In Depth
Wednesday , August 20 , 2014
Click on the photos to learn more about where they are today .
STEPPING
FORWARD
Looking back at a time when desegregation changed the landscape of a budding city
BY JOHN RUCH
The beginning of the end of racial segregation in Rockdale County schools came 49 years ago this month , in August 1965 . A new “ freedom of choice ” plan allowed Rockdale ’ s black students to attend the whites-only school system for the first time .
A group of students from the all-black J . P . Carr School chose to become pioneers , attending the all-white Rockdale County High and the Main Street elementary school .
Rockdale was behind the curve on segregation , finally being forced to change by the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 . The black school was grossly underfunded compared to the white system , and the mayor of Conyers at the time reportedly likened desegregation to drinking castor oil . The county ’ s plan came 11 years after the U . S . Supreme Court declared school segregation to be unconstitutional in Brown v . Board of Education , and four years after Atlanta Public Schools used the same “ freedom of choice ” tactic .
Read more graphic by Darrell Everidge / The News
( Top to bottom ) Left : Veronica Lester Flanigan , Aubury Webb , Jerome Levett , Ronnie ( Benton ) Peters . Right : Sylvia Hall Chapman , Marilyn Baker , Linda Baker , Willie Lamar
Gibson, Gloria Jean Smith