School Integration: Introduction
[Previous Topic]
[Next Topic]
[Up]
[Table of Contents]
[Citation Guide]
[Feedback]
[Search]
[Home]
[Help!]
In 1954, the Supreme Court officially struck down the "separate but equal"
doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson in its Brown v. Board of Education
decision, which ruled that separate educational facilities
were inherently unequal. Some areas readily embraced integration after Brown,
while others submitted only after furthur prodding from
the courts. School administrators quickly realized that they faced many
problems, such as increased violence and increased disparity in the
abilities of students in the same classroom. Also, because of de facto
segregation, many Northern school districts had to resort to busing as a
means to achieving integration, which resulted in heightened racial tensions.
Yet despite its problems, integration of the public schools of America was
an important step towards equality among all the races.
- Little Rock, Arkansas mounted one of the
most famous oppositions to integration in 1957
- Prince George's County, Maryland,
after dragging its feet somewhat on integration, gave up on a freedom of
choice plan and ended up implementing a busing system to overcome de
facto segregation
- Washington, D.C. integrated quickly but
had to implement a track system to cope with the great disparities in student
abilities
- Boston, Massachusetts ran into white
opposition to blacks being bused to white schools
[Previous Topic]
[Next Topic]
[Up]
[Table of Contents]
[Citation Guide]
[Feedback]
[Search]
[Home]
[Help!]
Adapted from School Integration in the United States,
a web project written for my tenth grade African history
class.
Copyright © 1998 Lisa Cozzens
(lisa@www.watson.org
).
Please read this
before you email me!
URL for this page: http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/school-integration/index.html
Last modified: Mon Jun 22, 1998