ABSTRACT
Of Czech ancestory, Leonard Levenda lived with his family at 1609 Monroe in the midtown section of Gary. He had attended Holy Trinity school through the elementary grades, then entered Froebel school in 1942 for his last four years. Leonard was a good student, a member of the debate and drama clubs, quite articulate, but not particularly a school leader. Arriving at Froebel on Monday morning, September 18, 1945, at the start of his senior year, he discovered "a mob of students in the park type area there. What's going on? Them: we're not going to school. What do you mean you're not going to school? Them: we're on strike. What do you mean you're on strike? ... So they told me what happened. So then the principal, [Richard A.] Nuzum, came out—what is this, what's this all about? They started yelling—we don't want to go to school with the blacks. They were tired of being called nigger lovers all the time." 1
