1926: John Harris and William Penn high schools open. For decades, the school population is stable. In the 1920s, the first years of operation, there were 11,104 pupils in city school. In the 195
1926: John Harris and William Penn high schools open. For decades, the school population is stable. In the 1920s, the first years of operation, there were 11,104 pupils in city school. In the 1950s, there were 10,551.
1950s: With postwar prosperity and the national need to house returning veterans, new single-family homes lured anyone who could afford it. People fled the row houses and cramped apartments of Harrisburg for the open spaces of Susquehanna Twp., and then Lower Paxton Twp. The city's population started a downward slide, and so did the average income of city residents.
1964: Racial disturbances last 11 days and there are sit-ins, boycotts, violent confrontations and rock throwing at William Penn and John Harris high schools. Arrests total 24, and 27 students are suspended.
1968: Violence returned when a black school teacher organizes a protest march and a boycott of a pharmacy o