What So What? Now What?

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The boy cotting students wanted assurances that black teachers, principals and school workers would not lose their jobs or be moted. They also wanted equal access to extra curricular activities. The school board made an announcement that they were open to developing alternative de segregation plans. After months of ciation and planning and a public vote, the black schools were kept open. That fall, all three schools in the county enrolled black students and white students.

15 years after the Supreme Court ruled that school segregation was unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education, many schools across the South were still segregated. Some school districts actively blocked desegregation. North Carolina passed legislation authorizing tuition grants to white private schools, sometimes called "segregation academies." Members of the KKK held rallies in North Carolina, describing desegregation as "anti-Christian" and "communistic." When the Federal government pressured school boards to comply or lose their funding, many responded by shuttering Black schools and assigning Black students to formerly all-white schools. It was called "one-way desegregation."

In a very rural part of North Carolina, Black students and their families decided to fight back.

We speak with Dr. Dudley E. Flood about his work desegregating every school in North Carolina.

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