Pictured here is an annotated map of busing routes for George W. Watkins School, which was used as a

Pictured here is an annotated map of busing routes for George W. Watkins School, which was used as an exhibit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Richmond Division Case Green v. New Kent County. The decision of the United States Supreme Court to desegregate schools in the 1954 landmark case Brown v. Board of Education was just the beginning of the desegregation fight. In order to meet the provisions outlined by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education, while also avoiding integrating white and black school populations, many schools implemented “freedom of choice” plans. These plans did not explicitly prevent black students from attending a white school, or vice versa, but it put the responsibility of integration on the student and their family. “freedom of choice” plans placed institutional hurdles and reinforced social stigma against integrating black and white schools, which effectively halted desegregation efforts in the South.

In 1965, parents in New Kent County, Virginia, complained that the school district was deliberately maintaining a segregated school system after Brown v. Board of Education. They brought their case to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Richmond Division where the court upheld New Kent Court’s “freedom of choice” plan. The case was then brought to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which affirmed the lower court’s decision (though it returned the case to the lower court for a more specific plan to desegregate teachers).

The case made it to the Supreme Court in 1968, which reversed the lower court rulings. The Supreme Court stated that the New Kent district was deliberately maintaining a segregated system and that “freedom of choice” was not sufficient to bring about desegregation. Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., writing for a unanimous court, declared: “It is incumbent upon the school board to establish that its proposed plan promises meaningful and immediate progress toward disestablishing state-imposed segregation.”

Educators and parents can review documents and create activities for students by visiting DocsTeach, which features digitized records from all three cases, as well as contextual information to help students learn more about this topic: https://www.docsteach.org/documents?filter_searchterm=Green+County+School+Board+New+Kent+County&searchType=all&filterEras=&filterDocTypes=&sortby=date&filter_order=&filter_order_Dir=&rt=cthCC3zZbaWv&reset=1

You can also learn more by visiting our online catalog (catalog.archives.gov) and reviewing digitized documents from each case.