Perkins Park Audience at NAACP Meeting

One black and white photographic print showing a crowd of of approximately 2,500 African-Americans gathered in Perkins Park in Akron, Ohio during an NAACP freedom rally held on June 23, 1963. Speakers at the event included Dr. Eldridge T. Sharpp, Civil Rights Chairman of the Akron Chapter of the NAACP; Councilman Ed Davis; and Daisey Bates, civil rights activist who played a leading role in the integration of Little Rock High School of 1957. Sharpp spoke about local conditions and problems of discrimination in Summit County and outlined the program being recommended to eliminate them. Ohio Field Secretary Harold Strickland was the principal speaker for the rally. With the slogan “Free in ’63,” he and Sharpp declared the Akron Chapter’s determination to secure equality in employment, housing, accommodations, and privileges and promoted intensive voter registration and turnout that fall at the polls. This image appears on the front page of the June 29, 1963 edition of the "Akronite