First Neighborhoods, then Schools

First Neighborhoods, then Schools. March Route for Fair Housing. September 1963 , The increasing number of new African American families moving onto Dynamite Hill required the building of a new school. The city's segregation laws prevented their children from attending all-White Graymont Elementary, even though it was closer. So the Black children went to Tuggle Elementary more than a mile away. School board officials later built Wilkerson Elementary in 1961, the "separate but equal” public school for Black children in the Smithfield area. The Wilkerson school site is where Samuel Matthews' house was bombed., "Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education.” , President John F. Kennedy, Black Birmingham's legal push to move into White-zoned neighborhoods eventually turned into a challenge of its segregated school system. In August 1963, a federal judge approved Birmingham school board plans to begin desegregating city schools after local barber James Armstrong sued the board on behalf of his children. The younger Armstrong children, James and Dwight, were among the first five African American students to attend previously all-White schools throughout Birmingham in 1963. National and local media cameras followed as they were led by their father and Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth to finally integrate Graymont Elementary. Whites paraded against integration., Lesson H18: Discuss how important it is in American Society for all children to have access to a good education.