Students in front of Mansfield school bus
Item
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Title
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Students in front of Mansfield school bus
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Description
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Five African American students who planned to enroll in Mansfield High School stand in front of a Mansfield Independent School District bus. Students include Gracie Smith, Hattie Neal, Floyd Moody, John Hicks, and Charles Moody. The segregated school system in 1956 required African American students in Mansfield to attend I.M. Terrell High School in Fort Worth. Students would catch the Trailways bus from Mansfield to downtown Fort Worth and then walk about twenty blocks to the high school. The system made it difficult for students to participate in extracurricular activities and left students arriving home late in the evening. Inadequate bussing for students was one of many deficiencies found in the “separate but equal” clause for school districts. The Mansfield school board denied multiple improvement requests by the African American community, prompting the NAACP to petition the courts to force integration at the high school.
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Subject
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Five African American students planned to enroll at Mansfield High School.
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Source
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Courtesy, Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection, Special Collections, The University of Texas at Arlington Library, Arlington, Texas
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Date
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1956-08-31
