Adolph Mongo organized his first protest in April 1968, at the age of fourteen. When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, the administrators at Clinton Junior High School refused to allow students to leave school early to attend a church service. Mongo led a walkout by black students in protest. During his senior year in high school, Mongo ran a last minute write-in campaign for Student Mayor of Oak Park. He won, making him the first African-American student to hold that office.