The children of the South

the long version

Following the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, federal judge Robert Taylor ordered Clinton High School to desegregate with "all deliberate speed" in the fall of 1956. That same year, when the new school year began, 12 African-American children went to Clinton High School, setting in motion events that nobody could have predicted. Though the response to this integration was initially positive, it all changed when white supremacists started showing up in town, and two years later Clinton High School was blown up. Margaret Anderson was a teacher at the high school, and this is an account of the impact of the court's decision on those children--both black and white--psychologically, socially, and educationally. Throughout she lets the children speak for themselves; and their stories are unforgettable.