Atlanta Public School Integration
Following the 1954 court decision of Brown vs the Board of Education, our nation’s schools were no longer allowed to segregate black and white students. This meant that Atlanta public high schools would have to integrate for the first time ever. For four years, no changes were made in the school systems around the city, but in 1958, a case was taken to court by the NAACP against the Atlanta Board of Education saying that schools needed to be desegregated immediately. According to Virginia Hein, "The plantiffs won their case, and the Board was ordered to submit plans for desegregation by December, 1959". These plans would not become effective until 1960. A small number of citizens around the city watched as integration in cities like Little Rock, Arkansas was going horribly wrong and wanted theirs to go smoother. However, most Atlantans did not agree with this. They didn’t want their children to have to share a school with someone of a different race. Some even pulled their kids out of the public schools to attend new private schools. The Georgia Legislature even passed laws that said that schools who attempted to integrate would lose funding and eventually be forced to close their doors. However, despite their fight, segregation would be forced upon the city’s schools. In the spring of 1961, over one hundred applications were received by white high schools requesting transfers by African American students, but only ten were accepted. Finally, "On Wednesday, August 30, 1961, seven years after the Supreme Court ruling, four Atlanta high schools were quietly integrated" (Hein). Nine black students made their way into white high schools for the first time, the tenth decided to attend somewhere else. They were taken to school in unmarked police cars and were given protection throughout the day. Sadly, for some, they had fewer than 10 friendly interactions with white classmates and fellow students during their years following the integration.
Bibliography
Hein, Virginia H. “The Image of ‘A City Too Busy to Hate’: Atlanta in the 1960's.” Phylon (1960-), vol. 33, no. 3, 1972, pp. 205–221. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/273521.