School Desegregation History and Greenville County (Central: high school, live, rated)

[greenvillebuckeye]

So the US History class I teach just wrapped up our discussion of school desegregation in the decades following world war 2 and we talked obviously being in the south about GCS's own history with breaking down the race barrier in it's schools. I showed them what I think is a good website with a lot of good info about schools like Beck, Bryson, Sterling, etc... and some of the other GC schools that no longer exist (i.e. parker, paris, etc...) and was wondering about something I read and heard from one of them recently.

I read in an article about the history of Beck High I think it was that when the district decided to desegregate they went with an 80:20 ratio since that was apparently the demographic of the county back in the early 70s and I'm curious as to whether or not that was truly achieved and my second question is one of my students mentioned how her father took part in the GCS version of busing back in the 70s when he lived in TR and was bussed to Southside High School. Anyone on here who has been around here long enough remember any of this? Confirm it?

we spent at length talking about the Little Rock 9 and the integration of Central High back in '57 and the amount of raw emotion that was displayed during that time and in that place and wondered if Greenville County experienced anything similar when it integrated in the early 70s.

I will say coming from the midwest that the GCS are some of the more racially integrated schools I've ever seen.


p.s. the more history in your replies the better :-)