Miami students, teachers, principals remember Brown v. Board 60 years later
Posted on Saturday, 05.17.14
By David Smiley
... In 1953, M. Athalie Range Garys mother, who would go on to become Miamis first black city commissioner filled the all-white school board auditorium with black parents to protest conditions at the old Liberty City Elementary, where she said there were just 13 toilets for 1,200 students and no lunchroom ...
Gary Range said his family had just purchased a home in what was then still a largely white neighborhood surrounding the school. But the district, which often bused black students to faraway segregated schools, wanted to do the same with 7-year-old Gary.
My mother told them no. I ended up having to go down to the school board to take an exam, and I passed up to the third grade, he said.
But in a matter of weeks every single white family had withdrawn their children from the school, save one student, forcing the school board to transfer in hundreds of black children and an all-black staff. Five years later, there were only 32 integrated schools serving 2,500 black students ...
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/05/17/4123063/miami-students-teachers-principals.html