Washington D.C.'s Board of Education moved quickly to desegregate; only eight days after Chief Justice Earl Warren read the Supreme Court's Brown decision, the Board adopted a desegregation plan. On September 13, 1954, less than four months after Bolling v. Sharpe, schools across the city opened with integrated faculties and student bodies.
After a few months with integrated schools, teachers, students, and administrators began to realize that the schools gained some serious problems as a direct result of integration. White students led strikes at two area high schools, complaining that some black students used vulgar language and bumped against white girls in the halls, touching them in a suggestive manner. Many teachers noted a rise in fighting and petty theft, and some white teachers reported problems disciplining black students. After years of attending inferior schools, black students were behind their white peers academically. As a result, achievement test scores varied widely between predominately black and predominately white schools; scores at predominately black schools were in the nation's lowest 5%, while scores at predominately white schools were in the nation's highest 5%. [3] In addition, an undercurrent of racial tension ran throughout the schools.
Racial tensions erupted at a Washington Post-sponsored Thanksgiving football game in 1962. The game featured the winners of the parochial league, St. John's, whose supporters were predominately white, and the public school league, Eastern, whose supporters were mostly black. After St. John's defeated Eastern, thousands of blacks rioted and beat up white spectators. The superintendant of schools, Carl Hansen, sent a commission to investigate violence in the schools, and the results were shocking. As Shane McCarthy, one of the commission members, stated "Not a single teacher to whom I have spoken in the past few weeks was surprised that the outbreak took place." One teacher said "Why should we be? We live with this brand of conduct every day in the schools." [4] The school administration never fully addressed the issue of racial tensions; the situation grew less volatile over time, but the problems never fully disappeared and continue to this day in D.C. public schools.