Today in Chicago History: Bernie Sanders -- then a University of Chicago student -- arrested during South Side protest

Chicago police officers carry Bernie Sanders, 21, to a police wagon from a civil rights demonstration at West 73rd Street and South Lowe Avenue in August 1963. He was charged with resisting arrest, found guilty and fined $25. He was a University of Chicago student at the time. (Tom Kinahan/Chicago Tribune)

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Chicago Public Schools Superintendent Benjamin Willis refused to allow Black children to be bused from their crowded neighborhood schools to those in white areas with more resources. That’s why the portable classroom trailers were nicknamed “Willis wagons” and became symbolic of the city’s long struggle over segregated education.

Demonstrations against Willis wagons were a precursor to a more sweeping Civil Rights Movement in Chicago that drew the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to the city in 1966 — the same year Willis resigned.

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https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/08/12/chicago-history-august-12/