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...
top of page
FEATURED POST
ABOUT
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
Academy Contributor
- Aug 25, 2020
- 5 min
Go Us!
Jackie Jones Clowney, Briarcrest Christian School, Class of 1985 Memphis, Tennessee Until reading The Academy Stories and having...
506 views
Academy Contributor
- Aug 25, 2020
- 2 min
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...
1,037 views
Academy Contributor
- Jun 29, 2020
- 9 min
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...
1,476 views
Academy Contributor
- Jun 22, 2020
- 5 min
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...
4,075 views
Academy Contributor
- Apr 29, 2020
- 7 min
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
1,238 views
Academy Contributor
- Apr 12, 2020
- 7 min
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...
459 views
Academy Contributor
- Apr 8, 2020
- 10 min
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
2,785 views
Academy Contributor
- Mar 7, 2020
- 5 min
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...
816 views
Academy Contributor
- Jan 22, 2020
- 5 min
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...
879 views
Academy Contributor
- Jan 22, 2020
- 5 min
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...
6,282 views
Academy Contributor
- Dec 14, 2019
- 7 min
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
1,503 views
Academy Contributor
- Dec 14, 2019
- 3 min
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...
716 views
Academy Contributor
- Dec 14, 2019
- 8 min
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...
1,503 views
Academy Contributor
- Dec 14, 2019
- 9 min
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
1,890 views
Academy Contributor
- Dec 14, 2019
- 10 min
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...
888 views
Academy Contributor
- Oct 29, 2019
- 4 min
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...
1,007 views
Academy Contributor
- Oct 29, 2019
- 4 min
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...
3,516 views
Academy Contributor
- Oct 29, 2019
- 3 min
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
2,283 views
Academy Contributor
- Oct 29, 2019
- 3 min
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...
2,726 views
Academy Contributor
- Oct 29, 2019
- 3 min
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...
2,948 views
Academy Contributor
- Oct 29, 2019
- 7 min
“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...
2,690 views
Academy Contributor
- Oct 29, 2019
- 8 min
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...
2,149 views
Contact
bottom of page