Segregationist General Assembley of 1959

The Arkansas General Assemblies of 1957, 1958 and 1959 passed a whole raft of pro-segregation legislation, much of it to do with school policy. Act 236 of the 1959 General Assembly reinforced the state’s position that no student should have to attend a desegregated school. It allowed the parents of a student to directly petition the State Board of Education for a grant to cover the cost of sending their child to a segregated school in another school district or to a private school. The parents’ only burden of proof was to sign an affidavit stating that attending a segregated school would be better for their child than attending an integrated school. Essentially, this allowed parents to escape school desegregation through transferring into a segregated district. The courts ruled this unconstitutional.