Home / Full timeline / Mississippi Blacks attend integrated schools under the watch of federal marshals. No violence took place. Many whites protest peacefully.
Mississippi Blacks attend integrated schools under the watch of federal marshals. No violence took place. Many whites protest peacefully.
1970 (Jan 5 - 7)
Black children enrolled in formerly all-white public schools in three Mississippi districts under the watch of federal marshals. The officers were sent to prevent violence and look for signs of non-compliance as the government moved to implement the November 6, 1969, decision of the U.S. fifth circuit Court of Appeal that ordered thirty Mississippi school districts to desegregate. Three of those districts reopened classes for the second semester on January 5, 1970. The others followed between January 7 and 12. The desegregation did not meet with violence, but many white parents picketed the newly desegregated schools while others boycotted the institutions. In Woodville, only 2 white children went to their school where 1,400 Black pupils had registered. But in Yazoo City, white business leaders had asked parents to accept the arrangements, and nearly 1,500 white students attended the desegregated schools. Four thousand whites and 1,000 Blacks in Petal went to classes together for the first time despite a peaceful sit-in by 300 white parents at an elementary school. The whites were protesting a desegregation plan that assigned their children to classrooms as far as thirteen miles away.
References:
- • Hornsby, Alton. Chronology of African-American History: Significant Events and People from 1619 to the Present. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.