Black Teachers' Fight After Brown v. Board of Education

By 1964, a decade after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision, only 24 of 226 biracial school districts in Arkansas had desegregated. Most of these districts were in the northwest half of the state with relatively small African American populations. Desegregation proved bittersweet for black teachers as black schools were closed and black teachers lost their jobs. Not until the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act were school districts obliged to integrate faculty as well as students. In 1965, when Sullivan High School was closed in Morrilton, none of its black faculty had their contracts renewed. They filed suit with the help of Little Rock attorney John Walker and won their case in the appeals court. More suits followed in other districts as black teachers fought to preserve their jobs. I’m John Kirk of the UALR History Department and this has been an Arkansas moment.