Pearsall Plan

The Pearsall Plan to Save Our Schools, known colloquially as the Pearsall Plan, was North Carolina’s 1956 attempt at a moderate approach to integrate their public schools after racial segregation of schools was ruled unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court ruling Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Many southern states were challenged by the Brown ruling as they faced opposition to integration from residents.

North Carolina decided to highlight moderation, acknowledging that school integration was inevitable, rather than promoting active resistance like Alabama, Virginia, and other southern states. To find a creative solution, the North Carolina Advisory Committee on Education established the Pearsall Committee, named after its chairman, Thomas J. Pearsall, a landholder and notable public figure from Rocky Mount. The Pearsall Committee created the Pearsall Plan, which was intended to gradually integrate the North Carolina public school system. Some observers believe this scheme hindered the fight for equality for students across the state for years. Others believe that the resulting legislation helped the society adapt to the drastic social changes related to school integration.

Rather than having the North Carolina State Board of Education direct the pace of integration, the Pearsall Plan decentralized decisionmaking to the individual local school boards, which were dominated by whites, as most blacks were still disenfranchised, dating from a 1900 suffrage amendment, and were prevented from running for office or voting. The Pupil Assignment Act, which preceded the Pearsall Plan, provided for parents to receive a monetary grant if a child was placed into a mixed school against their wishes.

Under the Pearsall Plan, many school districts maintained segregated schools and denied the transfer applications of black students to white schools. It also provided that any child not accepted to a private school, and who was placed into a mixed public school, would not be forced to attend school. The community could evaluate schools and shut down any it considered “intolerable” by a vote. Thus, a predominantly white neighborhood could vote to shut down a mixed school if they felt it unfit for their children to share its classrooms.

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