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KYW Flashback: The Integration Of Girard College

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) --- As KYW began broadcasting "All News-All the Time", Philadelphia was embroiled in a dramatic civil rights struggle.

That summer, Martin Luther King, Jr arrived in the city to lend his voice to calls for the integration of Girard College, then reserved for poor white male orphans.

But the terms of its establishment that excluded blacks were a thorn in the side of Philadelphia's white and black leadership.

The case to change the will of Stephen Girard, which enabled the creation of the school, had gone to the highest court in the land without success - until 1968.

Then KYW reported the integration of Girard College. The bitter contest had placed a spotlight on the issue of racial equality in education throughout Philadelphia.

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