With the words "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal," the Supreme Court reversed legalized segregation in the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. Explore this collection of films, articles and digital features chronicling the path to the Court’s ruling—and the decades of struggle to fulfill its promise.
The Busing Battleground viscerally captures the class tensions and racial violence that ensued when Black and white students in Boston were bused for the first time between neighborhoods to comply with a federal desegregation order.
Explore what happened when the small Mississippi town of Leland integrated its public schools in 1970. Told through the remembrances of students, teachers and parents, the film shows how the town – and America – were transformed.
In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a bus for arguing with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind.
Twenty years after the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, most schools across the country hadn’t integrated. Then the courts stepped in, again.
National director of Education Innovation and Research for the NAACP Dr. Ivory Toldson and executive director of the Education and Civil Rights Initiative Dr. Adrienne Dixson speak with professor of education leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University, Sonya Douglass about the state of educational equity in America nearly seventy years after Brown vs Board of Education.
In 1961, identical twin sisters Sheila Malone-Conway and Sharon Malone were part of a group of students in Memphis, Tennessee, who integrated previously all-white schools. Known as the “Memphis 13,” these African American students were all enrolled as first graders. From Nashville, Tennessee, Sheila Malone-Conway and Sharon Malone talked about their experience.
On June 18, 1963, Boston Celtics star and Civil Rights activist Bill Russell addressed the thousands of students who gathered to protest educational inequality and segregation.
Judy Stoia first met Patricia Kelly when Pat knocked on her door and asked if she was interested in selling her home. It was 1976, and many whites were fleeing Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood because of school desegregation. Now, nearly 50 years later, they remember that tumultuous time…
Most histories about the integration of Boston’s schools in the 1970s focus on the tension between the city’s Black and white residents—but there’s another narrative that goes beyond black and white. This is the little-known story of how Latino and Asian activists took on the education system, and won.
Before Brown v. Board of Education, there was Briggs v. Elliot—the case that launched Thurgood Marshall’s fight to end segregation in America’s schools.
In this recording, former Boston student Sheila Wise Rowe speaks to her longtime friend Bill Mooney-McCoy about her memories of the transition from segregated to integrated public schools. Sheila recounts her involvement with the parent-led integration program Operation Exodus, which predated busing, and the consequences of educational inequity in society.
In this recording, friends Janise Wriddle and Sylester J. Miles recount their school experiences. Sylester, who was bused to school in his native Evanston, IL, remembers a diverse school environment, the nervousness he felt entering a white school, and the first grade teacher that helped boost his confidence. Janise discusses her realization of class differences in her school district when she made friends with wealthier students during high school.
In this recording, Sheri Neely interviews her friend Dr. Gina Tillis. Dr. Tillis recalls growing up in diverse California schools, and the whiteness that prevailed in both the curriculum and staff. Gina shares the pressure she felt to reshape herself and her background in order to conform to the expectations of an educated person. She describes the consequences of this conformity to her own understanding of her culture and heritage.
In this recording, Andrew Jordan interviews his father Howard “Louis” Jordan about his time as a white child in southern Georgia during Jim Crow. Louis remembers the transition to integrated schools in the 8th grade, and the ostracization of the one Black student in his rural high school class. He also tells about the unrest that marked his childhood, and how racial tensions were disrupted through the integration of sports and other activities.
In this recording, Jacquelyn Howard interviews her friend and Bible study partner LueRachelle Brim-Atkins on her childhood in a deeply segregated town in Texas. LueRachelle remembers the “flare ups” that reminded her of her segregated reality. LueRachelle talks about her career in training, development, and consulting, and her efforts to promote racial equality and integration at the University of Washington in the 1970s; part of a lifelong fight against racism.
In this recording, Destiny McLurkin interviews her mother Diane Hayes Powers, who grew up in Seattle during the city’s desegregation of its schools. Diane recalls the efficiency with which Seattle enforced integration after Brown v. Board of Education was decided, and the resistance by white parents to the initial busing plan. Diane also describes the community education efforts - including “freedom schools” - that were organized in response to racial educational inequality.
Learn why it took decades to integrate public schools even after the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision and how local communities and school boards delayed and obstructed compliance with court integration orders. Find Classroom Resource at PBS LearningMedia
Discover how Black parents in Boston, faced with White resistance to school integration after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, undertook a series of grassroots organizing efforts to advocate for their children’s fair and equal education. Find Classroom Resource at PBS LearningMedia
Examine a series of images and a video related to one U.S. city’s school integration history in order to determine where this event occurred and to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the extent to which school integration efforts were similar across the nation. Find Classroom Resource at PBS LearningMedia
In this interactive timeline, students explore the roles that everyday citizens, political leaders, and the courts have played in the struggle to integrate public schools throughout the United States. Find Classroom Resource at PBS LearningMedia
