Students in front of Mansfield school bus

Dublin Core

Title

Students in front of Mansfield school bus

Subject

Five African American students planned to enroll at Mansfield High School.

Description

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.

Source

Courtesy, Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection, Special Collections, The University of Texas at Arlington Library, Arlington, Texas

Publisher

[no text]

Date

1956-08-31

Files

10009293.jpg

Citation

“Students in front of Mansfield school bus,” The Crisis at Mansfield, accessed March 28, 2024, https://mansfieldcrisis.omeka.net/items/show/74.