School integration in the United States

School integration in the United States is the process of ending race-based segregation, also known as desegregation, within American public and private schools. Racial segregation in schools existed throughout most of American history and remains a relevant issue in discussions about modern education. During the Civil Rights Movement school integration became a watershed event.

Some schools around America were integrated before the mid-20th century, the first ever school being Lowell High School in Massachusetts, which has accepted students of all races at its inception. The earliest known African American student, Caroline Van Vronker, attended the school in 1843. The integration of all American schools was a major catalyst for the civil rights action and racial violence that occurred in the United States during the latter half of the 20th century.

After the Civil War, the first legislation providing rights to African-Americans was passed. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, also known as the Reconstruction Amendments, which were passed between 1865 and 1870, abolished slavery, guaranteed citizenship and protection under the law, and prohibited racial discrimination in voting, respectively.

Despite these Reconstruction amendments, blatant discrimination took place through what would come to be known as Jim Crow laws. As a result of these laws, African-Americans were required to sit on different park benches, use different drinking fountains, and ride in different railroad cars than their white counterparts, among other segregated aspects of life. Though the Civil Rights Act of 1875 prohibited discrimination in public accommodations, in 1896 the Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case Plessy v. Ferguson that racially segregated public facilities such as schools, parks, and public transportation were legally permissible as long as they were equal in quality. This separate but equal doctrine legalized segregation in schools.

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