In Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education (1969) the Supreme Court ordered immediate desegregation of Southern public schools. Fifteen years after Brown v. Board of Education, integration had been slow and little progress was made; at that point almost 80% of schools in the eleven former Confederate states were still segregated. A year before Alexander, the Court had disavowed freedom of choice plans in Green v. County School Board of New Kent County.The plantiff in the case was a black mother of two named Beatrice Alexander, who charged that Holmes County, Mississippi had done virtually nothing to integrate its schools since 1954. In June 1969, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals requested that the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare submit desegregration plans for 33 Mississippi school districts to be implemented when the school year began in the fall. At the last minute, HEW and the Justice Department asked Judge William Cox for a delay until December 1 to have more time to prepare. This was the first time the government had backed a delay in desegregation. Justice Hugo Black thought this delay to be President Nixon's payback for Southern support in the '68 presidential election.
The Supreme Court issued a per curiam opinion which called on all school districts to immediately abolish dual school systems and no further delays were to be allowed. South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond condemned the ruling and ex-Alabama governor George Wallace said the new Burger Court was no better than the Warren Court, calling the justices "limousine hypocrites." The decision came as a surprise to Nixon, who had previously referred to those who demanded immediate integration as "extremists."In the end, Holmes County did not achieve racial integration. Shortly after the school district was desegregated, the white student population plummeted and Holmes County's public schools became near uniformly black while most of the white students moved to the private East Holmes Academy and Central Holmes Christian School.
>>18293404>In the end, Holmes County did not achieve racial integration. Shortly after the school district was desegregated, the white student population plummeted and Holmes County's public schools became near uniformly black while most of the white students moved to the private East Holmes Academy and Central Holmes Christian School.Government only exists with the consent of the governed.
>>18293404why were racists so afraid to go to school with a black person anyway? he's not gonna bite you or give you a deadly disease or something. sheesh.
>>18293402>Holmes County, Mississippi>in the 1890's blacks were disenfranchised by requiring literacy tests >800 independent black farmers owned 50% of the land in 1960>loans were provided by FDR era socialist programs >invited organizers of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to come to Mileston to help them take actiontl;dr Socialist agitators were paid to go into the one area in rural Mississippi where there were black landowners and illegally registered blacks to vote
>>18293402In the end Brown vs. Board of Education did really nothing and the South integrated only when Nixon offered them pork barrel goodies.
>>18293454Because forcing white people to go to school with browns is taking their rights away
>>18293541the government had some leverage eg. the Huntsville Arsenal which they threatened to move out of Alabama if it didn't integrate
>>18293454t. has never seen what a majority black public school is like
