Desegregation Before Little Rock Central

May 2014 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision. Two school districts in Arkansas were among the first to desegregate. Charleston, which had previously bused its African American students 20 miles to Fort Smith, was the first school district in the former confederate states to admit black students into previously segregated schools. Fayetteville followed, admitting black students previously bussed to segregated schools at Fort Smith and Hot Springs, distances of 60 and 150 miles respectively, at a cost of $5,000 a year. As superintendent of schools Wayne White bluntly told reporters, “segregation was a luxury we could no longer afford.” Other schools districts were more tentative in moving forward. By 1963, only thirteen out of 226 biracial school districts in Arkansas had begun to implement school desegregation plans. I’m John Kirk, of the UALR History Department, and this has been an Arkansas Moment.