Los angeles times May 23, 1969

San Fernando High Shut After

Hundreds of Students Battle

By Charles Powers

Times Staff Writer

San Fernando High School was closed Tuesday afternoon after a fight involving several hundred Negro and Mexican-American students broke out in the school cafeteria.

About 100 policemen stood by on tactical alert for an hour while students left the building and gradually drifted away.

No arrests were made. One students reportedly suffered a minor cut on the nose.

Board of education officials said the school would be open today.

However, the school's 120 member faculty association voted late Tuesday afternoon to urge parents to keep youngsters home "in the interests of their children's safety."

In a statement issued after the school was closed at 1:45 p.m. Tuesday, Principal Maurice Ives said be believed the disturbance was "an outgrowth of pressures and tensions which have developed in the surroundings of the school…" He did not identify the pressures or groups involved.

But students and faculty members pointed to a series of disturbances-most of them away from the school-between black and anglo youths and, later, black and brown students.

Witnesses said the incident in the cafeteria Tuesday started when two Negro students got into a fight.

When a Mexican-American cafeteria aide tried to break up the scuffle, the witnesses said, others joined the battle and the fight became mostly between Negroes and Mexican-Americans.