Franklin High Students Expelled, Student Representatives Negotiate With Principal

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In this photo, defendants (left to right) Aaron Dixon, Larry Gossett, and Carl Miller speak to the press at King County jail MOHAI, CARY W. TOLMAN PHOTOGRAPHS

On March 19, 1968, an altercation occurred at Franklin High School, a majority black high school in South Seattle. The nature of the altercation is contested, but involved either perceived or actual racial discrimination by the principal of the high school in reaction to one or more students’ behavior. Regardless of the incident itself, two black students, Charles Oliver and Trolice Flavors, were suspended as they neared graduation. Flavors, concerned about the future of his education, contacted Carl Miller, the former head of the University of Washington’s SNCC, and current member of the BSU. Miller, along with Aaron Dixon and Larry Gossett on behalf of the BSU, attempted to meet with Loren Ralph, the principal of Franklin High, to convince him to reinstate Flavors and Oliver. They were unsuccessful.
Franklin students, angered by the outcome of the negotiations, began threatening to “burn the school down.” Worried about the potential of a riot, the UW BSU members ushered students to an eatery across the street, where they plotted a nonviolent response to Principal Ralph’s decision. Later that day, 100 students, 60 of them Franklin students, marched on the Principal’s office, chanting “Ungawa, Black Power!” As they sat-in, they demanded that Oliver and Flavors be reinstated. Four hours later, Principal Ralph agreed to their demands, and the confrontation ended (see "Seattle's Franklin High School students sit-in for reinstatement and civil rights, 1968"). The next day, however, Gossett, Dixon, Miller and Oliver were arrested on charges of unlawful assembly. 
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