and did not reflect management policy. . We truly regret this situation and apologize for the embarrassment this has caused.”

Leonard accepted the apology on behalf of his son and “all Canadians who believe in democracy.” Although New York Governor/future US Vice President Nelson Rockefeller ordered a further investigation, Leonard rejected suggestions that he sued WGR. “As for the international situation,” he said, “I don't want my son to be in the middle of it.”

Clayton Johnston was a professional drummer — one of the highlights of his career was performing at the legendary Toronto Tour. The Lord In the early 1970s and many jazz concerts in the city. In 1968, her parents opened Third World Books and Crafts, which served as an intellectual center for Toronto's black community for more than three decades. Fagan continued to work at WGR (now WGRZ), serving as the nightly news anchor until 1968, after which he moved to New York City and worked for the ABC and NBC newsrooms.

The Criterion His June 6, 1959 editorial concluded by condemning the incident: “This … shows the deepest color of the layer of racial prejudice found in the deepest parts of the South. Whether Mr. Fagan acted under orders or on his own initiative remains to be proven; but one thing is certain: Pat Fagan has moved Buffalo to Atlanta, Georgia — an open defiance of Democratic New York, which has not been called the most racially liberal state in the Union, except for the control of Mr. Fagan and his WGR-TV programs. If the Fagan story had happened in a communist partner country, it would have made the front pages of American newspapers. But it happened right here in Buffalo; and, of course, the less we say, the papers argue, the better for US democracy. “

Sources: Racing, riots and roller coasters Victoria V. Wolcott (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012); Issue of June 6, 1959 Buffalo Criterion; Editions of May 25, 1959, May 26, 1959, and June 2, 1959 Globe and Mail; Editions of May 25, 1959, May 28, 1959, June 2, 1959, and June 4, 1959 Toronto Daily Star; Edition of February 14, 2021 Toronto StarEditions of May 25, 1959, May 26, 1959, and June 2, 1959 Telegram.