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Are You a Seg Academy Alum, Too? Let’s Talk
By Ellen Ann Fentress . Pillow Academy, Class of 1974 A lot of us watched the national interest in a Jackson Free Press story last fall...
3 min read
2,781 views
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In the 1970s, court-ordered public school desegregation transformed the Deep South’s classrooms, stadiums, and teachers’ lounges into America’s most integrated spaces, at least for a while. The Supreme Court called for an end to the region’s nearly two decades of post-1954 Brown v. Board of Education stonewalling. Racial history shifted in one sweep. Black and white, children and educators, lives changed. Old patterns shattered. The transformation, wrapped in historic moral purpose, affected over 11 million children.
STORIES
Go Us!
Jackie Jones Clowney, Briarcrest Christian School, Class of 1985 Memphis, Tennessee Until reading The Academy Stories and having...
Academy Contributor
Aug 25, 20205 min read
556 views
White Churches Involved at Every Step
Ellen Ann Fentress, The Academy Stories Editor “It’s the Christian thing to do,” she declared. As a high school freshman, I was...
Academy Contributor
Aug 25, 20202 min read
1,173 views
As Sesame Street Started So Did Our Seg Academy
Debbie Hewitt Smith, Leland Academy, Class of 1974 Leland, Mississippi “How many of you are planning to go to the new academy?” It was...
Academy Contributor
Jun 29, 20209 min read
1,576 views
We Said the Sheriff’s Name. But What About Emmett Till’s ?
Courtney Clark, Strider Academy, Class of 1988 Tallahatchie County, Mississippi I was 24 years old in 1994 when the State of Mississippi...
Academy Contributor
Jun 22, 20205 min read
4,416 views
The Bubble That Never Was
Until recently, I would say I didn’t notice the outside world going on around me, including the full public life of my own beloved maternal
Academy Contributor
Apr 29, 20207 min read
1,376 views
Do Academy Stories Matter Now?
Ellen Ann Fentress The Academy Stories editor Does The Academy Stories matter now? Fair question, since coronavirus has infected all of...
Academy Contributor
Apr 12, 20207 min read
488 views
It’s Just Like the Good Old Days Again
My earliest memories were of parades that featured two homecoming queens, one black and one white, and the giant, integrated Yazoo City High
Academy Contributor
Apr 8, 202010 min read
2,900 views
White Woman's Tears, Junior High Edition
By Deborah Pope Kehoe, Council School Manhattan, Class of 1973 It would be one of the questions, I knew. When I entered the English grad...
Academy Contributor
Mar 7, 20205 min read
844 views
We Don't See What Is Right In Front of Us
By Mary Frances Richards. Indianola Academy, Class of 1978 In the 1960s and 1970s, the first law of life in the Mississippi Delta was the...
Academy Contributor
Jan 22, 20205 min read
910 views
The Nooses of Our Past
By Neely Tucker. Starkville Academy, Class of 1982 In late October of 2018, I came back home to Mississippi, where my people have lived...
Academy Contributor
Jan 22, 20205 min read
6,418 views
We All Knew What It Was
I spent only one year at a seg academy in Mississippi, but don’t think any other year of my K-12 education had a more profound influence on
Academy Contributor
Dec 14, 20197 min read
1,585 views
A "Better" Education
By Harriet Riley. Lamar High School, Class of 1977 The school felt temporary. Built like a warehouse with aluminum siding and a flat...
Academy Contributor
Dec 14, 20193 min read
780 views
As If My Class Had Been Lifted, Mostly Whole, From The Public System
By Nancy Crowell. Jackson Preparatory School, Class of 1973 Late in the summer of 1970, my parents broke the news to me that I was going...
Academy Contributor
Dec 14, 20198 min read
1,615 views
It's Up To Us To Own Our Ignorance
I went to Jackson Preparatory School, in Mississippi’s capital city, for three of the first four years it was open. My high school experienc
Academy Contributor
Dec 14, 20199 min read
1,980 views
I'm Resisting a Conversion Narrative
By Kelly Foster Lundquist. Manchester Academy 1989-1995 In the spring of 1989, six months before I entered Manchester Academy as a 7th...
Academy Contributor
Dec 14, 201910 min read
912 views
The Importance of Academy Stories
By Dave Tell Project Scholar Segregation academies pulled an estimated 750,000 white school children from public schools. This massive...
Academy Contributor
Oct 29, 20194 min read
1,019 views
The Academy
By Steve Yarbrough . Indianola Academy, Class of 1975 In the spring of 1966, when I was in third grade at Lockard Elementary, in...
Academy Contributor
Oct 29, 20194 min read
3,551 views
Seg Academy: My Memories
From the tenth grade forward, I attended and ultimately graduated from a white Citizens’ Council School; at one time, it was reportedly the
Academy Contributor
Oct 29, 20193 min read
2,313 views
Are You a Seg Academy Alum, Too? Let’s Talk
By Ellen Ann Fentress . Pillow Academy, Class of 1974 A lot of us watched the national interest in a Jackson Free Press story last fall...
Academy Contributor
Oct 29, 20193 min read
2,781 views
An Academy for White Children; Public Schools Shutdown
By Kristen Green . Prince Edward Academy (Farmville, Va.), Class of 1991 Attending a Virginia segregation academy from kindergarten...
Academy Contributor
Oct 29, 20193 min read
3,094 views
“She Told Us We Were Pioneers”
By Bridget Smith Pieschel Winston Academy (Louisville, Mississippi), Class of 1975 I assume that most white girls born in 1957 in...
Academy Contributor
Oct 29, 20197 min read
2,745 views
Waking Up at a Seg Academy
By Alan Huffman Council Manhattan (Jackson, Mississippi) Tenth grade in 1970-1971 She stood out in the crowded anteroom of Peoples...
Academy Contributor
Oct 29, 20198 min read
2,219 views
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