school segregation — Bunk History

Map of school segregation in the U.S. in 2024.

This Map Lets You See How School Segregation Has Changed in Your Hometown

The new interactive tool accompanies a study of school enrollment data, which shows that segregation has worsened in recent decades.

by Sarah Kuta via Smithsonian on May 17, 2024

Barack Obama presents Sylvia Mendez with the Medal of Freedom in 2010.

How an 8-Year-Old Hispanic Girl Paved the Way for Desegregation

Sylvia Mendez’s role in setting the stage for Brown v. Board of Education has been forgotten and overlooked.

by Gillian Brockell via Retropolis on October 9, 2023

A high school yearbook photo of Elizabeth Prewitt.

I Never Saw the System

As a white teenager in Charlotte, Elizabeth Prewitt saw mandatory school busing as a personal annoyance. Going to an integrated high school changed that.

by Elizabeth Prewitt via Admissions Projects on October 1, 2022

Pleasant Plains School in Hertford County, North Carolina, active 1920-1950.

How the Rosenwald Schools Shaped a Generation of Black Leaders

Photographer Andrew Feiler documented how the educational institutions shaped a generation of black leaders.

by Michael J. Solender via Smithsonian on March 30, 2021

Black Students Matter demonstrators march through Washington, D.C., June 19, 2020

My Great-Grandmother Ida B. Wells Left A Legacy Of Activism In Education. We Need That Now.

The gap in education equality is holding America back.

by Michelle Duster via Made By History on February 11, 2021

The Firsts

The children who desegregated America.

by Adam Harris, Rebecca Rosen via The Atlantic on September 29, 2020

Protestors standing on a bridge, holding signs.

Why 45% of NYC Public School Students Stayed Home in Protest

Historians say that a major milestone in the history of school integration is often left out of the civil rights story.

by Olivia B. Waxman, Arpita Aneja via TIME on September 22, 2020

School Interrupted

The movement for school desegregation took some of its first steps with a student strike in rural Virginia. Ed Ayers learns about those who made it happen.

via Future Of America's Past on March 23, 2020

An Attempt to Resegregate Little Rock, of All Places

A battle over local control in a city that was the face of integration shows the extent of the new segregation problem in the U.S.

by Adam Harris via The Atlantic on October 22, 2019

The Utter Inadequacy of America’s Efforts to Desegregate Schools

In 1966, a group of Boston-area parents and administrators created a busing program called METCO to help desegregate schools.

by Alana Semuels via The Atlantic on April 11, 2019

The Defiant Ones

As young girls, they fought the fierce battle to integrate America’s schools half a century ago.

by Amy Crawford via Smithsonian on June 1, 2018

'Segregation's Constant Gardeners': How White Women Kept Jim Crow Alive

Meet the good white mothers, PTA members, and newspaper columnists who were also committed white supremacists.

by Rebecca Stoner via Pacific Standard on April 12, 2018

The Data Proves That School Segregation Is Getting Worse

This is ultimately a disagreement over how we talk about school segregation.

by Alvin Chang via Vox on March 5, 2018

Will America's Schools Ever Be Desegregated?

Though there are practical obstacles to school integration, it's not an unreachable ideal.

by Will Stancil, Rachel Cohen via Pacific Standard on December 5, 2017

The Department of Justice Is Overseeing the Resegregation of American Schools

A major investigation reveals that white parents are leading a secession movement with dire consequences for black children.

by Emmanuel Felton via The Nation on September 6, 2017

Two young women holding up protest signs.

Demand for School Integration Leads to Massive 1964 Boycott — In New York City

The largest civil rights demonstration in U.S. history was not in Little Rock. Or Selma. Or Montgomery. It happened in New York City.

by Yasmeen Khan via WNYC on February 3, 2016

Modern Segregation

Policies of de jure racial segregation and a history of state-sponsored violence continue to have an impact on African Americans.

by Richard Rothstein via Economic Policy Institute on March 6, 2014

Opponents of school desegregation in Montgomery, Alabama.

How Much Had Schools Really Been Desegregated by 1964?

Ten years after 'Brown v. Board of Education', Martin Luther King Jr. condemned how little had changed in the nation's classrooms.

by Martin Luther King Jr. via The Atlantic on May 7, 1964

Carver Junior High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

How to Keep a School Open

Two Carvers and the fight for fair desegregation.

by Jeremy Lee Wolin via The Metropole on September 17, 2024

Freedom School students sitting in a circle on the ground.

60 Years Later, Freedom Schools Are Still Radical—and Necessary

The Freedom Schools curriculums developed in 1964 remain urgently needed, especially in our era of book bans and backlash.

by Jon Hale via Made By History on July 8, 2024

Black student looking up at a school bus full of white children.

The Boston ‘Busing Crisis’ Was Never About Busing

Five decades after the desegregation effort, a civil-rights scholar questions its framing.

by Jeanne Theoharis via The Emancipator on June 19, 2024

Children protesting before the Supreme Court with a sign that reads "We Love School Choice."

The Post-Brown Realignment and the Structure of Partitioned Publics

Public schools are crucial infrastructures of the reproduction of social inequality and the US carceral state.

by Ujju Aggarwal via Public Seminar on June 12, 2024

State troopers and deputies stand at the entrance to a University of Alabama building in Tuscaloosa on the day in 1963 that George Wallace, Governor of Alabama, said he would defy a Federal order making it mandatory to admit two African American students.

We Must Remember Tuscaloosa's 'Bloody Tuesday'

Black citizens fought for justice and were met with violence. They persevered.

by John M. Giggie via Made By History on June 7, 2024

‘Brown’ at 70

The rhetorically modest but functionally powerful ruling that ended segregation shouldn’t be misused to forestall other efforts at racial equality.

by Randall Kennedy via The American Prospect on May 17, 2024

Black students walking a gauntlet of white students to enter Clinton High School.

Why Did They Bomb Clinton High School?

It was the first Southern school to be integrated by court order, and the town reluctantly prepared to comply. Then an acolyte of Ezra Pound’s showed up.

by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on July 31, 2023

School buses.

Why Are Schools Still Segregated? The Broken Promise of Brown v. Board of Education

The Brown v. Board of Education ruling opened the floodgates for busing across the country, but what happened when the buses stopped rolling?

via Retro Report on June 22, 2023

A photograph of Dennis Lehane next to the cover of his book, Small Mercies.

The Other South

Coming to terms with Boston’s racist legacy in “Small Mercies."

by Steve Nathans-Kelly, Dennis Lehane via Chicago Review Of Books on May 11, 2023

An 18th-century building travels Feb. 10 from its location on the campus of William & Mary to Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area.

Schools for Black American Children Predated the Revolution

Efforts in early America to educate Black children offer us a template for addressing educational inequality today.

by Grant Stanton via Made By History on February 27, 2023

Constance Motley and Randolph Rankin attending City Hall budget hearing, February 25, 1965

The Legal Mind of Constance Baker Motley

The story of Motley's legal career prior to Brown v. Board, and her crucial participation in it.

by Tomiko Brown-Nagin via Black Perspectives on October 14, 2022

Group of seated Black soldiers listening to staff sergeant explain G.I. Bill of Rights

How a Hostile America Undermined Its Black World War II Veterans

Service members were attacked, discredited, and shortchanged on GI benefits—with lasting implications.

by Matt Delmont via Mother Jones on October 6, 2022

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