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The Internal Revenue Service stops granting tax-exempt privileges to segregated private schools in Mississippi unless the school could show it was enrolling Blacks.
1970 (Jan 13)
A three-judge federal district court in Washington, D.C., ordered the Internal Revenue Service to stop granting tax-exempt privileges to segregated private schools in Mississippi. The order did not affect the all-white private schools that had already been granted tax-exemptions. But the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was to stop granting tax-exempt status to schools with pending applications, or applications yet to be filed, unless the school could show it was enrolling Blacks. The newly chartered, all-white private academies were being funded by white parents to avoid complying with the school desegregation taking place in Mississippi's public schools. Mississippi Governor John Bell Williams asked the state legislature to grant financial assistance, in the form of state tax deductions, to those who donated money to the all-white schools. He claimed his program would "strengthen the hands of Mississippians" in facing the government's desegregation orders.
References:
- • Hornsby, Alton. Chronology of African-American History: Significant Events and People from 1619 to the Present. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.