Just Trying to Have School

The Struggle for Desegregation in Mississippi

Natalie G. Adams, James H. Adams

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781496819536
  9781496819536
• eBook ISBN:
  9781496819550
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Storia nordamericana

After the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling, no state fought longer or harder to preserve segregated schools than Mississippi. This massive resistance came to a crashing halt in October 1969 when the Supreme Court ruled in Alexander v. Holmes Board of Education that "the obligation of every school district is to terminate dual school systems at once and to operate now and hereafter only unitary schools." Thirty of the thirty-three Mississippi districts named in the case were ordered to open as desegregated schools after Christmas break. With little guidance from state officials and no formal training or experience in effective school desegregation processes, ordinary people were thrown into extraordinary circumstances. However, their stories have been largely ignored in desegregation literature. Based on meticulous archival research and oral history interviews with over one hundred parents, teachers, students, principals, superintendents, community leaders, and school board members, Natalie G. Adams and James H. Adams explore the arduous and complex task of implementing school desegregation. How were bus routes determined? Who lost their position as principal? Who was assigned to what classes? Without losing sight of the important macro forces in precipitating social change, the authors shift attention to how the daily work of "just trying to have school" helped shape the contours of school desegregation in communities still living with the decisions made fifty years ago.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The Daily Work of Doing Brown
• Chapter 1: With No Deliberate Speed: The Road from Brown to Alexander
• Chapter 2: “A Cruel and Intolerable Burden”: Black Mississippians and Freedom of Choice
• Chapter 3: Big Bulls in the Local Herd: Superintendents Enforcing the Law of the Land
• Chapter 4: Weathering the Storm: Principals and Local Implementation
• Chapter 5: Love, Hope, and Fear: Teachers Guiding Desegregation
• Chapter 6: “We All Came Together on the Football Field,” But …: The Role of Sports in Desegregation
• Chapter 7: “We Never Had a Prom”: Social Integration and the Extracurricular
• Chapter 8: “Hell No, We Won’t Go”: Protest and Resistance to School Desegregation
• Chapter 9: Resistance through Exodus: Private Schools as a Countermovement
• Chapter 10: Unfinished Business: Lessons Learned through School Desegregation
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index