Segregated Schools

For many years in the U.S., white kids went to white-only schools and black kids went to black-only schools. Compared to the white schools, black schools had worse buildings, used older textbooks, and teachers didn't get paid as well.

In 1954, the Supreme Court decided a landmark case, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The court said it was illegal to separate students this way. Many white parents did not like the new law. To fight against it, they took their children out of schools where black children were allowed to attend.