Segregation In Arkansas Schools

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On May 21, Sheridan became the first school district in the South to announce its intention to integrate. The district’s plan to integrate in the fall semester quickly came to a halt. Within twenty-four hours, one hundred Sheridan residents met at the school and demanded that the board either change its decision or be replaced. The board quickly postponed integration pending further study. This taught white supremacist that desegregation would fail if they could get together groups to actively protest. Meanwhile, the Franklin County town of Charleston managed to refrain from a public announcement. On August 23, eleven blacks attended Charleston High School and became the first African-American students in the South to attend public school with whites. There was no incidents but the news only reached the public in mid-September, after integration had occurred in Fayetteville.(Deaf) Fayetteville Public High School was the first Arkansas High School to publicly announce it would be integrated. On May 22, within a week following Brown vs Board of Education, Fayetteville announced its intention to desegregate, and, three months later, white and black students were attending the same local high school together.(Deaf) The decision to integrate saved the district five-thousand dollars a year, funds that were normally spent on bussing, board and tuition at distant high schools for its black students. Fayetteville and Charleston were both facing financial situations and made their decision based on these facts and not their moral desire to integrate.(Johnson124) Although many black students were subjected to cases of verbal harassment and dismissive treatment from their teachers, they were also able to form positive relationships with... ... middle of paper ... ...t was not peaceful and civil. Work Cited Cochran, Robert B. The Arkansas Historical Quarterly. Volume XLVII. Fayetteville: The Arkansas Historical Association. 1989 “Deaf School Board Takes First Step Toward Racial Integration,”Arkansas Democrat, May 21, 1954, p. 1; “Town in Arkansas Sets Integration,”New York Times, May 22,1954, p. 1:15; “Integration Plan Rescinded by Sheridan School Board,”Arkansas Democrat, May 23, 1954, p. 1; “Charleston 1st to End Segregation,”Arkansas Democrat, September 13, 1954, p. 2; “Arkansas City Ends Curbs,”New York Times, September 15, 1954,p. 1:17; Dale Bumpers,The Best Lawyer in a One-Lawyer Town: A Memoir(New York:Random House, 2003), 139-140. Johnson, Ben F. Arkansas in Modern America: 1930-1999.Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press, 2000 "Little Rock Nine." YouTube. YouTube, 20 Dec. 2007. Web. 06 Dec. 2013.

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