History of Lauderdale County School District | Page 259

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Circuit Judge of the Seventh Circuit, sitting by designation.
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A. Clarkdale School: Pre-desegregation.

Under the 1953 reorganization, Lauderdale County was divided into two school districts, the Meridian Municipal Separate School
District, encompassing the City of Meridian and the surrounding area, and Lauderdale, encompassing the remainder of Lauderdale County. The
pre-reorganization Clarkdale Line Consolidated School District, which had included territory in both Lauderdale and Clarke counties, was
abolished and its territory placed under control of Lauderdale. The unincorporated area of Meehan, located in Lauderdale County along the
border of Clarke County, was also brought under Lauderdale's control.
The Clarkdale school,2 a de jure white school during segregation, straddles the border between Lauderdale County and Clarke County.
For a number of years, Enterprise and Lauderdale entered into one-year agreements regarding the ownership and operation of Clarkdale. On
February 13, 1962, Lauderdale and Enterprise entered into a twenty-five-year agreement (the "Clarkdale agreement") providing that white
students from northeastern Clarke County would attend the Clarkdale school and that approximately 100 students in the Meehan area in
Lauderdale would attend the all-white Enterprise school in the western part of the Enterprise district.3
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The parties sometimes refer to a school as an "attendance center," e.g., "the Clarkdale Attendance Center."

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The Clarkdale agreement provided, among other things, that Lauderdale would operate the Clarkdale school; that Enterprise would
take over the operation of the school if Enterprise acquired a 51% or greater ownership of the property of the school; that before any principals or
teachers were hired at Clarkdale, Lauderdale would submit their names to Enterprise 30 days before hiring them;
(continued...)
Before desegregation, Lauderdale had one black school, Middleton, which served the entire district. It had four white schools:
Northwest (now West), Northeast, Southeast, and Clarkdale.
B. Stonewall: Pre-desegregation.
Under Mississippi's 1953 reorganization plan, Clarke County was r eorganized into two districts: the Clarke County Consolidated
School District (later Enterprise) and Quitman. Enterprise comprised the northern part of the county, including an area called "Northeast Clarke
County," the town of Enterprise, the town of Stonewall, and the area surrounding Stonewall.4 Quitman comprised
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(...continued) that Enterprise could object to the hiring of any principals or teachers at Clarkdale; that if Lauderdale refused to
consider any such objections, the matter would be submitted to binding arbitration; that the Clarkdale school would be jointly owned by the
Lauderdale County Board of Education and the Board of Trustees of the Clarke County Consolidated School District (later the Enterprise school
district); that the proportion of ownership would be based upon the respective amounts of money contributed to the school by citizens in the
respective counties, the amount contributed by Lauderdale and the Clarke County Consolidated School District, and the amount of state funds
allocated to either county district based upon attendance at Clarkdale; that the Clarkdale school should be a "white attendance center" for grades
one through twelve; that all "eligible school children" in Northeast Clarke County would be assigned by the Clarke County Consolidated School
District to attend Clarkdale; that all "eligible school children" in the Meehan area of Lauderdale County would attend the Enterprise attendance
center in the Clarke County Consolidated School District; that each school district would pay for transportation of its students attending
Clarkdale; that "[a]ll state funds of every description, except transportation funds, shall follow the child, and shall accrue to and be paid directly
by the state to the district in which the child actually attends school, and for this purpose the Clarkdale Attendance Center shall be considered to
be in the Lauderdale County School District so long as it shall operate the same"; that the total cost of the school would be divided between the
districts on the basis of the average daily attendance of students; that the contract would be effective upon approval by the necessary parties and
would run for a period of 25 years; and that breach of one part of the agreement would not affect the binding effect of the agreement.
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Stonewall and the surrounding area are referred to as the "Stonewall area."
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the southern part of the county, including the town of Quitman. In addition to the two school districts, there was the Clarke County
Board of Education, which had limited supervisory authority over the transportation of Enterprise and Quitman students and the authority to hear
transfer appeals.
Enterprise had a white elementary school, a white high school, a black elementary school, and a black high school.5
Quitman had two black elementary schools, one black high school, one white high school, one white lower elementary school, one
white upper elementary school, and the Stonewall School. In 1962, Enterprise announced that it would convert the Stonewall school, an all-white
school, from grades 1-12 to grades 1-6. White parents in Stonewall petitioned to have the Stonewall area detached from Enterprise and annexed
to Quitman.
The Quitman district passed a resolution to annex the Stonewall area. The Clarke County Board of Education tabled the Enterprise
school district's plan to convert the Stonewall school from grades 1-12 to 1-6 and adopted a resolution detaching the Stonewall territory from
Enterprise and annexing it to Quitman.